I don't like name dropping the school I went to but I didn't have the same high school experience as this writer. All of my peers at my school seemingly did tho

I don't like name dropping the school I went to but I didn't have the same high school experience as this writer. All of my peers at my school seemingly did though which made me feel very behind and out of place. I definitely noticed that a lot of the students in the CS program already knew a good amount of discrete mathematics when we took our 'first' proofs class. In fact, most of the other kids went to really highly ranked high schools, competed on math or programming or science teams, and had a lot of accomplishments but it also simultaneously seemed performative. I didn't even know competitive math was a thing until I got to campus. I resented my parents for not pushing me into all these extra-curriculars so I could be like everyone else on campus and have things to brag about. But from the author's experience there is a downside to being pushed into these things too. Although the playing ground was actually fair and hard work gets you on even footing, I have a couple of things to say about college admissions. I will definitely say that although the top universities claim to be meritocratic, I don't think they are. Most of these students, maybe all now, are kind of acculturated into this college admissions process where from a young age you are doing STEM competitions and building letters of rec. A lot of these kids have parents who move the whole family to be near to a high school that can get their children into the top schools. Most people in the US are not aware, or unable to do anything with this specific cultural knowledge you need to get in to those schools. Exceptions do not make the rule. So the top schools are filled with people who don't reflect the country which is bad I think. Second, as people have focused on STEM accomplishments just to get in to the top schools, I think Goodhart's Law is in action and that STEM competitions and precocious authorship is becoming less meaningful but whether admissions offices change I don't know if that will happen and has not yet. So these will continue to be performative for the time being which is also unfortunate.