"Giving up your life for the Ivy League"

This story in the LA Times about admissions to Ivies reminded me about CBS's 60 minute show on India's top tech schools, the IITs...

From the LA Times story:

We've all heard about the kids who are bound and determined to enter Harvard, and whose parents won't be appeased by Princeton. They stay up until 2 a.m., grinding away, while their mothers cook up midnight snacks to keep them going.

and from the CBS story transcript:

“I normally stay up all night and study for my exams,” says one student.

After years of preparation, students reach the day they and their families believe will make or break the future finally arrives.

“On the day of the exam, my dad, my mom and my younger brother -- they all accompanied me to the center,” says one student. “I said, 'OK, now you
can leave. I'll come home on my own.' But I was literally amazed when I came back out of the center and see my parents and brother still waiting for me outside the center.”

I also distinctly remember in the actual CBS show an IIT-ian relating how his mom too would stay up when he was studying late for the IITs and keep offering him hot milk and stuff...

egad...