[hga]

How sure are you of this?

I was thinking about getting into a top school at this age, although I was thinking CalTech and MIT for science instead of the Ivies, and while they were a special case (as in, not really planning on spending anything to speak of on our educations), my rich parents were very much not. Of course, one of the reasons for that was I'd been told for as long as I could remember that I had to study and make good grades or I'd end up "digging ditches" as a career.

Heinlein wrote a book, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel that you tend to read at about that age which has a hidden sub-agenda of telling you exactly what you need to do to get into one of those schools. Hmmm, his first juvenile also touches on it, but its much more of an aside.