I've been completely absorbed by school this week, so I have three things to talk about this week. Homework, CollegeBoard, and international college.
I don't know why every teacher thinks they're the exception when I scream into the void that I can't keep up with all the work they assign. Every single teacher thinks 'oh no it's fine it's not me I'm not adding unnecessary stress to my students' lives' when they in fact are. There are no exceptions anymore.
The American school system has utterly failed my generation. CollegeBoard is a shining example. A 'non-profit' that peddles expensive tests that have concerning margins of error and classes that depend entirely on ONE test shouldn't be the leading institution in both public and private education. Not everyone has the money to hire tutors. Not everyone is a good test taker.
It's been proven that CollegeBoard has been doing what amounts to child entrapment on Reddit and Twitter. Why is this institution so bent on seeing us fail?
Not only is CollegeBoard ethically questionable, I've gotten to the point that I think it's functionally questionable as well. We all paid $100 of each AP test, and all week I've been seeing horror stories of students whose tests didn't submit. Where is all that money going? There are no papers being physically printed. It's obviously not going to making sure the website actually works.
It's time to demonopolize the school system. Texas Instruments gets away with charging $100 for a calculator that should be worth $20. Pearson charges hundreds for textbooks. CollegeBoard costs an arm and a leg over a student's high school career. Why? Just why?
Anyway, to sum up my week, GPA > everything else and my life is just a lurchy tandem bike of stumbling from one assignment to another. At this point I would gladly sell my kidney for a 4.0.
Also, I've been thinking of going to an international college, especially one in Europe. The benefits I'm looking at are low tuition rates, a different approach to gun culture, and low costs of living depending on the country. I was looking on my dream school's website, and when I was researching tuition, the front page said: IT'S NOT AS MUCH AS YOU THINK. Guess how much is 'not as much?' $71,000. Yikes. Now THAT is a lot of cognitive disconnect.
I'll probably give European colleges more thought next week. I'll let you know how it goes.