grew up poor and went to a tiny public middle school in the city. entire school had maybe 150 kids.

a top private boarding school (nationally ranked, i think two presidents graduated from here...) was interested in offering full scholarships to two kids, based on how they tested.

so naturally, the top 2 kids in the school were selected to take the aptitude test. my friend amy and i were the top two kids, respectively.

one of the parents found out about this and made a big stink that her son, zach, wasn't chosen (he was a C student). she was pretty much screaming at our principal that it was unfair -- we all heard the commotion. zach's mom threatened to file a complaint with the board of ed, etc. etc.

the principal gave zach my spot. (i didn't know this at the time, i was 12, that friend amy told me about all of this years later). and my parents were immigrants who didn't speak any english, so they didn't know about or understood any of this.

so zach and amy went to take the test and went thru the interview process. it was super competitive. as expected, zach didn't make the cut, amy did.

i still kept in touch with Amy via AIM. she eventually graduated the boarding school, and since it was a feeder school to pretty much... all the Ivy Leagues, she got into most of them, and went to Harvard.

I mean.. I did well for myself since, but I'm still annoyed that just because some brat's mom complained, it pretty much affected my life.. forever. Who knows what would have happened if I went to the boarding school instead. Maybe I would have had a better education, maybe I would've gotten better scholarships, maybe I would've had more options in life.