One of the major effects of all this pressure is that as the college competition intensifies, our younger students compete even more with each other to the extent that, ironically, everyone starts to look alike. They all have very high SAT scores; they all have numerous AP courses or, for international school students, have completed “the full IB”; they all have very high academic averages as well as multiple extracurriculars, numerous awards, and outstanding achievements. This “across-the-board greatness”105 reflects a sense of sameness that turns out to be the very heart of the problem for
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Everyone is the same
