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I looked to his Wikipedia to get some context for what kind of background he was starting out with to "get rich" from; it claims he spent his childhood in pover
by lmm 3y ago
I looked to his Wikipedia to get some context for what kind of background he was starting out with to "get rich" from; it claims he spent his childhood in poverty, but he went to private school? And did a philosophy degree?
- marssaxman 3y agoThis well-circulated essay explains in some detail what he means by "poor": https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/ https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/
- ThrowawayR2 3y agoThe Wikipedia article says that he got a scholarship for the boarding school: "He attended the Webb School of California, a boarding school in Claremont, on a scholarship." Perhaps he was talented enough to get a scholarship for parts of his college education as well.
- ekidd 3y agoI forget the details of Scalzi's scholarship, but many prestigious private high schools in the US are happy to admit talented-but-broke kids on scholarship. Private high schools are judged based on how many of their graduates go to excellent universities. One easy way to improve those numbers is to look for people who are very likely to succeed, and to give them scholarships. And this fact is fully exploitable by ambitious broke kids with high test scores. I've seen many people actually pull it off. The culture shock can be rough, though. I mention this in case there's an amibitious kid in the US reading these comments. If you've got test scores that compare well to Harvard or Standford's incoming classes, do some research and consider applying to a private school. Fill out the scholarship applications. You might get lucky.