We had dinner tonight with a family that's friends of my cousins -- a man and wife and their 18-year-old son who has grown up in France but is thinking about going to an American university. I learned a bit about the French university and "grande ecole" system, which is different from ours. This kid, for example, is in a transition year before he will have to take a test to see whether he can go to the prestigious grande ecoles or will have to settle for a much less prestigious university, the end result being that his fate will be determined to a much greater extent than it is here by this one test. So his current program is structured much like a university here as far as coursework -- only there's a lot more of it... he's in class 35 hours a week plus homework, and the entire year enveloped with the pressure that he has to do well on this test at the end -- a content-based test as opposed to the more intelligence-aimed SAT. Sounds like a fairly unpleasant situation, actually. Not sure I have a point to make here, but I thought it was interesting an I'd share...