[UMTerp]

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I grew up in Southern Maryland (Calvert County for those in the area), which is extremely rural compared to the suburbia that is Montgomery County. My parents were/are both teachers, and stressed the importance of education to me growing up, so I did enough to get A's and make them happy. I graduated top of my HS class, had great SAT's, got in everywhere I applied, and ended up at Maryland on a full ride. When I got there, I was stunned at how much smarter some of the top Montgomery County kids were than me. And not in an aptitude sense; I could still pick new concepts up more quickly than just about any of them, but it was so obvious that the Montgomery County kids were like 100x better prepared for college than me.

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My story is pretty much exactly the same except I'm from Wicomico, which I'm guessing is fairly similar to Calvert in terms of ruralness (also my parents aren't teachers, but did stress education very highly). It was a big shock to see the difference between my high school (which I still wouldn't consider a "bad" school; I did have a good # of AP credits) and some of the big Western Shore high schools.

What year did you graduate from Maryland, UMTerp?

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Civil Engineering, 1999.