When the students are fed to sharks

There seems to be a popular myth that at Stuyvesant high school (you know, the math/science one in new york city) the marine science department maintains a shark tank that they drop B-students into. yeah, so that... doesn't happen. obviously i'm speaking metaphorically, but the point remains the same: yes it's intense, but no, they do not kill you if you fail a physics test. The SHP people do that. No, still kidding.
I don't go to stuy, but I know people who do and they wholeheartedly maintain that they do have stupid friends at their school and they are actually friends with these friends (just in case I had to clarify that). It is true that math team is a class there, they send the most students of any high school in the country to MIT (I think), and ~30 people get into Harvard each year-- not all of them seniors though. yeah, this kid in my cosmology class @ SHP said he has a classmate who finished the whole math and science curriculum (including AP calc BC) before he started high school. said student was kind of bored by sophomore year (he was taking advanced math courses at nearby NYU at this point) so he just decided to go to harvard. it's not every day taht you hear about someone who "just decided to go to harvard" the way people like me "just decide to have pancakes for breakfast." people like him are the reason why stuy got its scary reputation.
i don't know the math team captain, but i do know the science olympiads team captain and he's a nice, normal guy. he was the guy who finally told our cosmology teacher what everyone else was thinking: "I have no freaking idea what you're talking about." So, thank you, person-who-I-consider-a-friend-and-see-in-random-subway-stations-but-whose-name-I-do-not-know. I look forward to staring awkardly at you again on the Number 2 train until I remember where I know you from.
Ok, maybe Stuy is intense. I downplay this too much. But still, if there were ANY school where they fed students to sharks, it would be thomas jefferson in alexandria, VA. They have a freaking supercomputer. they had THIRTY physics olympiad semifinalists. that's more semifinalists than my school has physics students! (Of the AP Physics C variety, that is.)

By the way, I may a little behind the times, but I just saw the Adam Lambert music video for that song "what do you want from me" (<- sorry I didn't glorify that title with "fo shizzled" random consonants and missing syllables) and I always thought he was hispanic. he's an albino emo dude? really? i'm albino. that's not cool on mopey pop stars.
one last thought: american education standards may be falling elsewhere, but I swear they're getting more shark-likehere.