Personally, I didn't find that article as depressing as I thought it would be.

First of all, if you were truly gifted (and I'm not saying the person's son wasn't smart), you would be able to do the assignments and learn at a faster pace. With him simply ignoring his classes and failing courses is considered laziness, not because of the pace of the class. It might be boring yes, for the speed of the class, but I've been there. I'm currently sitting in a geometry class where we spent a whole month on area and volume. I was clearly bored out of my mind, but I still did the assignments and passed with an A. If I were a teacher, and I had a student who was insanely smart but never did any of the work, I would be very offended at the disrespect he puts in my class.

Second of all, if colleges see a transcript with a 3.2 GPA but with a note saying their son's a genius, they will no doubt wonder why he has a low grade. Answer? Laziness. Colleges dispise laziness. End of story. There will be no excuse.

Third of all, homeschooling is a nice way of "getting ahead" but the balance between peers/social life and grades is also important. Doing advanced work first and social life second doesn't work. My recommendation would be to stick to public school while working ahead without it interfering with social life or grades.

IMO having 760 in Math SAT and claiming one is gifted in Science are really contradicting. I think this is an example of "mom thinks boy is genius" when in fact it's totally not the case.

I see two problems:

(1) The system did not address the student's educational needs.

(2) The student flouted the system.

AoPS would have helped with problem 1, but probably not problem 2.

We can discuss how problem 1 led to problem 2, and I know from experience how demoralizing it is to live with busywork and less than interesting classes wasting my time. On the other hand, I see now that doing well in school was the only way I had to get myself into better educational situations, whether that meant progressively better schools, more challenging classes, or the freedom to pursue bigger and better things.

IMO, this mom is just making excuses. If the kid was really smart, he would have actually worked hard to get good grades and gone somewhere nice.

He must have had some crappy essay skills also to not get into most Virginia colleges.

I definitely agree that the kid mostly has himself to blame, but I think that in a better environment, his story would have been different. If he had a peer group at an early enough age like the peer group at AoPS (or at schools like Exeter or TJ or AAST), then the kid would have been much more likely to be engaged in his passions, and less likely to be a slacker, if only because knowing that his friends were going exciting places that he'd want to be would inspire him to get his act together enough to not just get by.

I also think the story's an example of how raw ability is only a small part of success, and in many areas, a very small part.

Yes I agree that it is basicly his 'fault' , not get the best grades and therefore not being able to get to those colleges...

But I really don't understand why school grades have to be driven from assignments/homeworks.

I'm not from USA and where I'm from, our grades are driven only by the test performence -we still have homework but I don't do it and teacher can't use it as a reason to lower my grade.

I mean why people tend more to reward WORK instead of RESULTS?

This article was circulating around home schooled groups a couple of weeks ago. It didn't get much sympathy there, either.

As everyone knows, there are more qualified students then there are spots in elite colleges, and if you were an adcom, why would you think he would be a good bet? How about the kids who manage to do all the independent work, and still manage to get good grades? Colleges and schools are educational systems. It is clear he does not know how to make it in either place.

While I agree that gifted education is a travesty in this country, colleges can and do find students who manage to do well with what they have. This kid did not.

I am not sure he would have done any better as a home schooler. One of the challenges for home schooled applicants is proving that you can make the transition between the home and educational institution. I am not sure he had it in him.

I would also wonder about this kids essays and recs. With those playing a big part the college acceptance, it makes it difficult to second guess the adcoms. Whenever I hear of some deserving kid who does not get into any good colleges, I assume something went wrong there.

Jay Matthews is a moron. You should know this.

P.S. I got your note about the Hard Problems Movie -- I think your analysis captured my sentiment and channeled it into words better than I ever could have.

The irony is that Jay Matthews does not have much use for TJ, either.

No use for TJ? Then it's hard to take him seriously talking about educating strong students.

I should be clear that I don't think colleges make a mistake in passing on this student. There are clearly many others who are a better bet. What I think is a shame is that this student fell through the cracks 4 years ago. He's still going to have plenty of opportunities to get his act together in college and beyond, but he would have been much better off, I would guess, in a different environment.

As for work versus test results, by and large, in most professions, it's the day-in, day-out work that is the real value, not stellar test results. I'd take a straight-A 2150 SAT student over a 3.2 GPA 2360 SAT student any day for most work. Of course, I'd rather have a valedictorian 2400 SAT student than either of them...

The thing is, the student was lazy.
He just didn't do his work and it affected him.
If he was smart and he DID want to go to a top college, he would realize that he needed to do his work to get a better GPA...

Also, there are problems with these public school systems.
They are annoying, the grades being calculated from homework and test scores. Really, I personally find that much of homework wastes a lot of my time. I still do it though.

Hm but the kid decided to pursue the course of action that would be most helpful to him educationally at the moment...you have to respect that, especially since even at TJ (which as far as I know this kid didn't go to, since we have had more than a single on the AP Chem exam in the history of our school) there are plenty of classes that just like to pile on busy-work. I don't know if it's right or wrong, but I can certainly think of situations in which I would refuse to do the work in a class.

I agree with Jacob. The point of your precollege education should not be to get good grades so you can go to college but rather to explore different fields so you can get an idea what you're interested in. I think in the long run this kid is better off than someone who has a 4.0 GPA but hasn't explored beyond what he or she learned in school. It's not that he wasn't "smart" enough to do his schoolwork and still do real learning—instead he was smart enough to realize that doing his schoolwork wasn't teaching him anything. In any case, I think he'll be okay... it doesn't matter much which college he goes to for undergrad as long as he can get into a good graduate school. Good luck to him with that.

If he is indeed that good. I think most AoPSers here know that high SATs, APs, and SAT Subject Tests aren't necessarily indicative of anything spectacular. He could have spent his time studying for those alone and shirked off other stuff...

I just felt sorry for the student and his parents. My impression was that instead of working to either accomodate him within the system or circumvent the system, they felt their only option was to resist the system. I was reminded of those tax protesters who believe that the government has no right to tax them, so instead of suing the government or trying to get laws changed, they just stop paying taxes and end up in jail.

If he was really that smart, he would fight the college system. All that time that he spent not doing homework might have helped him at the time, but that choice resulted in him going to an average college. Had he played the college game, he would have gone to a better college and had the time to expand himself there.

Also I don't see anything that impressive there...OMG a 5 on an AP test. It also seems that his school wasn't very rigorous. The fact that he was the only person to get a 5 on the AP chem test (which is pretty easy IMO) means that his chem class wasn't very challenging. Those 100s don't seem that great from that perspective.

Also, you can get good grades and still do other things. Granted, I have an A- average, but I still have time to run daily and do lots of math.

I think we can't really make judgments on this student or his mother without knowing them better. He could be very smart, or he could just be lazy. The SAT and AP scores aren't really that impressive, but there are some very bright students who don't perform well on standardized tests.

From either perspective, this all seems very depressing . No system, unfortunately, can accomodate everyone's needs. There will always be people on both extremes of the spectrum ending up in an undesirable situation that is not entirely their own fault.

Life is unfair.