College Admissions Cheating Racket

[*michaelsean*]

(03-14-2019, 02:44 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: Old war story time....

When I was in high school, my grades were pretty mediocre. My parents were fine if I brought home a C (in fact, they didn't care much if I brought home a D) and I never thought of myself as particularly intelligent. So, there was little internal or external pressure to achieve. And my grades reflected that. I do recall a couple of teachers over the years telling us that if we really wanted to go to college, we could. There were schools that would accept you even with mediocre grades and ways you could find to pay the tuition. I noted that and thought that I would like to do that someday, But I didn't really have plans or expectations.

Because of my interest groups, particularly music, I ended up hanging out with a lot of the 'smart' kids in school. I was dating this one girl and I remember the day when they posted the final grade point averages for seniors to decided who would be valedictorian, etc. She was really excited about this because she was like in the top ten. Then she suggested that we look up where I ended up. Reading far, far down the list, we eventually found me somewhere in the 'two-point-whatever' territory. She looked at me and said, "Gee, Mike. I thought you were smarter than that." (Pam wasn't much in the 'sensitivity' department). What she said struck me. For the first time, I began to wonder if maybe I could be smarter and if I could have gotten better grades.

But my die was cast by senior year. There a recession and you couldn't even buy a job, especially as a kid out of high school with no connections. So I enlisted with the thought of getting some money and some life experience. "Who knows", I thought, "maybe I'll like it and stay in."

In basic training, they pulled me and some of the other guys out one day and told us we had tested high on the ASVAB and, if we wanted to, we could apply to this West Point Prep School (basically a one year school the Army runs for people who could possibly go to West Point, but didn't have high enough grades, test scores, etc.). As an exhausted recruit in basic, the thought of doing something like that seemed very appealing. So I put my name in the hat. When I got to AIT, they got back to me and wanted me to take the ACT and SAT. I had taken the ACT in high school and got mediocre scores. So I went out and got some of those test prep books and began studying like a madman during CQ watch and what little free time I had. I got my results back and they were really great (something like a 28 and a 1520, respectively).  Once again, I was shocked. I began to think, "Maybe I'm not so dumb and maybe if I actually work, then I could get good grades."

I didn't get into the West Point Prep. I made the second cut (they cut 90% in the first cut), but ultimately failed on the last cut. But at that point, it didn't matter to me. I was determined that once I finished my three-year hitch, I was going to go to college and see what I could do.

There's probably a few lessons here that others could take away. In my case, the college tests were a good thing because I sort of did them in a way you are supposed to: study hard for them and review your results to see where you stand compared to where you want to be.

Another lesson: sometimes (maybe often) someone just needs some different input to think of themselves in a different way and become something better. In my experience, the difference between people's intellectual abilities isn't all that large. It certainly isn't as large as some people make it out to be (primarily due to our competitive society and peoples' insecurity). We live in a world where people are real quick to just "write people off" for any reason. Not enough raising people up, IMO.

If we could just fine the nice middle between your experience and all the people who think their children are gifted.  Graduating from Princeton at 16 or even 18 is gifted.  You're kid managed to put a square block through a square hole before the kid sitting next to him.