College? How about High School

It's junior year, and the hot topic for my classmates and I is college. Everything revolves around getting into college. High level classes, APs, SATs, SAT IIs, ACT, extracurriculars, etc. Obviously, I have been buying into all of this as well. I have a dream to get into big name universities like Carnegie Mellon, Penn, Princeton, and MIT, so I have no choice but to try and excel at everything. Recently, when I received my SAT score (which I was disappointed about) I thought to myself, I should take a step back. Let me actually think about whats going on. Why do I want to get into a good school? To learn, to have good career prospects, for the big names (cmon, admit it). Well, right now, I'm in high school, getting a solid public education for no extra cost. Why not learn a lot while I'm here? Everything is not about getting into college. In the grand scheme of things, what really matters is what I learn in school and how I enjoy myself. If I focus on learning more than grades and scores, maybe I will look back and appreciate my high school years. Unfortunately, the system just works on grades and test scores and resumes, so I can't really wholeheartedly support my theory. But it's just a thought.