I'm not so sure the college even matters. People who are successful work hard, have talent, and work well in a group, can take direction. None of that has anything to do with where you went to school.

And, yes, you can establish good business or job contacts if you go to Ivy League. Often top jobs. Who doesn't want that? Not to mention the Ivies have Nobel Prize winners as professors and really good teachers (if you thought that the Ivy League doesn't hire superb teachers you're WRONG) Oh, wait, yeah, those people who aren't good enough to compete against everyone and win to go to Ivy League.

I think an intelligent, motivated student who goes to, say, San Francisco State, is the equal of a student who goes to Stanford and coasts along for four years.

Yes, because they want diversity. They can't just take everyone from Elite. Otherwise the whole top 20 universities would be a circulation of students from only the top 20. That'd be screwed up.

I simply don't believe that's true. The selections were on merit alone. Each professor was able to have two or three grad students as research assistants and made his or her choices. With the approval of the dean, of course.

Fortunately, I went through International Baccalaureate and now is a Senior. 71% dropout rate AFTER a selective process of admitting students to the curriculum (you need to have taken honors in middle school with at least 3.7 GPA cumulative). So getting in is easy, but getting through is HARD. The program crams you with 5-7 hours of homework everyday for freakin' 2 years straight, junior and senior years, 2-4 hours freshman and sophmore years. The whole thing is hell. No one likes it, but the IB in our school sends like 20+ students to Ivy League each year along with dozens people to the Almost-Ivy schools. The rest who don't make it into a top dog can go to any state school with full scholarship.

This is how the IB program is at our high school. Don't know how IB works in other places.

So, yeah, too bad most high schools in the US are easy-as-hell and you can get by with straight A's being lazy. Any one of us left in IB can walk out of our high school, pick a random school anywhere but northeast and graduate top of the class. There are too many arrogant bastards in other high schools who think getting #1 means they're a super star, and don't realize that their high school is like 10 times easier than college.

Those people can suck once they go to their dream school. Like I give a damn, they deserve it for getting through easy.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...

<Hmmmm... i could either end up failing IB (and become a crackwhore) or, i could be a future high-rolling corporate fat-cat/neurosurgeon/investment banker/corporate lawyer/astronaut.

Its funny, because when i asked my father (who is a doctor) to help me with my first term IB biology homework, he said that it was the same as what he learnt in second year med... >

<1. an international educational program designed by a bunch of ambassadors looking to put their kids through hell and back...and the suckers bought it and now we're here to tell the tale... 2. Ibers: the unfortunate students of the IB...mostly intelligent young adults but overworked and burnt out by the age 16...each prepared to take over the world at their nearest convenience...sometimes used in a humerous or negative connotation, much like the term dork or freak >

<International Baccalaureate: An international high school diploma thingy (it kills your brain! dont do it!) If you can actually spell 'International Baccalaureate' you are probably doing the IB. >

<International Baccalaureate Program. An international academic program sponsored by Satan. It hooks in overachievers with the promise of college credit, then later explains that they probably won't get it. Most people in IB become bleached by their computer screens as a result of never going outside, find it normal to go without sleep for a week, and choose to study rather than eat. In the end they all look like zombies. >

<People with a future

IB a geek today. IB your boss tomorrow.>

This one is my FAVORITE:

<International Baccalaureate Program, a high school program for exceptionally gifted students, designed to transform once intelligent creative students into conformists of an international curriculum. This program is known for causing ridiculously high stress levels, mutual hatred and competition amongst it's students, repeated mental breakdowns, bloodshed, lack of a social life, and the mastery of @#$%*&!#ting your way through things.

IB students are typically extremely masochistic and rarely sleep. <<<<It is also known to have made students who once felt quite smart to feel quite stupid, thus greatly lowering their self-esteems.>>>>

Its kind of sad, I have met a couple of people in similar situations, who didn't have a clue about how to make it in the real world. Have you ever noticed that the third world kids, when they come here as exchange students, ALWAYS get into someting science related? No nonsense, they always go for the high percentage, well paying major. The Indians (the sub continent indians) are the most successful of all of these foreign exchange students.

Four years of english.

Four years of foreign language.

Four years of history.

Four years of math.

So NO, we do not have time to take political science or government studies or any of that crap you are talking about.

Vast majority of our students are science-oriented. A few opt out and take psychology their 4th year. Psychology is not considered a science in our school; they put it under social science along with history and economics.

So, yeah, nice job BSing your post based on something you DON'T know.

PS: Our valedictorian went to Duke University last year FULL SCHOLARSHIP. Runner-up, Harvard, full scholarship. Don't know where the 3rd place guy went, but we had 8 acceptances to Duke and 5 of them went. The other 3 went to University of Florida because the uni gave them like $10,000 free money to spend every year + full scholarship.

Two people went to UCF 'cause they got sucked into the uni's offer of $40,000 a year free-bee. Hell, they turn down Ivy League for THIS? Oh well it doesn't matter where you go for undergrad.

So send your kids to IB. Unless you think challenging them to their limits is not worth it. They'll have to work hard when they become doctors anyway.

I'm taking four years of biology. Two years of chemistry and one year of physics. ZERO political science, ZERO government studies, ZERO international studies (wait, does our school even offer these three types???)

I wasn't responding to that part. See the <highlighted> part I was responding to.

What, slack off in high school then say "ohh, doesn't matter what college you go to, so get mediocre grades and go to a state college. Screw the ivy league!"

Or, how about "do your best all through life, with your first step as getting into a good college?" What else am I supposed to do right now besides getting into a good college at my age? Be the president of Toyota at age 18? Hold a high-ranking office?

Tell me, WHAT THE HELL SHOULD I DO BESIDES AIMING FOR A GOOD COLLEGE? I'm only freakin' 18! What did you do when you were 18? Run your dad's company and make millions? Be a doctor already? I would want to hear some good stories. No mumbo-jumbo about becoming a movie star.

My parents are even worse at english than I am. I still write letters for them, read their damn contracts. I knew this was gonna happen when I came here so I went super-mode and crammed as much english as I can. I did EVERYTHING myself, because I couldn't rely on my parents! Think of being a 16 year old and your parents not being able to speak the language of your residing country, and making you taking charge of everything english-related.