At the beginning of my son’s senior year we went on a mad rush of college visits trying to find the most elite school offering a computer science degree where he would actually have a shot at getting accepted. MIT was out of the question.

In his early years of high school my son had pushed himself in some areas, such as progressing to calculus by his sophomore year and skipping the initial computer science class, but he struggled to get good grades in calculus and neglected other areas. Although he managed to make it to the top 10% he was nowhere near the top of his class. However, what caught the attention of some recruiters college recruiters was a computer science student that had been co-president of the debate team.

This occurred almost by accident. While in ninth grade, he was scheduled to attend classes at the senior high…