<p>^He attends a very rigorous, large public. He trades off #1 or #2 of about 800 kids. All AP core. The usual CC “suspect.”</p>
<p>When I said he didn’t prep, I really meant for his standardized tests – PSAT, SAT, ACT, etc. He did prep a little for his SAT Subject tests. He does his homework every night and reviews for his tests. He doesn’t blow stuff off. He just isn’t a hard-core, anxious studier. He pays attention in class, does all his homework, and then reveiws just a little for every high school test, but not for very long. Compared to his siblings, who took the same courses at the same schools, he just doesn’t have to work very hard and gets pretty much straight 100s year after year.</p>
<p>Hhhmmm. I sure wish I were a fly on the wall there. Very, very hard work and a whole lot of it … can’t decide if that would be torture for him or not. I guess it wouldn’t be as long as he still had enough down-time to socialize and do other things.</p>
<p>I will definitely take your suggestion and ask him if he would mind a 3.0, 3.3, or even a 2.7. Since he’s so laid back, I don’t think he will. (That’s exactly how my college was long ago. All students were big fish from their small ponds in high school. They couldn’t all be at the top in college. I was generally very happy with my grades, no matter what they were – and they were often in one of those same 3 ranges. I know Mudd is naturally the same way.)</p>
<p>What WILL bother him, I’m sure, is if he has to study, study, study all the time, or even the vast majority of the time, for 4 years, and can’t have any balance in his life. He, nor I, believe in a life of work, work, work.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for your explanations, Suin. I want so much to know what it’s like there and what his life would be like there, in terms of work vs. play.</p>