Challenge HN: build pg-bot

My advice: Apply to where you really want to go. The money is something that you can work out if you try hard enough. don't be afraid to reach for the top tier of schools, but don't leave yourself with no fallbacks.

I made the following realizations:

1. People go to college to learn a lot more than Computer Science (my major).

2. As such, I want a college with a great community/environment (and even good gened classes), not just a great CS program.

3. There's something of a rift between academic CS and real-world programming. I'm not saying CS is worthless, but effective programmers need a lot more than an undergrad CS degree.

3.5. Also, if I do want to learn more CS, I can always try to go to MIT/Berkeley/CMU for grad school.

4. With sites like HN, Stack Overflow, and everything that's Googleable--and with decent laptops easily obtainable--it's really easy to teach yourself a lot of programming. I took CS in high school, but know a LOT more than what was taught. Why? Doing stuff on my own time. I see no reason why this can't continue in college.

5. There's many summer opportunities available--internships with Google (or many other places), research with one of my professors (Him, when I was a HS junior: "Additionally, we hope to start summer student research programs in a year or two--the funding...is already there. I in particular would love to have a student enthusiastic about [functional programming] as a researcher."), or even just having 8-16 hours a day to hack on my own projects.

I'm a Christian, so #2 strongly suggested that I should go to a Christian college. I cockily applied to only one school--Wheaton College, IL--and got in EA. It's not a bad school academically (the Princeton Review called it "The Harvard of all Christian schools" (which might be an exaggeration) (PS: Wheaton people jokingly call Harvard "The Wheaton of post-modern secular humanism")), and I really like everything about it besides the academics. Oh, and extra bonuses:

1. I sat in on several CS classes, and a) The classes are small, and the students seem to have excellent relationships with each other and the professor. b) They just got a spanking new science building, which is very very nice.

2. I took a bunch of AP tests, and did very well on them, and as such will almost certainly come in with sophomore standing. If I get a crazy startup going, I can leave college after three years :)

3. My parents told me that I could go wherever I wanted and they'd figure out some way to pay for it (somehow...). Wheaton not only gave me the "Presidential Scholarship" (given to students who make a certain academic cut), but gave me a nice extra scholarship because of my National Merit Finalist standing. This is in addition to need-based aid, I think. Not a full ride, but still "better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick", as my dad would say.

So YMMV, but this is what I'm up to. Good luck!

Edit: I say this not to show off or anything, but to give let you know where I stand academically: 35 ACT, SAT 800 Math, 740 Reading, 630 Writing (oops...), 220 PSAT (I took all those tests only once), 4 on AP Euro sophomore year, 5 on all five APs last year, almost certainly a 5 on three this year, and a 4 or 5 on the two AP Physics C tests. And ~3.54 unweighted GPA at a prep school.