Which type of people does better?

TheDad
Tue, 07 Dec 2004 12:01:48 +0000

No, the desperate moments I refer to are when you figure out that what’s worked for you in the past isn’t working any more.

Based on the way CC skews things, I can pretty much assume that most people here are applying to elite colleges: HYPSM + Top 40 Universities + Top 25 LAC’s. As the admissions officer at Harvard said, for the first time in your lives, 90 percent of you will not be in the top 10 percent of your class. Now, being young and suffused with a sense of immortality and invulnerability that leaks into everything, you might think that it’s everyone else who is going to be in that 90 percent.

A paper that you can knock off in an hour isn’t going to get by in college. This might explain the number of C’s and D’s handed back with the first assignment in some of the intro classes.

Then there’s the reading factor: there’s no way you can cram it into the last week or two days. And much of it won’t be more than briefly referenced in class but you will be expected to draw upon it extensively for answers on your tests. In fact, for many courses the reading is so heavy that most students have to do some sort of triage.

Finally, your margin for error is greatly reduced. There usually aren’t any bs grades for homework or class participation or extra credit to compensate for a blown test. And there tend to be fewer tests and papers: some classes are one mid-term, one paper, and one final…messing up on any one kills your grade.