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95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

danluu.com

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Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#191

Post by lostinroutine »

mint2 wrote: post #89
tyingq wrote: post #9

95th percentile for an SAT score is something like 1450. That's fairly impressive to me. Feels like scoring higher might often have more to do with effort than ability. Is that excluded from the line of thought in the blog post because it's among "people who regularly practice?" Or is it that effort vs ability thing? Not impressive because you were born smart? In a totally "no effort" arena, 95th percentile height fo…

I’m Recalling whether it was 96% or 94%, but I got a perfect on my math sat II. And yet the perfect score was only ~95%. Top 1/20 Can be impressive or unimpressive depending on context. Top 1/20 is impressive if everyone in the group is competitive. It’s not impressive if it’s 1/20 out of a bunch of randoms who’ve never tried to be good at it.

In your case, I'd say ~95% in Math SAT II is still rather impressive because the group of people taking SAT II is already self-selected as few schools actually require the test.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#192

Post by jefftk »

jonplackett wrote: post #189
jefftk wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least on mobile I find it much easier to read and faster than almost anything else I see on the web. Plain HTML with a bit of CSS goes a long way!

On desktop the type is sooooo tiny!

You're right: on desktop it would benefit from a narrower column width and somewhat larger text

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#193

Post by Mountain_Skies »

ken wrote: post #152
cdoxsey wrote: post #12

On the flip side. Sometimes you're just not that good at stuff despite your best efforts. In college I really struggled with math. Which was a challenge because computer science has you take a lot of math classes. In my calculus class I studied so hard for the final. Did every problem in the book. And I still just got a B in the class. At the same time my programming classes were really easy. I didn't study at all an…

"Amadeus" is famously fictitious. In real life Salieri and Mozart were friends. It's good dramatic writing but that's all. I'm somewhat disappointed that, of all the possible stories and lessons one could tell about Mozart's life, the one that Hollywood chose to immortalize on the silver screen is simultaneously depressing, disparaging, and false.

More recently the movie "Sully" portrayed the NTSB as being some conniving government organization that is out to get airline pilots for some reason. The real world Captain Sullenberger had to release a statement to correct this false injected dramatization of the investigation. There was no reason to do this other than to spice up the story, which is unfortunate especially given most of the people depicted in the movie are alive.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#194

Post by cdoxsey »

SkyBelow wrote: post #59
cdoxsey wrote: post #12

On the flip side. Sometimes you're just not that good at stuff despite your best efforts. In college I really struggled with math. Which was a challenge because computer science has you take a lot of math classes. In my calculus class I studied so hard for the final. Did every problem in the book. And I still just got a B in the class. At the same time my programming classes were really easy. I didn't study at all an…

>Based on my interviewing history I'm not in the 95th percentile of programmers - I'm routinely outright rejected and don't even land the on-site interview. And this is basically my best skill for which I've invested an enormous amount of time and energy. This means you aren't high in the 'programming interview' skill set. While related, I consider it distinctly different than the 'programming' skill set. I think it…

Indeed this is something I've had to learn to do. I'll spend a few weeks working coding problems on whiteboards, practicing answering questions, clean up my resume, try to showcase my best work on GitHub, and spend hours on each cover letter.

It helps a little but I know it will never be something I'm very good at. Sometimes things in life are hard and never get any easier.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#195

Post by inerte »

mvc wrote: post #36
bretpiatt wrote: post #23

This entirely depends on the population you sample from and the competition level of the activity. Looking at high school football in the United States, the top ~5% get a scholarship to play in college[1]. The author's example of Overwatch is one where very few people playing have joined paid leagues, hold regular practices, have paid coaching staff, have training facilities, etc. versus kids playing football. 1: htt…

I think the author's point was that you don't need to have exceptional talent to get into that 5% range. Basically that consistent hard work will get you there. I think this actually would apply to football scholarships. Remember not all people who win a scholarship are going to become professional players. I suspect that is probably is required (in addition to consistent hard work). Of course it is easier to put in…

A quick search shows there's ~1M high school players, and only 7.1% become college players https://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/football-proba... and then from these ~73k college players, only 1.6% become professionals https://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/estimated-prob...

I think high school and college players work really, really hard. Getting ahead of 92.9% of other hard working players, followed by beating 98.5% of this already small group, is certainly a feat. Sure, it's "basically consistent hard work", but distilling years of practice, coaching, diet, personal life sacrifices, into just "so really all it takes is working hard" is an oversimplification that doesn't do justice to the actual reality involved.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#196

Post by vidarh »

SkyBelow wrote: post #161
yibg wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve actually mostly answered honestly, but also follow up with what I’m doing to try to improve on this weakness. For example I know one of my weaknesses is I get impatient and cut people off half way, believing I already know where they are going. Besides being rude I’m also wrong some times. It’s a legitimate short coming, but the key is I’m aware of it and am activity doing something about it. Some interviewers a…

But is that your biggest weakness? Or is that a smaller weakness that, while still being a definite weakness, is socially acceptable and something you can show improvement on? If they asked what is one of your weaknesses and how are you working to overcome it, then that is a perfectly legitimate answer. Perhaps too many interviewers ask for the biggest weakness when they actually mean to ask a question more like that…

If your biggest weakness is a major problem, then hopefully it is also something you're urgently addressing. If you're unfortunate and have to apply for jobs while you're still working on that aspect of yourself, then you may need to find a way to sell it, but really for most people this shouldn't be something you need to agonize over for very long.

Of course everyone who asks this question is looking for how you reply, and don't necessarily believe you'll tell them the absolute truth.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#197

Post by malisper »

It seems like most of the top level responses are responding to the title and not the actual argument. The argument Dan is making is that you can easily get relatively good at most activities. This is because most of the people doing those activities aren't actively trying to get to get better.

95th percentile is probably not the best way to put it since there are tons of activities where nearly everyone is trying to actively get better such as competitive sports. Dan's thesis doesn't hold true for those activities and he knows that. That doesn't change the fact that there are a ton of activities out there where you can easily get better than most people by practicing.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#199

Post by cdoxsey »

gauravjain13 wrote: post #160
cdoxsey wrote: post #12

On the flip side. Sometimes you're just not that good at stuff despite your best efforts. In college I really struggled with math. Which was a challenge because computer science has you take a lot of math classes. In my calculus class I studied so hard for the final. Did every problem in the book. And I still just got a B in the class. At the same time my programming classes were really easy. I didn't study at all an…

Amadeus is a movie that really resonated for the reasons you mention. However, another movie that really resonated, and offers a counterpoint to you’re-either-born-with-it-or-not fatalism is Gattaca. (Of course, one could argue that Amadeus is a “true story”, whereas Gattaca is science fiction.)

Indeed. That scene where he's running on the treadmill with a recorded heartbeat is so true to life.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#200

Post by cdoxsey »

Swizec wrote: post #85
cdoxsey wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can be very quick and can work diligently (grit my way through a problem) but I struggle with design and some high level concepts. Interviews ask abstract and theoretical computer sciency type questions and in real life I would usually google my way to a solution on those types of questions, so I do very poorly on the spot. (forget everything or say something dumb) But in practice I can usually deliver quicker than…

> Interviews ask abstract and theoretical computer sciency type questions and in real life I would usually google my way to a solution on those types of questions, so I do very poorly on the spot. Fwiw some of us ask abstract questions with the sole purpose of breaking you out of coding mode and into thinking mode. I wanna see how you break down a problem you haven’t encountered before. Not how you google a solution…

Right. I'm not good at those kinds of questions. I can code quickly but rigorous thought takes time for me. I need to ponder a design question for a while or work on two or three prototypes before I feel like I know what to do.

FWIW I've also seen the opposite. A developer who was a very good thinker and talker, but got stuck for two weeks on an issue with a Google API. It took me five minutes to figure out what was wrong. Not cause I'm smart, actually the opposite, I have to break problems down to things I can understand and it's that process which lends itself well to fixing bugs.

But I'm sure he would've run circles around me when designing an API or architecting out multiple systems.

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