<p>I’m an average teenager. TBH I’m probably going to end up at the class rank of about 60/700. Nothing special.</p>
<p>This might have already been mentioned but I believe that CC’s users are just more self selecting. This was previously stated but “what normal teenager would look and sign up for a site all about getting into college” (or something along those lines).</p>
<p>Obviously, CC’s average user is relatively “dumber” than the average high school student.</p>
<p>What does"normal teenager" even mean?</p>
<p>I don’t understand this talk of ‘not necessarily smarter… Just more driven’. That’s absolute hogwash. People on CC are most definitely smarter than the average teenager. </p>
<p>While a high school drop-out could certainly be above-average in the intelligence department, this would certainly be an exception to the rule. </p>
<p>More importantly, the classes people take on CC are well above the national average for teenagers. At my school (one of the best performing high schools in an extremely affluent county), only a handful of people take AP Calculus AB/BC, AP Chemistry, and AP Physics. The average student on CC has or will have taken at least one of these classes by the time they graduate high school. This is just an example, though. Surely this holds true for every Advanced Placement course. Furthermore, CCers normally ace these courses, while the average teenager would probably struggle with them. </p>
<p>An average teenager has a 1500 on their SAT, while most CCers score in the 2100+ range. SAT scores are shown to have a reasonably solid correlation with intelligence, so the data speaks for itself.</p>
<p>To top it off, hundreds (more than a thousand?) of people on CC are accepted to top 20 colleges every year. There are only 40,000 or so spots open for freshman admission. Taking into account that roughly four million seniors apply to college every year, the students in these top 20 colleges are in the top 1% of all college-bound high schoolers. Not to mention the numerous USAMO, Intel, and Siemens qualifiers littering these boards (and those with other national awards). </p>
<p>To conclude, of course CC users are smarter than the average teenager! Anything said otherwise is asinine.</p>
<p>^ That post just proved that teens on CC are not smarter than the average teenager.</p>
<p>Pretty much agree with the above (StudiousMaximus). It’s like the whole ‘you don’t have to go to college to be successful’ ****.</p>
<p>Smart = Intelligence
Intelligence = “The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills”</p>
<p>Acing SATs, APs and Honour courses shows that you are able to acquire and apply knowledge therefore intelligent therefore smart.</p>
<p>Even if we use the more academic definition, it would still apply.</p>
<p>Tofugirl, even if you disagree with my sentiments (though I don’t really see how), one post from one user on CC doesn’t ‘prove’ a mass generalization and comparison of two groups. I offered my viewpoint, and you should have offered yours. Instead, you made an unsubstantiated comment that made absolutely no sense. Try to actually contribute next time.</p>
<p>“one post from one user on CC doesn’t ‘prove’ a mass generalization and comparison of two groups.”</p>
<p>It applies to both of us. But there’s no sense in arguing. Let’s just let it die.</p>
<p>That comment doesn’t apply to both of us because I didn’t attempt to prove anything. I just offered a lot of evidence/common sense that supported my opinion. Nowhere did I say that I’d ‘proved’ something. </p>
<p>If I may, what did you mean by your original comment? That my reasoning was faulty and thus I, representing the entire population of CC users, was less smart than the average teenager? Do elaborate.</p>