Quotes from Alexandra Robbins

I tend to focus on young people and on giving a voice to groups of people who don't normally get their voices heard.

It's not about what you've done; it's how you've experienced whatever has happened to you. Matt Lawrence in The Overachievers

In one survey, respondents listed Princeton as one of the country's top ten law schools. The problem? Princeton doesn't have a law school

Conformity is not an admirable trait. Conformity is a copout. It threatens self-awareness. It can lead groups to enforce rigid and arbitrary rules.

It was the fact that they tried so hard that doomed them.

Unruly geeks change the world

No student should be encouraged -- by anyone -- to change himself until he's "normal," a term that says everything and means nothing.

Nothing is more unnerving to the truly conventional than the unashamed misfit.

Although she was gregarious, she inadvertently separated herself from people because she was so often inside her own head, focusing on her creativity.

If schools celebrated student scientists the same way they celebrate student athletes, more students would be encouraged to pursue the subject. Instead, science is considered nerdy because schools help students to paint it that way.

When a child sees herself through the prism of her peer group, the resulting self image can be distorted.

If there is a single factor that spells out the difference between the cafeteria fringe headed for greatness and those doomed for low self-worth, even more than a caring teacher or a group of friends, it is supportive, accepting parents who not only love their children unconditionally, but also don't make them feel as if their idiosyncrasies qualify as "conditions" in the first place.

In 1994, the College Board changed the test's name from Scholastic Aptitude Test to the Scholastic Assessment Test. Now according to the College Board, the letters don't stand for anything anymore. Perhaps that itself is symbolic.

Social standing does not necessarily translate to social acceptance.

Being an outsider doesn't necessarily indicate any sort of social failing. We do not view a tuba player as musically challenged if he cannot play the violin.

What made Einstein special was his impertinence, his nonconformity, and his distaste for dogma. Einstein's genius reminds us that a society's competitive advantage comes not from teaching the multiplication or periodic tables but from nurturing rebels. Grinds have their place, but unruly geeks change the world. (Walter Issacson, Wired)

Someone else's success is not your failure.

Awkwardness defines my life.

The trade-off seems like a no-brainer. Would you rather be bribed during your hospital stay with made-to-order omelets or would you rather be, for example, not dead?

The human brain takes in information from other people and incorporates it with the information coming from its own senses, neuroscientist Gregory Berns has written. Many times, the group's opinion trumps the individual's before he even becomes aware of it.

Nonconformists aren't just going against the grain; they're going against the brain. Either their brains aren't taking the easy way out to begin with, or in standing apart from their peers, these students are standing up to their biology.

Too many parents fail to understand that there is a difference between fitting in and being liked, that there is a difference between being "normal" and being happy. High school is temporary. Family is not.

Conformity is a mask behind which students can hide their identity or the fact that they haven't yet figured out their identity.

If teachers are uncomfortable at their own school, they will pass on their uncertainties or negative attitude to students.