Long-ish term goal

In light of the last post on "real" rankings, where it was found that, once you got rid of the low-ranking juniors, the median rating of active players in the USCF is around 1800, I decided to revise my long-term goals slightly. I think my long-term goal will be to get to a solid class A level. I think that is very attainable if I work at it. I will then be able to compete reasonably in open events, though I won't come close to winning anything with decent competition. I think part of the reason for the high median rating is that people, either kids or adults, don't stick with tournament-level chess unless they're good at it. If they aren't, they're much more likely to stop going to tournaments because it's a lot of time, work, and money to go to a tournament, especially if you're not playing at a reasonable level. You can enjoy chess a lot without going to tournaments, after all. Also, the people who really enjoy chess as children and continue that through to adulthood are probably much more likely to improve to a reasonable level while still a kid.