3 ms·

> It's better to wait and go to a top-tier school rather than to start college super early at a medium-tier school. I can actually agree with you from experien

> It's better to wait and go to a top-tier school rather than to start college super early at a medium-tier school. I can actually agree with you from experience. I was homeschooled from age 13, but my parents didn’t know enough math to home school me in it, so my mother got me into a dual-enrollment program with a community college for math and CS. Overall I did ok, but calculus really threw me for a loop, and I ended up scraping through calc I & II with C’s. I often wonder if I had taken those classes when I was 20 rather than 15 if I would have done any better. My own son took the test (at his math teachers urging) to get into high school algebra while he was still in middle school. He didn’t pass the test, so he had to take plain-old middle-school algebra, and he was actually a little bummed out about it. I told him that when you’re 30, the only thing that really matters (if anything) is where you went to school, which depends a LOT on your test scores… not how old you were when you took the tests. He knew some of the kids who “made the cut”, and they struggled with high school algebra, got B’s and C’s, and one actually dropped out of high school last year while my son is still a straight A student.

phkahler 7y ago
>> and they struggled with high school algebra, got B’s and C’s, and one actually dropped out of high school last year while my son is still a straight A student. I keep hearing this when the school wants to put kids on the advanced track. All it does is give them more work and risk lowering their GPA, which is far more important for admissions. One district allegedly give a 0.5 bump just for taking the bait to make up for that. It's all a game.
- javagram 7y ago
  That’s definitely not just an allegedly thing, my private high school gave a GPA bonus of 0.5 for honors classes and 1.0 for AP classes to avoid this issue. And I’m certain it wasn’t something unusual or hidden, many other schools must have done it also. Goodhart’s law and all that - if unadjusted GPA were the sole number to target, it would make way more sense to take the easiest classes possible and never challenge yourself.
pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
Does where you went to school really still matter when you are 30?
- saalweachter 7y ago
  It depends on where you went to school.
- lost953 7y ago
  Yes, but mostly because it informs the people you meet, and those are what end up really mattering.
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  Well, it may be that it goes like this: When you’re 30, where you’ve worked matters. Where you’ve worked depends (a lot) on where you went to school. Where you went to school depends (a lot) on what grades you got. What grades you got depends (somewhat) on how old you were when you took the tests.
  - pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
    Does where you worked depend that much on where you went to school, though? Sorry if I am not convinced. In my country most schools are considered somewhat equal. Maybe in the US it is very different.
- hadlock 7y ago
  Oh yeah. Where you were/who you knew at 20/22 has huge, cascading effects on where you end up at 30, 35 years old. I won't get in to details here but a connection I made working at a coffee shop at 22 can be clearly traced to where I am now at 35. There is a lot of truth in "it's not what you know, it's who you know", particularly on the other side of 30.
  - pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
    Your story seems to indicate that it is not necessarily the school, though.

phkahler 7y ago

>> and they struggled with high school algebra, got B’s and C’s, and one actually dropped out of high school last year while my son is still a straight A student. I keep hearing this when the school wants to put kids on the advanced track. All it does is give them more work and risk lowering their GPA, which is far more important for admissions. One district allegedly give a 0.5 bump just for taking the bait to make up for that. It's all a game.

javagram 7y ago
That’s definitely not just an allegedly thing, my private high school gave a GPA bonus of 0.5 for honors classes and 1.0 for AP classes to avoid this issue. And I’m certain it wasn’t something unusual or hidden, many other schools must have done it also. Goodhart’s law and all that - if unadjusted GPA were the sole number to target, it would make way more sense to take the easiest classes possible and never challenge yourself.

pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago

Does where you went to school really still matter when you are 30?

saalweachter 7y ago
It depends on where you went to school.
lost953 7y ago
Yes, but mostly because it informs the people you meet, and those are what end up really mattering.
commandlinefan 7y ago
Well, it may be that it goes like this: When you’re 30, where you’ve worked matters. Where you’ve worked depends (a lot) on where you went to school. Where you went to school depends (a lot) on what grades you got. What grades you got depends (somewhat) on how old you were when you took the tests.
- pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
  Does where you worked depend that much on where you went to school, though? Sorry if I am not convinced. In my country most schools are considered somewhat equal. Maybe in the US it is very different.
hadlock 7y ago
Oh yeah. Where you were/who you knew at 20/22 has huge, cascading effects on where you end up at 30, 35 years old. I won't get in to details here but a connection I made working at a coffee shop at 22 can be clearly traced to where I am now at 35. There is a lot of truth in "it's not what you know, it's who you know", particularly on the other side of 30.
- pksdjfikkkkdsff 7y ago
  Your story seems to indicate that it is not necessarily the school, though.