[Discussion] Ever MORE, OT [Was: OT: My Daughter is going to GA Tech...

[Thomas Clayton]

First, 
Congratulations to Liz - and you ;-)  .

Second, on behalf of my late father (E.E., 1949?), I have to say:
IT'S PURDUE,

(not the chicken farmer Jim Perdue)!

In my dad's case, like I suspect it was for several of you "Old Programmers", the GI Bill paid for his schooling. He was given credits for passing some AP exams taken at entrance that cut down on his course requirements so, as I recall, he graduated in three years(?). (It might, therefor, have been 1948.)


Thirdly, there's one story I've just gotta tell. Just one.

Dad had been in some sort of, voluntary, Civilian Military Camp/Corp.s, in the very late 1930's. (Gen. G. Marshall apparently was evaluating American youth for future use.) Anyway, my dad didn't care for it much. (Understatement)

When war came, he was drafted and someone noticed he had been in a CMC, so they skipped him from basic training and he was sent to a Coast Artillery Regiment in Roosevelt Roads Puerto Rico. (Apparently, there was a worry that the Germans would attack the Panama Canal and we needed troops IMMEDIATELY to cut off their approaches to there.) 

Corporal Clayton while on duty, keeping an ear to the signal net headphones, was reading _Calculus for the Practical Man_. An officer came by and asked whether he understood what he was reading. He answered, something like, "Not really, but THAT was why I'm studying the book." The next day he was called into the Regimental Commander's office. He was informed that he was going to be discharged from the Regiment AND from being an enlisted soldier! 

However, he was going to be RE-enlisted as an Officer Candidate and sent to a school for that. Followed by:
"DIS-missed"!
:-)

Thomas Clayton



--- On Wed, 4/29/09, Stanley Sidlov <stanleys at cybernex.net> wrote:

> From: Stanley Sidlov <stanleys at cybernex.net>
> Subject: [Discussion] OT:  My Daughter is going to GA Tech...
> To: "POSSI Discussion List" <discussion at lists.possi.org>
> Date: Wednesday, April 29, 2009, 4:01 PM
> Just a bit off topic. As they say, I have to qvell a bit...
> 
> FIrst, Liz (my daughter, those of you who remember her from
> WarpTech) is the Salutorian 
> for her graduating class. She's been number two to the
> boy who's no 1 for her entire 
> school career. I think it sorta sucks since he's on a
> liberal arts course and even though 
> it has AP and Honors classes, he's not a math/science
> whiz. He's going to Fordham. Last we 
> heard there was 2/100ths between them mathematically.
> 
> Second: Liz has decided that she's going to go to GA
> Tech where she was accepted into the 
> Engineering School, and Honors. She also was awarded a
> merit grant equal to the difference 
> between state and out-of-state tuition. We don't qual
> for 'need based' anything though 
> money is tight (as with most people). She also got into the
> engineering and honors at 
> these schools: UDel, UMd, Syracuse, Perdue and Rutgers. She
> didn't apply until April (past 
> the scholarship deadlines because we insisted,) to Rutgers
> (who replied in 10 days) but 
> they still gave her 2K. Syracuse was the high and gave her
> $27K in scholarships and grants 
> a year and renewable, but it's $50K a year. Perdue even
> though she was Honors (only 350 
> kids) gave her nothing. Princeton is the only school that
> didn't accept her, no wait lists 
> either.
> 
> Moral? Well, the best scholarship money goes to kids with
> SATs over 2150-2200 and grade 
> point over 4.35. Liz refused to take a 'Kaplan'
> course refused taking  SAT's during junior 
> year until May and then only took the SAT test once more in
> Sr yr and scored 2090; her GPA 
> is 4.75. A 720 math is only 4 wrong answers.  
>