My friendship group in secondary school were a awful influence on my life. I did better than them in gcse, and was the only person to go to this local college, everyone else went to another, and tried to persuade me out of it. It changed my life, never have I been so thankful to be rid of them. May sound cruel, but friendships at this point in life are rarely lasting. In 12 months when everyone's disappeared to uni, and you've been pulled down to a worse uni because of them, you'll be left wondering why it was worth it. Trust me its not.