My name is Matt, Graduated 1.5 years ago.
I have always studied my own interests and tend not to pay to close attention to what my teachers were asking the class. this often forces them to ask me questions just as often as I question them which usually sets us up as having some kind of discourse which leads to mentor-friendship. I quickly learned if the appearance of your intellect is large then you can usually form a friendly relationship with your teachers and they wont fail you if you put in a modicum of effort. I never really worried about my GPA in high-school and carried an SAT study book around about a week before my exam to force myself to study and absorb some of the carbon atoms through diffusion while I slept on the book. Somehow I got a good score and ended up at a nice cost effective CSU that people tell me is one of the best in the state. In college my GPA has been a good letter grade or so higher than high school but it feels like I'm doing a ton less work so I just applied for a few transfers to top tier schools because being lazy and getting accepted to good schools is what currently keeps my family supplying me with funds. Eliezer was the first writer to ever draw me away from the endless super-stimuli of the internet long enough to make me feel bad about not being more altruistic. Once I met him and saw how overworked you guys are compared to my lazy lifestyle I started a fun plan to hopefully be able to supply SIAI and myself with useful amounts of capital till I am out of school which recently has taken a $400 hit after initial successes. I will persist as long as I can delude myself into the sunk cost fallacy however so don't worry too much about me :)
3-4. My family is amazing and I would give anything to be able to pay for their cryonics payments today but right now we are still trying to put my brothers and I through school. Once I graduate and can put my engineering degree to work I hope I can work with my father who has a work ethic that I have previously been able to copy in his presence and convince them to let me pay for their cryonics as well as continuing to hobby in coding and supporting SIAI through the primary unit of caring.
5. I'm not 20 yet, so I will send in an application when the next round comes around.
6. I never really felt like I needed to introduce myself to LessWrong, I felt like I had found an overbearing set of grandparents the instant I found the place and they seem a lot more open-minded than my original set who I still love deeply and will miss for as long as I live.
I felt like posting on this thread mainly because young people who aren't as lazy as me are great assets to LessWrong and I want to say that I'm extremely proud of your ability to focus in High School and offer my personal advice to any who seek it on anything. If your looking for general High School advice, I suggest you do not under any circumstances go after a Marine's girlfriend and try to make as many friends(or optimize for charisma) as possible like our dear wedifrid suggests below.
2) my teacher's always get very angry when I read in their classes. They aren't really intellectuals. They have gotten good at repeating the same lecture period after period year after year (although there are exceptions whom I very grateful for).
As a continuation of the original Welcome thread (if you haven't gone there, go there fist) I think we need a separate introduction thread for highschoolers.
Who: As a demographic, I think that we can probably be characterized by:
1. Our newness to LW.
2. Our uncertainty about which college or career to choose.
3. (if we are in a public school) Looking for ways to game the system (because we're not learning much in it).
4. Our potential to make a huge impact (the best advantage is an early start).
5. An lack of face to face interaction with intellectual people.
Why: I can think of several things this could help highschoolers with.
1. See where you stack up compared to others your age (We're probably all big fish in small ponds. At least I am. Let's get an idea of what the big pond is like).
2. Make friends with people like you.
3. Consider college and career ideas you hadn't considered before.
4. Perhaps find people to apply with for the Thiel Fellowship.
5. Find a chavruta to go through the sequences with you.
What: Tell us the following:
1. How old/what year are you?
2. How have you tried to enhance your education beyond what's normally offered at schools?
3. How many rationalist/philosophical people are at your school/family?
4. What careers/schools are you considering?
5. Are you going to apply for a Thiel Fellowship?
6. EDIT: link to your old "introduce yourself" post.
If you're not in highschool, tell us what you would have told your old highschool self.