In college something wonderful happens: for the first time of your life you can sit in a classroom where everyone made the decision to attend*. Nobody is forced

In college something wonderful happens: for the first time of your life you can sit in a classroom where everyone made the decision to attend*. Nobody is forced by law, or their legal guardians to be there. I think the major problem with pre-college schooling, in retrospective, is being locked up in an environment with disruptive individuals that care very little about learning and who aren't motivated one bit. I recall sometimes half of a lecture would be spent on managing these individuals, with everyone else not learning one bit. In theory you were supposed to be exposed to wide range of people and learn to socialize with this wide spectrum of humans. That, at least, was the humanist vision of High School. In practice, if you are among the smart, motivated kids at a large school you end up mostly interacting with the other kids taking AP classes. If you are at a smaller school, there's no such thing. You are stuck with everyone including those who don't care. * I know it's not 100% true, and there are college students that are there for a plethora of reasons. But it's a tiny percentage.