Student IDLike many other bright Iowans, I never took the SAT. The U of Iowa accepts scores from the American College Test (based in Iowa City, like the U of I itself) for enrollment–and you could go a long way without finding a better university than Iowa. (Incidentally, ‘educators’ in states like North Carolina claim Iowa’s low rate of taking the SAT means that the state’s ranking is artificially raised. The evidence is that the 5% of Iowans who do take the SAT are in fact a fully representative sample; but if you’re an education bureaucrat from NC, you grasp at straws.) 

I had wonderful teachers at Iowa. They taught me not only how to learn but to love learning. Moreover, I worked in the Main Library as a book page, an education in itself. In the course of reshelving everything that came through the library, I learned of the existence of all sorts of subjects that I’d never have run into in my normal classwork. I pursued some of them, on my own and in classes, and broadened my range of knowledge and interests enormously.  continue reading…