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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I attended a residential governor's school in a different state in the late 1990s and had a terrible experience. I hated every minute of it and wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

The educational component wasn't intellectually stimulating. It consisted mostly of navel-gazing debates and group problem-solving exercises that seemed designed to juice our egos and make us think we were expanding our intellectual capacity while our friends at home were letting their brain cells rot. I would've learned more reading Tom Wolfe novels by the pool with one eye scanning the sun deck for chicks.

The lack of intellectual engagement would have been forgivable if the overall experience had been fun or memorable. But it wasn't. They structured our schedule from morning to night, leaving us very little time for fun, and even the "fun" things they scheduled for us were just cheesy and lame. As much as I love a game of "never have I ever" (with Sprite in our cups, of course) with a bunch of geeks who act shocked when someone takes a sip for "skipped school," I wanted to be with my actual friends having actual fun.

And they were so strict about the rules. In what should have been my second summer of true freedom (I'd gotten my driver's license in the spring of the year before), I had to spend a month with no access to a car, no ability to run out and get food when I wanted, no freedom to set my own schedule, VERY limited gym access (my bench dropped by at least 20 pounds), and worst of all, few opportunities to do what 17-year-old boys enjoy doing the most: chasing girls. There were maybe two or three DECENT-looking girls (definitely not hot) at governor's school, but it was impossible to hook up with them because they monitored us so tightly during our so-called free-time, of which there wasn't much to begin with.

From almost the minute I got there I was counting down the days until I could return home and enjoy the last few weeks of the summer at the gym and the pool. I would've rather gotten a regular job that summer lifeguarding or even bagging groceries. At least then I could've clocked out after my shift and done what I wanted.

It also made no difference in my college admissions. I took a guaranteed, matrix-based scholarship to a top-100 university. They probably didn't even look at the part of my application where I listed governor's school.

If I could go back, I never would have filled out that governor's school application.[b] I would've thrown it on the ground and urinated on it[/b]. My advice to any teenager reading is that you only get to be the age you are now once. If you apply yourself and keep your head screwed on straight, your future will work out, I promise -- even if that future doesn't involve a hyper-competitive college full of strivers who opted out, either of their own volition or at the behest of their parents, of having a real childhood and adolescence in order to be there.[/quote]

So how old are you now? I'm kind of embarrassed for you that as an adult you write like this![/quote]

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