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"Even if the standards have changed, I think it's pretty clear that the classes admitted now are academically stronger than those admitted in the past. There's a paradox for you."
mollie, I'm inclined to think that's more or less a change of the times. High school graduates (those that apply to college at least) are for the most part, getting smarter. Case in point - looking at the AIMEs from the 80's. They'd be incredibly easy by today's elite high school problem solving standards. Pre-90's high school students definitely don't compare to our generation since most curriculums back then were pure ****. Academic strength is a relative term - relative to students today.
"I worked at a tennis club in the summer and watched movies..."
Tell that to a rejectee who actually cared enough about science to go out of his/her way to do stuff with it in high school. Tell me Sklog, would you have been just as satisfied as you are now at another college?
I think this was what collegealum was saying....it hurts the evidently higher calibre/passionate folks the most.
"I approach college exactly like I approached high school and I'm excelling with minimal stress."
Dude...what classes do you take at MIT? Shouldn't MIT be...harder?
"...most interesting applications he had ever seen."
I don't doubt your application was pretty. Infact, if I wanted a school that'll take me on the basis of how pretty my application was irregardless of the actual effort I put in high school, I would've gone to Harvard.
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