For Those About to Fall

College Life
1

<p>If you’re a high school senior just accepted into an elite college and wondering what life will be like next year…get ready for a long, downward trajectory.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>You will have at least a 90% chance of finishing LOWER ACADEMICALLY at an elite college than you did in high school. By definition, you finished near the top of your high school class, and so did nearly everyone else who was accepted. Right now, you most likely think that you’re special and will be in the small percentage that gets straight A’s in college. But you won’t think that way in October of your freshman year. In fact, you’ll learn that everyone else thought the same way you did.</p></li>
<li><p>You have a 90% chance of enjoying LESS TRUE LEISURE at an elite college than you had in high school, particularly if you want to enjoy any academic “success”. You will certainly experience DIFFERENT forms of leisure. And you may try to compensate by engaging in more EXTREME forms of leisure (high-risk, illegal, etc. behavior). And you can try to RE-DEFINE leisure as, for example, doing laundry yourself that your mother used to do. But by definition, nearly everyone who gets into an elite college spends a disproportionately large amount of their time and energy on academics, and this only increases in college where the competition becomes so much greater.</p></li>
<li><p>You have a 90% chance of having LESS-COOL FRIENDS in an elite college, if that even seems humanly possible. By any objective definition, an elite college is going to be overwhelmingly stacked with the nerdiest of the nerdy. The reality is that coolness becomes meaningless after the first couple weeks and is replaced by a deeper desperation for real, nurturing, honest, reliable, family-like friendships.</p></li>
<li><p>You have a 90% chance of having LESS ROMANCE in college, despite the fact that you’re now at the legal age of consent and there will be few restrictions on access to the opposite sex. You may compensate for this by having MORE sex than you did in high school, but you’ll still have less romance. The reality is that the whole definition of romance changes.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>THE GOOD NEWS is that, if you apply yourself, you can probably achieve success in 1 area of your life: either academics, or friends, or romance, or something else. But it will be no more than one. And you may be lucky to even achieve one. And all the other areas will be guaranteed to meet with a heavy dosage of failure by virtually all definitions.</p>

<p>Welcome to the big ride downward…</p>

2

<p>If it counts for anything I have way more free time in college than I did in high school. Though I went from working 24hrs/week (which was the legal maximum for me at the time), to not working at all, so that may not be everyone’s experience.</p>

<p>And the nerdiest of nerdy are who I want my friends to be (and that’s not who they were in high school), so…</p>

3

<p>Where did these percentages come from?</p>

4

<p>If you finished in the top 10% of your high school class, and so did everyone else in your college class, assuming all other things are equal, you have a 90% chance of finishing lower in your college class.</p>

5

<p>Platt, 69% of statistics are made up on the spot.</p>

<p>I’d call you out on most of your claims but I haven’t attended an elite college, just a ‘pretty good’ one. If what you’re saying is generally true though then I’m quite glad I won’t attend one :)</p>

6

<p>

who cares?

either you’re being melodramatic on purpose and i’m too stupid to pick up on it (totally possible) or you’re miserable and intent on informing everyone they must be miserable too. now, i don’t go to an ivy league college, but my friends and family who do are normal, happy human beings…just nerdier than most people. seriously…“big ride downward?” lol chill out a bit.

same here :slight_smile: I wonder what college the op goes to? i would guess…uchicago, cornell, penn, or mit.</p>

7

<p>Haha, no comment.</p>

8

<p>Warning: 90% of this thread is untrue.</p>

9

<p>^ Beautiful response.</p>

10

<p>90 % of this thread might be untrue, but 60 % of the time it works every time!</p>

11

<p>^^
That makes perfect sense.</p>

12

<p>

…We salute you!</p>