| "His achievements and his father's behavior reflect the hallmarks of a smart kid who was packaged for years to go to Harvard, not a student who was running with his natural talents and pushing his parents along. The latter is what places like Harvard are looking for."
Uh, well first of all Caltech took the guy so I'd have to disagree that this kid is not brilliant or self-driven. Caltech cares about intellectual curiosity more than Harvard. It is more likely that the kid was born intellectually curious and driven and later Harvard came to embody intellectual achievement for the kid. So he ended up pushing toward that goal. Also, if the kid took a test prep class, does that cancel out the achievement or mean that he wasn't self-motivated or truly brilliant? If a college football player attends a summer camp to work on their 40 yard time for the NFL scouting combine and ends up running a 4.3, would you conclude that he was not a top-end athlete because he "paid" for it?
Another point is that a lot of kids have one parent that doesn't work so that they can take care of family things (cook dinner, take care of the house, drive kids places, etc.) I don't think it is that huge of a deal for one parent to not be working.
As for why he was not a Presidential Scholar, why do you think he even applied to this? I was pretty savvy about college in high school and never even heard about this. Neither did my friends who had plenty of other well-known awards (Intel, MOSP, etc.). |