I met a girl last night, she is a high school senior

[hyde]

[ QUOTE ]
you cant really hate on this girl for playing the system.



[/ QUOTE ]

I am not hating her. I just think her goal was shortsighted. And I understand a high school freshman has very short sight. I struggle with the parents not wanting their freshman child to go for the most and best education available.
And I struggle with the system being so playable. I think AP classes should carry more weight. Yes there may be easier classes than others within the AP, good teachers and bad teachers in both groups, but it would still be fairer. There are gut courses everywhere but I see value in weighting.
And I think gambling four years of education for the scholarships is a bad gamble. One bad semester and one of the five kids behind her might have overtaken top spot. Then she has no top spot and is missing the knowledge that was available to her.

I found out a little more info today.
She is the youngest of 5 kids. The other four were all in top 5 of the class. Two took AP classes, two did not. There might well be a family dynamic in play.

[Jon1000]

i think you're drastically overestimating the value of better classes at a high school level preparing you for better classes at the university level. i finished top 10ish in my high school class, but came into college w/ about a year's worth of AP credit. The classes in high school were great, but in terms of preparing me for university courses . . . pretty meh.

edit: additionally i got into a pretty competitive college program that is basically a school of IR, but if I could do it again i would have just played the game and taken comparatively easier classes with comparatively less competitive peers in a regular government program. after i graduated and job hunted, i just realized how little most employers cared. even within higher academia, i doubt people care

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
you cant really hate on this girl for playing the system.



[/ QUOTE ]

I am not hating her. I just think her goal was shortsighted. And I understand a high school freshman has very short sight. I struggle with the parents not wanting their freshman child to go for the most and best education available.
And I struggle with the system being so playable. I think AP classes should carry more weight. Yes there may be easier classes than others within the AP, good teachers and bad teachers in both groups, but it would still be fairer. There are gut courses everywhere but I see value in weighting.
And I think gambling four years of education for the scholarships is a bad gamble. One bad semester and one of the five kids behind her might have overtaken top spot. Then she has no top spot and is missing the knowledge that was available to her.

I found out a little more info today.
She is the youngest of 5 kids. The other four were all in top 5 of the class. Two took AP classes, two did not. There might well be a family dynamic in play.

[/ QUOTE ]

The knowledge is extremely overblown. She can always catch up on the knowledge later, if she feels like it. A great deal of the knowledge won't even be useful to her in college, and by the time college is done, will be as useless as if it were never possible to accumulate at all. It's very far from an intellectual society we are living in.

What this girl did was saw her chance and took it. If there are flaws in the system, it is exactly the wrong thing to do to blame the individual for being smart and practical enough to play them. What deserves criticism is the system, not the person who in self defense works it properly so she doesn't get screwed.