Granted that watching instructional videos online doesn't (at least in and of itself) accomplish the goal of meeting driven and knowledgeable peers, but if that

Granted that watching instructional videos online doesn't (at least in and of itself) accomplish the goal of meeting driven and knowledgeable peers, but if that's the real goal, then let's focus on it, because there are ways to achieve it that are orders of magnitude more efficient (in both money and life) than trying to get into Stanford.