Margaret Spellings Quotes

When I was applying to college, my mother told me I could apply to any school within the Boston subway map.

I started getting letters from college in the tenth grade.

I feel it has become increasingly competitive. There are some insane cut-offs to get into a lot of colleges.

Though my parents were professionals and expected me to go to college, they were immigrants from India with no idea about how the admissions process worked in the United States or the importance of standardized tests.

Before high school ended, I started applying to college. It really wasn't even a choice because of the brainwashing of my parents.

I realized that the only way to get into a good college was to be valedictorian or salutatorian. So that was my goal.

I kept up top grades, and by senior year, a flow of mailed college recruiting brochures accumulated into an avalanche on our dining room table.

Basically, my senior year of high school, I was going to look at prospective colleges and I went to visit Northeastern University because one of my friends was going.

However, I had a chance encounter with an admissions officer of Stevens Institute of Technology, who so impressed me by his erudition and enthusiasm for the school that I changed course and entered Stevens Institute.

How much does it really matter whether your child will soon be enjoying a first year at Harvard or Yale or will instead end up at her third or fourth or fifth choice? Probably much less than you think.

I wanted to go to a good college, and my mind was set on Wellesley.

I don't think I could have thought of any place other than Stanford to leave Harvard for.

In K-12, almost everybody goes to local schools. Universities are a bit different because kids actually do pick the university. The bizarre thing, though, is that the merit of university is actually how good the students going in are: the SAT scores of the kids going in.

At some of our most competitive universities, 17 times the amount of students that can go to the school, apply. And these applicants are from all over the country, and admissions officers need ways to sort through them. The SAT is just one of those things.

I didn't even know about MIT until two weeks before I applied.

I made three visits during my senior year of high school to Duke, UNC, and Virginia. If I hadn't gone to Duke, I would have went to Carolina, just like a lot of Carolina players who, had they not gone there, would have went to Duke.

I'm really considering all the schools. It's not fair for me to only look at certain... programs just because they had players that are at my stature.

People would ask what college are you going to, and I'd say, 'San Diego State.' And they'd say, 'Why?'

I'm 18, I'm going to graduate high school in a few months.

It feels like it's the end of the world if you don't do well on your SATs.

When I was in high school, I didn't feel like I had to pile on the APs in order to look good to colleges. High-achieving classmates didn't use private tutors.

Economists actually disagree about whether there are significant economic returns from attending an elite college versus a less-selective one.

To compete in a global economy, our students must continue their education beyond high school. To make this expectation a reality, we must give students the tools they need to succeed, including the opportunity to take a college entrance exam.

The scramble to get into college is going to be so terrible in the next few years that students are going to put up with almost anything, even an education.

I'm sure that being an applicant from the American School in Vienna helped get me into all seven colleges I applied to.