4 ms·

> Caltech requires good grades as criteria for admission. Caltech graduates have a disproportionately high percentage of Nobel prizes. Caltech requires 10-year

• WalterBright 5y ago
  First, high school starts with 14 year olds, not 10. Second, people don't suddenly learn how to write a competent essay at the last minute. Writing a good one is a combination of many skills learned over many years. BTW, I did not take any college prep courses prior to Caltech, and found myself way behind the other freshman who did. I found out many years later that the admissions committee had taken a chance on me, and they were very nearly wrong. I came that close to flunking out. If public schools dump their gifted tracks, inequality will only increase as the top schools will wind up drawing only from private schools.
  • mmarq 5y ago
    Admission essays are a literary genre of their own, like the weird language used by some state bureaucracies. Knowing how to write these essays is a splinter skill. Anyway, so you should not have been admitted but you succeeded anyway without being a gifted kid? It seems like you have proved my point.
• cassalian 5y ago
  8th graders are typically 12-13 years old, not 10 - 10 year olds are typically in the 6th and 7th grade.