At 18 I won a national writing competition. I had offers from many liberal arts schools (even without taking the SAT yet, which I never did). I received letters from President George Bush (the first), Governor Ned McWhertyer, Senator Al Gore, and several other politicians too. I never took the SAT because "college was bad", and by the time I really had thought to do something about my future, it was really too late to try and get a scholarship. I had one option I could see on that end.
I had had this plan to steal away from town and go to Merchant Marine Academy, which would have been free education as long as I did my stint in the Naval Reserve later (which I had conscientious problems with that made me feel very badly). All that was required was a letter of recommendation from my local congressman, which I already had, but after highschool I started seriously a fellow witness and we got married. Love won out, but also I knew that if I had signed up for the MMA, I would have been disfellowshipped due having to take an officer's commision in naval reserve afterwords. One year later I was stacking books onto a pallet for minimum wage, and having to come up with a new career strategy, which i did.