As a lifelong Bay Area resident, I have grown up equally daunted and thrilled by the prospect of attending an elite college. In kindergarten, I made one of my closest friends by ambitiously proclaiming that we would go to Harvard together. Although I lost a bit of my audacity in high school, gaining...

When users open the Palo Alto feed on the neighborhood social networking site NextDoor, a multitude of posts pop up. Some seek advice. Some ask about the dining in the area. Some look for the best afterschool program. Aside from these queries, however, there are a surprising number of complaints, many...

By Shagun Khare “_______ is probably going to go to Stanford, and I am probably going to Foothill.” For the hundreds of times we have heard it or even said it, the phrase does not cause a single person to flinch, much less speak up about it. We are enveloped in an environment that is intellectually...