Talk about obsession.

This article about South Korean students wanting to go to Ivy League schools in the U.S. made me rethink my Ivy League dreams about graduate school. Even if the article focused on college applicants, I’m pretty sure that graduate school nowadays for the Ivies is more competitive than before, not to mention the high tuition cost for those who are lucky to get in.

It’s good that students from Daewoo and Minjok Leadership Academy have goals and achieve it. But if it’s at the expense of having a life and enjoying your high school days like a teenager should (meaning a balance of work and play really), then there will eventually be a catch somewhere.

I know a lot of people from Ateneo who eventually gained acceptance to the Ivies for graduate school and do good, despite not being ultra-spectacular students in college. But again, graduate school is a different matter because emphasis is on work experience and admission test scores and not so much on grades.

Hopefully these kids from Korea will end up “normal” when they grow up. The article made them seem like robots programmed to do nothing but study and do everything else to get into their school of choice. Gilmore Girls’ Rory comes to mind in this set-up.