One thing that’s unambiguous is that many ambitious high schoolers believe that where they go to college matters a great deal. My post is intended to address this audience.
It’s possible that I misread, but I interpreted Swimmer963′s point as saying exactly this—it really doesn’t matter what you do in high school, as long as you get into the college you’re aiming to get into. If this is what she meant, I probably agree—I don’t think there is any one-semester high school course which can’t be entirely learnt by a reasonably bright student in about 1 week of dedicated personal study.
How about this as a counter-example? This guy essentially got into Harvard because of one accident with a plagiarised essay when he was a kid (at least, that’s the way he tells his story), and is now a member of faculty at Chicago. I think life outcomes might be more path-dependent than we like to admit.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/504/how-i-got-into-college