Reply to If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?

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Reply to "If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Most of the world does not care about extracurriculars.  if you are winning academic olympiads, that's one thing but your passionate interest in the migration patterns of mosquitoes in suburban environments, followed up by research and a published paper in some foreign journal nobody has ever heard of is generally meaningless.[/quote]

True for the rest of the world, but this is planet USA. And a published paper on the migration patterns of mosquitoes in suburban environments will go pretty darn far. It demonstrates smarts, discipline, passion. Every selective school would be interested in this high school student. High test scores and GPA are a dime a dozen. Every selective university could fill their classes ten times over with kids with perfect stats. But here is someone with a compelling interest in mosquitos in the suburbs and is bringing the chops.

This is why American universities are generally the best universities in the world. They will take the mosquito kid. Whereas the test oriented countries like Korea, China, Japan, the UK and so on won't. That mosquito kid is the separation American universities have from universities elsewhere. And consequentially, nearly all important innovation happens in the US and not elsewhere.   [/quote]

American universities aren't among the best in the world because of the quality of the American students.  Are you freaking kidding me?  American university dominance is almost entirely about money and the job opportunities available to our graduates.

Are you under the impression that most of the innovation we see in America is coming from the "mosquito kids?" It's mostly coming from high scoring immigrants or the children of immigrants.[/quote]

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