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I can give you a detailed answer, but let me give you a personal one which illustrates the point: at age 18 yrs, being the eldest son in my family and ready to go off to university, my IQ was about 137 at the time; my brother's IQ, who was 4 yrs younger, tested out as 188. I went on to work hard and received 3 BS Degrees, with highest honors in: Theoretical and Applied Science; Pre-Medical Sciences and Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Electrical Engineering and Computational Mathematics. From there I went on to receive my Masters in Applied Science in Energetics Engineering, as well as a Masters in Cultural Foundations of Education from New York University, also both with highest honors before matriculating into a research PhD candidacy at Rutgers University in a self-directed interdisciplinary program as a Research Fellow in multiple engineering, mathematical and science disciplines all geared around Remote Sensing (Satellite) Technology and Big Data Algorithm Analysis. From there I went on to form the first ever satellite-based agricultural commodities trading investment platform utilizing algorithmic matrix analyses of historical yields and real time satellite observations to predict crop yields, which I did at Rutgers under CIA and USDA grants, and got me noticed by Wall Street, and led me to the President's position and retirement at age 43 yrs. From whence I dedicated myself to government service as a Goodwill Ambassador to the PRC for the US Dept. of Commerce and the US Chamber of Commerce ans served in the Reagan Administration as liaison advisor on energy and security issues with the US Congressional Advisory Board on the same.My brother dropped out of high school without earning his diploma, but I give him credit with getting his GED after he joined the USMC. But got a medical discharge after getting a DUI citation for driving his new car through barricades onto an unfinished highway overhead bypass and dropping it to the ground 50 ft below and totally screwing up his back, face, arms and shoulders in the crash. He was lucky the military chose not to give him a dishonorable discharge, which they could have under the circumstances.He went on to live on a partial disability pension from his "service" (he only just completed basic training) and eventually became a postman in the USPS. By no way am I demeaning the fine men and women who work for the USPS or other such quasi-governmental agencies.Lord knows where we would be without our mail being delivered in the efficient way it is and at the low cost it is done at compared to other nations. So please don't label me as an elitist snob, if you knew me you'd realize I am nothing like that. The reality is I was grateful for the gift God gave me and chose to use it as well as I could. But my point is: here was a person with the IQ of a genius-at age 14 yrs-who could have gone on to become a brilliant scientist, doctor, engineer or even a musical composer or artist, etc. Instead, he wasted away his gift and if it were not for enlisting in the US military, would not have even received his GED high school equivalent diploma. In his case, IQ was no more a relevant indicator of his educational ability or the depth of his motivation to achieve the highest level of success in whatever his pursuit may be. It meant nothing. It still does.We have seen the world blessed by extraordinary people with IQs in the range of 110-115; US Presidents with IQs slightly higher, like President John F Kennedy for example. And many, many people who have used perseverance and absolute dedication to a goal to achieve success, where another who was a genius with an extraordinary IQ achieved nothing. Why? Because having "native" intelligence is not an indicator of much more than having "a leg up" on the ease of processing information and learning at a faster pace than someone else-thing of it as a student who has the newest PC with the fastest processor around 2.85 clock speed, the largest DRAM around 16MB and all the programs needed to do most any application. And on the other side of the study table, a student using a hand-me-down PC that was still running -86 processor, have 4mb of RAM and a clock speed somewhere south of 0.85. But the student with what someone else would consider to be the inferior computer, churned out the best research, most thorough well-thought out and conceived papers and projects, and aced ever subject they took, whilst the other student with the flashy computer didn't go to class, never did study assignments, failed to meet project and paper deadlines, and studied so little they only barely passed their courses with a C average.THAT is why colleges do not take IQ results into consideration-they look at what a student does with what they have and the drive they have "inside" to do their best.I am fortunate to have two children who are each brilliant in their own ways. My daughter is the oldest by almost 4 years. She skipped her last year in high school and went directly into a SUNY early entry young scholars program, from whence she excelled with all A's in their honor's program and is now studying at Syracuse University on a prestigious academic Chancellor's scholarship. Now in her 3rd year, she is a top student in their prestigious iSchool, and this summer is off to Israel to do a technology internship she won in a competitive program through her school.My son is finishing his junior year, is working toward being an Eagle Scout, is 3rd Dan Black Belt in Taekwondo, wrestled varsity since his freshman year, made National Honors Society as a sophomore, and National Global Language Society too and has consistently been on the Principal's high honors list. He was a Rotary International "Road's Scholar", and this year, was chosen to represent his high school as the only leadership recipient of an award to attend Boys State for our county.Unlike his sister who concentrated only on her studies, he is all over the place between academics, sports, leadership, community service, etc. He is president of both the USO club and the Mock Trial Club. And as I sit here writing, he is off competing, having taken his school to their highest level they have ever achieved in the school's history in Mock Trial competition; having eliminated all their county opponents, the Westchester County's champion team and are now are in the State Regional competition, with back-to-back-to-back competition in three criminal trials before a real judge today. If they win, they go to the state capital to compete in the finals. He is only 16 yrs old.I couldn't be prouder of both of them. But they are completely different. My daughter is very religious and much involved in high school and college with that. She was President of her youth group where we worship, and now at Syracuse works with one there too. As a sophomore she was the first to be the Event Planner for their annual TEDx presentation, whose theme was "Glitch" and how we all go through life having to face unexpected glitches which either side track us, through us off course, delay us, or cause us to stop in our tracks to examine who we are and where we are going. In her own way, she is very accomplished and polished and extroverted in the areas of life which interest her.My son, since he was 7 yrs old has wanted to attend West Point and make a career in the military...to preserve and protect the US Constitution and our Bill of Rights, which at an early age he acknowledged had made this country great and given us as individuals and as a nation so many this privileges and opportunities, regardless of who we are or where we come from, to rise up to the very top to the pinnacles of greatness. He loves his country, and this is where he wants to devote his energies and dedicate his life.Already, he and his sister have one first cousin who recently graduated 19th in her class at the USN Academy at Annapolis. With another accepting his nomination to attend there beginning this June. Another first cousin graduated Georgia Tech, another the University of Georgia and graduate school at Georgetown University. Both work either within government or for it: one as an analyst with the CIA, another working on "games theory" with a major US defense contractor for military applications. And my niece who graduated Annapolis already was sent off on a full scholarship to study in London for her Masters.My daughter originally wanting to become an ambassador and enter the US Department of State in Foreign Service; although now she wants to do Big Data Analysis and Cyber Security instead. The point is: each child is unique in their own way; with their own talents, strengths and goals. The difference isn't in their intellect-both have higher than average IQs-it is their desire and drive which sets them apart. And their individual goals which steer their studies and the direction of their lives.Interestingly, when I asked my son-at about 8 or 9 yrs old-why he wanted to go to West Point and into the Army, he posited a question back to me: "who" he said, "do you know who was an Admiral and became President of the United States?" I thought about it for a moment, and although history wasn't one of my strongest suites in school, I couldn't think of any. So I told him, "I don't know. Who?" He replied not one. But then educated me that we have had several Generals from the Army who were; starting with George Washington who is the reason we have the United States of America today. Followed by President Grant who helped preserve the Union. And President Dwight D, Eisenhower who helped save the world during WWII from the Nazis. He also referred me back to my history books and I discovered that "the most frequent military experience is Army/Army Reserve with 15 presidents, followed by State Militias at 9, the Navy/Naval Reserve at 6 and the Continental Army with 2 presidents serving. Eight presidents served during World War II, while seven served in the military during the American Civil War."I went back and asked him if he wanted to be the President of the United States someday? And he looked at me and said, "who knows, my future will take me where I lead myself", and walked away.I don't know if studying and working so hard to be a well-rounded leader is what he started out to accomplish, but already at 16 yrs old he has at least shown me he "has the right stuff" if this is truly his path to travel to find his destiny.I hope you forgive me for indulging my pride in my two wonderful children, but they are the reason I continue to work toward better understanding and a better world for us all to live in: for our generation, for theirs, and posterity. Thank you for you patience and support!

This question was originally posted as “Why did you go to West Point?”, and when I tried to answer that it appeared as “What did you do to get into West Point?”. They are vastly different questions, and I think both deserve an answer.I graduated from West Point in 1974. I had never thought much about going there until I watched the 1969 Army-Navy football game on TV. The following Monday, I learned a high school classmate have been appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy and asked him how he got it. He told me he had written to our congressman and asked for it, so the following Saturday I sat down and write a letter to the Honorable Mr. Jack Flynt, U.S. Rep, 3rd District, GA. West Point sent me a packet of forms that I dutifully filled out and returned along with the references and recommendations they requested. The Academy scheduled me for a physical and the Physical Aptitude Test at Fort Benning, and in March of 1970 I was called to the principal’s office to take a call from Mr. Flynt, who told me He had nominated me and the Academy had informed him I would be offered admission with the class of 1974.Turned out I had been preparing myself for West Point all my life. I earned the rank of Eagle Scout at age 14 and worked as a camp staff member for several years at a major BSA camp. I earned Scout Lifeguard and Red Cross Senior Lifesaving qualifications. I was a letterman in varsity basketball, President of the Student Council, and a member of the Beta Club and National Honor Society. My public high school had mandatory Jr. ROTC, and I was a cadet captain, Commander of Company A in our four company cadet battalion. I had attended the GA Governor’s Honors Program in 1968, and my SAT scores, while far from perfect, were the highest in the county school system, earning me the STAR student award. My GPA was a bit skewed because I struggled with Math, and was the only Student Council President ever suspended from office for a term for getting an F in a course. I had 5 As and an F that term. I had plenty of credits to graduate and had already been accepted and paid my dorm deposit at Emory University, so I asked my Math teacher to let me take his course for no credit. To his everlasting credit, Mr. James Baskin refused. He told me I would just be a disruption if I did that, but more importantly that it would hurt my chances of getting into West Point. He told me if I was willing to work, he would help me pass his course, gave me a slide rule, taught me to use it and worked as hard as I did to get me through his College Algebra course with a C in the 3rd term a B+ on the final exam. When I got to West Point and took the placement test, I was placed in advanced Calculus and got an A the first semester using only what I had learned struggling to pass his course in a very good GA public school. I made the Dean’s list that first semester; after that I was on the “Dean’s other list”, but I managed to graduate just below the middle of my class in 1974. Years later I thought of James Baskin often when I was a USMA assistant professor of English working with cadets struggling in academics during “Additional Instruction”. The point is, I took the hard courses, did not give up when they proved difficult, took a leadership role in school and civilian activities, and stayed physically active participating in athletics. (Oh, I also took four years of Spanish and learned enough to validate, with full credit, my first year of Spanish at West Point; I had to take Advanced Spanish my second year as a cadet.) Those are the things I did to prepare.The reasons I chose West Point were multi-fold. I loved the kind of leadership and structure ROTC provided, and the Sr. Army Instructor and his staff of career NCOs made a strong positive impression of the Army as a career. The USMA offered the kinds of courses and active athletic environment I sought, and, finally, it was free. I had a brother in the same grade I was in, and it was going to be very hard for my parents, both of whom worked at a local textiles plant, to send both of us to school. My appointment to West Point took a lot of financial pressure off our parents.One more thing: I did finally make it to Emory when the Army sent me there for two years, fully funded, to get a MA in English so I could return to West Point 10 years after my own graduation and teach cadets for 3 years.My class will celebrate the 45th anniversary of our graduation this year, and I have never regretted my choice of West Point for college and the Army as a career. Go Army, Best Navy!

I am firmly in the camp that prefers the now to the back-when, overall, and as such I don’t wax nostalgic as much as most folks seem to do. I try to live in the present, informed by the past, alert to the future. Disclaimer over.My experience of the ‘80s is thus: Indianapolis, IN, east & south sides, age range= 11 to 21 years. In punk/alt rock bands (that played live shows) from 1984 onward, toured across Canada & a bit of the West Coast in ‘89 just before the quake; didn’t own or drive a vehicle until the van I bought five days prior to the aforementioned tour.The punk scene then was the original social media; we had to mail order music & t-shirts, but we also had a dependable network of like minds that meant that no matter where in the world you’d go, there would be folks ready to put you up & show you around.In my sub-low-brow, hilljack, ghetto-ass hometown, the scene was small, tight, fairly tribal, and decently diverse. You’d have a show with 100–200 in the crowd, and the line-up might consist of a death metal band, ska/funk, ‘77-style punk, and maybe some new wave band, with their respective entourages. There were some skins who mostly preyed on other punks and gay folks, until the SHARPS formed a chapter and turned it briefly into a straight up gang war. Crack was just catching on and THOSE gang wars were beginning. I went to a square-as-fuck, white-bread, heavily sports-centric high school where I would occasionally be sent home for a t-shirt or hairdo that was deemed inappropriate and/or dangerous. I made straight As, but an old hag on the board who had it in for us kept me and at least one of my friends out of the National Honor Society, robbing us of grant money for college that would’ve helped make up for the Republican loan policies which inhibited poor kids from going to school. I had a personal hate raging against Reagan and anybody that loved him. “Let ‘em eat jellybeans”, shoe-shine hair wax wearin’ Mayberry-built fake bumpkin-ass cunt-dick muhfuh!Most of my surrounding peers were of generic cookie-cutter stock who were either into classic rock (which was still being made at the time), hair ‘metal’, or top 40 pap. Besides punk, thrash, and rap, music was garbage; likewise TV was terrible and the multi-channel universe was in its infancy. Punks & the like were targeted by the cops as much if not more so than black folks were at the time.The Crossover of punk/thrash/Metal was easily the most momentous cultural event in my world, and continues to send its mighty waves outward. There was amazing LSD coming out of Bloomington (IU) and never-seen-again pure, dreamy, nauseating Taliban heroin around; yet the weed was god-awful Mexican brick shit that would disappear for weeks every summer. We drank fortified wine and malt liquor.The ‘80s were cool for me, probably a lot cooler than for most of my contemporaries, but only because we MADE it cool. Societal repression was omnipresent, nuclear holocaust was a huge and very real fear at all times, and I was an adolescent. Being a teenager has always sucked for myriad internal and external reasons, so that definitely wipes out any possible rose-tinted appeal that decade might hold for me.I’ll always choose the present over the past, because, well, there really isn’t a choice, is there?