Princeton University

Date: Jun 13 2003
Major: Economics (This Major's Salary over time)
I had always wanted to attend Princeton since I was a kid. My parents told me about the beautiful campus and the most elite, intelligent high school students in the nation there. So it was my singleminded goal to attend university there. I was the prototypical overachiever in high school, was school valedictorian, student body president, high school starting qb on the football team and starting point guard on the basketball team. I received department awards in a number of subjects because I worked my tail off and studied harder than hell to receive all these accolades. My best friend was the only other kid from my school to receive admission to Princeton and he decided to go to UW-Madison because he could not pay for Princeton. However, when I arrived at Princeton I realized that everyone there was just like me and the education I was milking my parents' money for was nearly the exact same as the one my best friend in Madison was receiving. I realized that my friend (Who is smarter than me) would do as well as me regardless where he went to because he was an intelligent, dilligent person. Subsequently I decided to transfer home and attend UW-Madison and take on an equally good school with a bit of a less prestigious name. So far, I really cannot see the difference in success between the top tier students at Princeton and at UW-Madison—their quality is the same just the diplomas are different.