[xorbie]

the other thing with ivy league schools is that a lot of the kids who get in did well in high school by sucking up to teachers and complaining about grades. this behavior continues rather successfully in college.

i know this to be true both in the high school and college end of things. i personally didn't care enough about grades in high school to ever try to get a B+ bumped to an A- or an A- to an A, so i get decent but not great grades. some of my friends went and bitch about everything and prob bumped their GPA up a point or two.

then they get to college and on top of the normal curves, everyone is going to ask the profs for extensions and extra points here and there and most of the profs and tas are prob too focused on their research to really care, particularly because the status quo seems to just be to give in.