The advice mostly still applies if you replace "Stanford" with "Higher Education Program"<p>For most 18 year olds, doing well in school has been _the_ thing to focus on, for their entire life. Using school as a means to achieve something _else_ is a pretty big change in how they think about the world. And using it well requires both knowing what the "something else" is and how to use your higher education program to achieve it.<p>This shift comes at the same time as a huge amount of independence & life changes (from parents/home town), and most people I know (me included) didn't really understand the purpose of higher education until they were a senior, or later<p>Or even if they do, it's hard at 18 to know what the "something else" is