In fact, based upon my experience, I'm prepared to suggest strongly that there is no such thing as luck. Today, you who are students are among about 15 million people enrolled in American high schools. Almost four million of you go to public schools and just under 1.5 million attend private schools. Overall, there are over 50 million people enrolled at all levels of formal K-12 education. The quality of the competition is also increasing.
More students beginning their formal education earlier sharpens the competition.
The racial and ethnic composition of the competition is changing in ways which are reflective of the larger society. Hispanic student enrollments have doubled since 1976. This country obviously is evolving to become increasingly Multicultural. Remember, the significance of this is not in the here and now, but in what it portends in the future. Your world, the societal context within which you live, work and raise a family, will be unlike that of your parents in fairly remarkable and highly unprecedented ways.