<p>So… I’ve been at a band clinic for the past few days. Anyways, being in South Carolina, there are a lot of small towns with a lot of pretty below-average schools. And at this particular band clinic, there are a lot of them.</p>
<p>My school, on the other hand, is a private school that sends most of its students to really good colleges.</p>
<p>So my friend and I were talking today about the craziness of our school and how last year’s students were impossible to beat. (Ivy leagues and what-not) And then this girl pops in with a comment. I don’t actually know her. We’re not talking to her. She just happens to be sitting there. Anyways, she says “I have a 4.5 GPA.” And I just turn and said, “No one at my school has that. It’s really hard to make Honor Roll, let alone straight A’s.” So we go on about our conversation and then she pipes in “I got a 2300 the first time I took the SAT. I wanted to see how I’d do without any prep.” And I just kind of looked at her… she really didn’t seem to be smart, but I was like, hey! Maybe she is. If she really does have a 4.5, then it’s totally possible that she has a 2300 and I’m being a stupid judgmental person. So I said, “Why did you retake that?” And then she says, "I haven’t yet. I’m going to. Next time, I want to get a 2500."</p>
<p>…So I don’t even know why this girl opened her mouth in the first place, but she obviously had absolutely no clue as to what she was talking about.</p>
<p>I’m not going to mention the way she was dressed either.</p>
<p>But I don’t get it. Why do people have to compete with you always? My friend and I were just talking about how school basically sucks, so I don’t get why she even jumped in.</p>
The basic instinct to compete for resources and the attention/praise of a group, in addition to the development of an ego in humanity.</p>
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Sounds like you understand why people like to brag. The girl might have just been indignant at hearing a couple of kids from a private school going on and on about how much better it was.</p>
<p>As for a 4.5… It all depends on each school’s weighting system. At my school, a 4.5 would suggest an unweighted 3.5 in all on-level classes.</p>
<p>And I didn’t misunderstand her about the 2500. I said “You want to get a 2500?” And she said yes. And I said “Well that’s impossible.” And she looked very confused. So I told her the highest was a 2400. And she was like “Oh. Well that’s what I want to get.”</p>
<p>The thing was my friend and I weren’t bragging. We were complaining about how impossible it was to compete with the top students. The girl I was talking to was a freshman, and her dad expects her to have straight A’s, get high SATs, and get into really good colleges, but the thing is, she’s an average student (like myself). So we were just talking about how it was hard to compare average students to the top kids at our school.</p>
<p>But honestly. She wasn’t ■■■■■■■■. I guess you’d have to live here to understand. The valedictorians at the local high schools are considered extremely smart to get into a local college with a 60% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>The college that we were at (where a lot of students at this event were planning on applying to) had mid 50 SAT scores of 410-490 for Reading and 430-540 for Math.</p>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with the school, but the girl clearly was lying and was trying to compete with us and I do not know why. Our conversation was basically about how it’s impossible to compete with some people.</p>
<p>I don’t know, personally though, competition drives me to do better. I have a twin brother who is slightly superior to me in terms of academics. The fact that he is smarter than me drives me to try harder so that I can stay on the same level as him. Without this competition, I think my grades, test scores, etc would probably be a bit lower.</p>