George Will's "The Last Word" on College "Acceptance"

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kc

well then you proved my point - finaid is great - but if you hadn't gotten it, would you still have gone to BU?

(Besides, I know BU is a good school, my ex is on scholarship there doing math research - but I still have to mock it because your mascot is a Terrier and you have no football team :-P )

I don't know if the students were really encouraged per se to 'dumb it down'. Perhaps by parents, but I don't think it was the system. But then, I know I experienced a lot of general skepticism about my own abilities (but I attribute that more to my being female than the school holding students back in general as the male students definitely received much more encouragement - that's another rant though).

But then, perhaps that is the key. A lot of overly praised and encouraged students do end up complacent. It's the ones who feel they have something to prove that end up striving for success.