<p>redpoint, you can’t fight the axe-grinders. They will hijack your thread for their own personal axe-grinding no matter how nicely you ask.</p>
<p>My close friend and colleague attended a CTCL school and it really did change his life. He went to Birmingham-Southern College. He was a guy from a family that never really encouraged school or learning, in an exurb outside Birmingham. He tells the story of comparable classmates who went to state schools, and the outcomes were mostly unhappy. He OTOH became a lifelong learner and continued his education with an MS in Engineering, an impressive accomplishment coming from a LAC. He is now a brilliant researcher. Of course he was talented to begin with, but BSC really nurtured that and gave him a chance to excel.</p>