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How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

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Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#11

Post by ojbyrne »

pandafood wrote: post #9

This sort of sneaking in is pretty pointless though. The only really good reason to go to one of these schools is that everyone knows how hard is is to get in. If you go to a different part of the school that isn't as hard to get into (this is what GS is at Columbia) then you throw away that advantage and you're left paying three times what you should be for an education that, as was alluded to elsewhere in the comme…

10 years down the road, when you're up for that VP position that requires a degree from a "good school," nobody is going to notice.

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#13

Post by sgk284 »

pandafood wrote: post #9

This sort of sneaking in is pretty pointless though. The only really good reason to go to one of these schools is that everyone knows how hard is is to get in. If you go to a different part of the school that isn't as hard to get into (this is what GS is at Columbia) then you throw away that advantage and you're left paying three times what you should be for an education that, as was alluded to elsewhere in the comme…

But you get to put Columbia on your resume either way. That's all most companies care about.

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#14

Post by csallen »

milkshakes wrote: post #10

Or you could just start "dropping in" on classes.. That's the first thing that came to mind when I read the title.

Really. I went to MIT for undergrad, and my experience there was nobody questions who you are in classes with 40+ people. (The one exception was an AI class I took senior year with Patrick Winston. There were almost 100 students, but he quite impressively memorized the names and faces of every student before the first day of class.)

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#15

Post by pak »

antidaily wrote: post #4

Or you could get a job as a janitor... and then solve a difficult graduate-level problem from algebraic graph theory that a prof leaves on the chalkboard.

Will Hunting never actually matriculated. You could say he was being exploited, actually, because of his legal situation.

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#16

Post by pak »

milkshakes wrote: post #10

Or you could just start "dropping in" on classes.. That's the first thing that came to mind when I read the title.

However, you don't get any credit, or a degree. So it doesn't really matter whether the classes you drop in on are Ivy League or not, just that you are learning enough to make it worth your time. You won't be able to validate your knowledge of the course material later with anything but a personal demonstration.

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#17

Post by [deleted] »

ojbyrne wrote: post #11
pandafood wrote: post #9

This sort of sneaking in is pretty pointless though. The only really good reason to go to one of these schools is that everyone knows how hard is is to get in. If you go to a different part of the school that isn't as hard to get into (this is what GS is at Columbia) then you throw away that advantage and you're left paying three times what you should be for an education that, as was alluded to elsewhere in the comme…

10 years down the road, when you're up for that VP position that requires a degree from a "good school," nobody is going to notice.

[deleted]

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#18

Post by ryanc »

pandafood wrote: post #9

This sort of sneaking in is pretty pointless though. The only really good reason to go to one of these schools is that everyone knows how hard is is to get in. If you go to a different part of the school that isn't as hard to get into (this is what GS is at Columbia) then you throw away that advantage and you're left paying three times what you should be for an education that, as was alluded to elsewhere in the comme…

Harvard has a similar option called Harvard Extension, its also where Hillary Duff attended.

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#19

Post by InfinityX0 »

terryjsmith wrote: post #12

Let me just say that as the PHP developer at B5Media, which owns Crushable and other blogs, this is the last place I expected to see one of our articles. Please let me know if you have thoughts or feedback on the design or site itself.

Like the design, but I absolutely hate the brand name. You will forever be a Mashable-ripoff because of it. Nothing you can do now but ick, that was not a good decision.

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#20

Post by Alex3917 »

radq wrote: post #8
Alex3917 wrote: post #3

I think a much better strategy would be to just become among the best in the world at something in high school. This is a lot easier than you'd think, as it really only takes 4 hours a day to become better than 99.9% of HS students at virtually anything. Failing that the author's strategy is probably the best backup, assuming you're committed to getting a college degree from an elite college.

I am probably nitpicking, but there is a major difference between being the best in the world at something and being better that 99.9% of HS students. It is not easy to become the best in the world in any field you choose, and the choice of field would also be quite important from an admissions perspective.

"There is a major difference between being the best in the world at something and being better that 99.9% of HS students."

Depends how you look at it. If you're one of the top 25 HS students in your field then you're probably only 15% as good as a professional, but you've probably put in at least 30% of the hours and gone through 60% of the pain needed to get there. In any event for most fields you probably only have to be one of the best HS students, unless you're picking something like ski jumping.

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