> It is entirely unfair that the state of a person from age 15-18 leads to an opportunity gap that's this massive. I was pretty lazy at that age, and I know th

> It is entirely unfair that the state of a person from age 15-18 leads to an opportunity gap that's this massive. I was pretty lazy at that age, and I know that if I had applied myself a little bit more, I'd be way further ahead now (in fact, the way things ended up going in the 90's, I'd probably be comfortably retired by now if I'd been a bit more academically successful when I was a teenager). I'm not bitter or upset about it, though - I feel like I've gotten what I was willing to work for. I'm watching my own, much more disciplined and motivated, son grind away through his junior year of high school trying to keep his perfect GPA so that he can get into a top college and I can't help but worry that any attempt to make things "fair" would disadvantage not just students like him (potentially, anyway) but everybody: if there's an upper threshold of effort beyond which additional effort is ignored in the name of fairness, it becomes impossible to distinguish the really committed from the "just showing up".