<p>I applaud your honesty. You are all about money. Your education is merely a means for you to amass contacts and wealth. I would suggest you skip college all together and just continue with your money making efforts. I suspect you would not find most college courses worthwhile and would likely complain that they have no practical application in your quest to amass wealth. Do yourself a favor and don’t even bother with college.</p>
<p>Key qualities of a successful entrepreneur:
- hire people smarter than you
- manage your budget wisely</p>
<p>My advice: forget about the expensive front door to the Ivy League. Move to Boston after high school and attend Harvard Extension School part time. Focus on the Business concentration, which even gives you access to graduate-level business courses without having to finish a baccalaureate first. Save many thousands of dollars in tuition that you can instead invest in growing your business. Recruit the brightest Harvard College and MIT students you can find to work for your company. Profit.</p>
<p>You may never even finish the Harvard degree, but if you do you’ll get access to the Harvard alumni network at a much lower price than a Harvard College student does. </p>
<p>You are likely to eventually find that wealth accumulation is an empty vanity. There’s a reason that Gates and Buffett and many others devote their millions and billions to the public good. In time, you’ll discover that reason, but my experience has been that it is difficult to convince anyone of the deep rewards of service. They have to hear the call themselves.</p>
<p>So for now, my advice is to pilot the course you’re on. If you do it as I’ve advised above, you’ll have the essential ingredients of success: smart money management and bright employees. The rest will come in time.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is any EC in the world that would assure a person acceptance into an League school. See how your final stats look, cast a wide net, and see what happens. Remember that there are tons of great schools out there. Steve Jobs went to (non-Ivy) Reed for a while and he managed to do pretty well. Don’t hinge all of your dreams on getting into one particular school or group of schools.</p>
<p>@Toptier I have no idea why you think I am incredibly shallow, greedy, and self-interested… I don’t see how my post was a polemic at all. Additionally, Post #11 does not belong to me.</p>
<p>I’m sorry if I offended you. I am wired this way, I don’t change. </p>
<p>@Coriander23 - I never meant 99% and 1% in terms of wealth. There is a tier to everything in life. Doesn’t matter if its money, sports, politics, art, everything. The tier doesn’t change. However, YOU can change. You have the option to be the 99% at what you do, or be the 1% at what you do. Messi, Ronaldo, and countless others, they are the 1% at what they do. Maryam Mirzakhani and other great mathematicians, they are the 1%. </p>
<p>Everyone I have met have aspirations of become rich or becoming famous or a world class scientist. But what do they do? They are on Twitter 24/7 or texting someone in class when they should be paying attention. They will never get to the 1% at what they want to do if they keep doing that. Becoming the 1% takes diligence and hard work. </p>
<p>What is my 1%? Money. Simple as that. I am pursuing my dreams of becoming the 1%. </p>
<p>@TopTier - You say these colleges look at people that contribute to society? </p>
<p><a href=“Out of Harvard, and Into Finance - The New York Times”>Out of Harvard, and Into Finance - The New York Times;
<p>I’m pretty sure those 35.9% working in Wall Street moving money day in, day out is contributing to society. I am 100% they aren’t motivated by money. The only reason they go to Harvard and other Ivy’s IS to exploit the alumni, IS to exploit the name and degree. So what you are saying that the 39.5% that go to Wall Street lied on their essay that they AREN’T motivated by money and they work in finance because they want to help society? </p>
<p>fredinthecut - I think there are numerous issues within your post that are rubbing some of us the wrong way. But the fact that you spend 3.5 hrs each afternoon on your company, then just one hour on your academics and then you “relax for two hours” – the kids getting in to the highly selective schools are typically not spending 30% of their after-school time relaxing… especially if they have a 3.71 unweighted GPA… again, I think you need to rethink what colleges you are going to apply to – otherwise, as several others have hinted at, you are likely to to find yourself very disappointed.</p>
<p>I go to Babson and would definitely say that you should seriously consider the school. Besides the fact that there are a lot of kids with a similar story going here, the school loves to use all its resources to support entrepreneurs like yourself. </p>
<p>In terms of a network for investors, it’s still a private school with a strong network of very well-off alumni (especially internationally). I’ve got classmates who have taken time off to join start up’s in SF, won that Peter Thiel competition, sold businesses for $500k+, etc. </p>
<p>You mentioned possibly going to community college and then trying to transfer. I think this is one of those plans that looks great on paper but doesn’t work well in practice. </p>
<p>I know it’s a relatively old thread, but the OP is worse than any Ivy-obsessed people I ever saw in CC…
Also, saying that people go to Ivy league just because for prestige, exploitation, and their own greed is the worst insult I ever read in this forum…I know a professor who graduated Brown University and he’s such a nice person who’s deeply engaged in genomics and medicine. </p>
<p>OP, you are very obsessed with getting in top 1%, and you will NEVER,NEVER get a life. I hope you don’t turn out like greedy entrepreneurs like John Rockefeller, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris but it seems like you already are becoming one.</p>
<p>OP, I respect that you are willing to work hard and achieve more. Trust me, I see the same thing - people being content with the “average” life. Personally, I want to do something different, the same as you. Indeed, it takes hard work. I’ve worked my *** off to just to get where I am right now. I come home and do homework for hours on end. I help manage clubs. I even have a budding business in the works. </p>
<p>Here’s what I’m going to say. Enjoy high school. Enjoy not HAVING to stress about a business. Enjoy classes, and friends, and going out to Dairy Queen at 1am because YOU CAN. Make new friendships. Revive old ones. Watch a movie. Go to a play. Go to your school’s athletic games.</p>
<p>Being the 1% requires hard work. But that doesn’t mean you need to spend all your time obsessing over it. </p>
<p>:)</p>