Went to the same school, was on the same math team, but was a year ahead of the author. Quit math team in my junior year because I wasn't at a competitive level, but it was a great time while I was on it. As a SWE, I rarely get to exercise the tenacity and problem solving skills I learned on the math team, but when I do they are "transformative" to the rest of the team.
> Nights were for other worthless extracurriculars to pad out our applications. ... The worst part was knowing that it was all going to be extruded into a few lines in an application form, that a committee would review for about ninety seconds
This is the tail wagging the dog; work really hard for 4 years in HS so that the next 4 years will be spent at a comparatively more prestigious college. I don't think we should expect high school students to be able to optimize this correctly themselves, and from my experience guidance counselors weren't particularly helpful. College admissions feel like a local maxima that have a lot of unintended side effects but would be difficult to change.
Personally, I didn't do the extracurriculars that would look good for college, but rather the ones I enjoyed; I didn't study very hard either. Didn't get into Stanford or an Ivy, but I look upon my experience in high school/college fondly rather than bitterly. Life seems to have turned out ok too.
I can relate; I didn't study quite as hard as my peers, didn't get into the prestigious private colleges that they got into (still went to an excellent public school across the Bay from Stanford), studied a fair bit of math, and ended up with a decent job where I've found that my math and problem solving skills have paid dividends. I'm certainly not making tech or F-U money, but I have a comfortable life a few years out of college and I'm lucky that I didn't have to sacrifice my youth or my interests to get here.
It's also interesting to follow the trajectories of people who were in the group that over-optimized for outcomes but have fallen off that path. I think the author was able to mitigate his burnout (I presume he had a good tech career), but I know a fair amount of folks with good pedigrees who haven't, and are still in limbo (unemployed, underemployed, or taking an extended break early in their career/schooling). I know they have the potential to do great things, but it seems the stakes of burnout are much higher today and harder to recover from financially.
My experience, a few decades later, is that everyone who optimized for STEM and long hours in high school made the right choice. The only downside I’ve seen is some wistfulness about lost romances and the preciousness of childhood. The upside is much higher earning power and greater opportunity later in life. I’d actually be interested in counter examples. In my circle I’m not aware of any, which is different than saying they don’t exist.
Optimizing for STEM is a bit different for optimizing for extreme puzzles.
Math Team is a corner of math (not even the main part), and not STE at all.
It's a bit of a distraction from learning useful math for S, T, E, and even pure and applied M. One of the choices a math student has to make is whether to pursue advanced caclulus/stats/engineering math, or pure math, or contest puzzles.
It's a (hard!) puzzle contest (and those are fun too, but we don't pretend that taking them to an extreme level is relevant to a career).
> Nights were for other worthless extracurriculars to pad out our applications. ... The worst part was knowing that it was all going to be extruded into a few lines in an application form, that a committee would review for about ninety seconds
This is the tail wagging the dog; work really hard for 4 years in HS so that the next 4 years will be spent at a comparatively more prestigious college. I don't think we should expect high school students to be able to optimize this correctly themselves, and from my experience guidance counselors weren't particularly helpful. College admissions feel like a local maxima that have a lot of unintended side effects but would be difficult to change.
Personally, I didn't do the extracurriculars that would look good for college, but rather the ones I enjoyed; I didn't study very hard either. Didn't get into Stanford or an Ivy, but I look upon my experience in high school/college fondly rather than bitterly. Life seems to have turned out ok too.