USNews has an interesting article on A+ Options for ‘B’ Kids, i.e. options for students with less than outstanding high school results. The article fundamentally addresses the brand-consciousness of today’s high school students - with many unwilling to enter relatively good universities with strong programmes - simply because they never heard of them. To the prospect of applying for universities like Grinell or Southern Methodist University, we’d probably hear, "Puhleese!".

But today, having top results might not get you the university you want. An excerpt from the USNews article says this:

Much of the noise about how tough it is to get into college results from too much pounding on the same few doors. Princeton, whose applicant pool for this fall grew by 21 percent, was forced to deny the vast majority of the more than 5,000 kids with perfect 4.0 averages, for example; Duke turned away 59 percent of the high school valedictorians who applied.

Yes, you’ll still get into a Top 20 university, but will that university be the best for you? Is the brand everything? Will you be learning what you want, with the people you would work best with? These are questions that academically strong students, who are somehow out of luck, should ponder.

For some, academic results might be so bad that a Top 50 university would be good. Yet, there are still those among this academic group that will try only for the best brands in the country. Well, this USNews article provides a strong insight into this brand-consciousness and various other problems concerning universities and second-rate high school results.

After you have read it, try the USNews list of A+ Schools for ‘B’ Students - a list of good US universities that accept to students with less than exceptional academic results (e.g. SAT/ACT results of less than 1300).