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Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

movingthelimit.com

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Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#81

Post by deely3 »

badrequest wrote: post #61
searealist wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You honestly believe that people who get into Harvard don't have more self-discipline on average that those who don't?

Not the GP, but emphatically and obviously yes. There's the "reads a new book once per week" type of discipline that the average ivy leaguer tends to have, and there's the "wakes up at 4AM to go to the job they don't like despite how much their back hurts" discipline that the working class are obligated to develop.

Whoa, thats quite arrogant statement. So, are you PR person from Harvard?

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#82

Post by benrutter »

enufstuff wrote: post #57

> One of my friends would always say (after poor grades or job rejections) "I wasn't even trying." By his logic, if he didn't try, then he didn't really fail, because the true extent of his abilities remained untested. He would often play videos games rather than study, just so he could have a plausible excuse for failure. It would be an existential threat for him to do his absolute best but come up short. I knew som…

It's so sad to hear stories like this. I think there's a real danger with gifted young people to start to see success as the default and by extension for education to only offer modes for failure.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#83

Post by blackbear_ »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #72
complex_exp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ivy league students don't get there by themselves. A life-time of adults help you. See, this is what I do not get. I got without excessive effort into a top university in Europe. I never had to be taken care nearly this much. Learned calculus at 14-15 by buying an old book in a used book store. Learned programming at around the same age by reading C++ tutorials and doing programming competitions (ACM style, but eas…

It's way easier to get into elite schools in Europe than top tier American ivies.

Citation needed?

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#84

Post by bigDinosaur »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #72
complex_exp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ivy league students don't get there by themselves. A life-time of adults help you. See, this is what I do not get. I got without excessive effort into a top university in Europe. I never had to be taken care nearly this much. Learned calculus at 14-15 by buying an old book in a used book store. Learned programming at around the same age by reading C++ tutorials and doing programming competitions (ACM style, but eas…

It's way easier to get into elite schools in Europe than top tier American ivies.

I imagine this is a generalisation, some of the elite universities in Europe require 2 year prep programs before you can even apply (e.g. France) which doesn't sound easier than top American ivies?

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#85

Post by lordnacho »

complex_exp wrote: post #56
bruce511 wrote: post #20

Some are born with goals, some find their own goals, and some have goals thrust upon them. Being a smart kid can be hard. Parents, teachers and peers see that mythical attribute "potential" and push you in directions to reach it. Get A's in school? Gotta be a doctor or lawyer. (OK, that ages me, today they'd be pushing for programmer.) Graduating college with a degree you never wanted must be depressing for the perso…

> Ivy league students don't get there by themselves. A life-time of adults help you. See, this is what I do not get. I got without excessive effort into a top university in Europe. I never had to be taken care nearly this much. Learned calculus at 14-15 by buying an old book in a used book store. Learned programming at around the same age by reading C++ tutorials and doing programming competitions (ACM style, but eas…

> I believe I would be admitted to an Ivy school if I were American, based on my professional experience with people that studied there.

The admission rates are very, very low. I have no problem believing you could follow the studies there, but so could most people who applied. In the US the advertised admission rates are in the single digit percents, and that is after people who have a leg up from having parents who attended the school and various others.

So you end up with a bunch of kids who need to have absolutely top grades, with ridiculous extracurricular activities like publishing research or starting a business. You end up having to give up your entire childhood to do things to have a chance at one of these schools.

Where does self-motivation go? Well if you already know you're going to be a programmer, your motivation is to code, that's how you get good at it. But you also need to be doing your other classes like literature and French plus running your charity. You'll be reminded of this by helpful teachers and parents.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#86

Post by StanislavPetrov »

Certainly your conclusions and observations are accurate for many. However you have to account for the extremely smart people (who are over represented in the Ivy League) who realize (or perceive, depending on your perspective) that "success" in life isn't measured by how much money you make, how prestigious a position you hold or how much "respected" people in society value how you choose to pass the time. I've befriended a lot of extremely smart people who got degrees from Ivy League schools, held very prestigious jobs, made a lot of money and were well-respected by the upper echelons of society. Many of them have worked from dawn until dusk since they left school, are now in their 50s, and are starting to realize that all the money in the world can't bring back the 30 years they wasted pushing the wheel. Who is to judge that living in a shack on the beach is a less fulfilling and happy existence than making $30 million dollars a year being the CEO of Raytheon and profiting off of destruction, sitting in a cubicle punching out code or working as some other functionary making a good salary?

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#88

Post by DropInIn »

p-e-w wrote: post #77
Gareth321 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While true, the estimated average IQ at Harvard is 142. IQ is highly associated with self-control and discipline.

> IQ is highly associated with self-control and discipline. I'd like to see a citation for that, especially for the idea that the self-control/discipline associated with high IQs transfers over to non-academic aspects of life, which is what's in question here.

I'm pretty sure they're conflating a higher likelihood of determining an action precluding risk factor prior to action with actual self control and discipline....

It's more just that the smarter you are the more likely you are to both recognize the existence of the risk factor as well as "do the math" before your impulses induce action.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#89

Post by lordnacho »

blackbear_ wrote: post #83
atleastoptimal wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's way easier to get into elite schools in Europe than top tier American ivies.

Citation needed?

I think you can still find the admission rates for Oxbridge online. Keep in mind you can only apply to one or the other when comparing.

It varies a lot depending on course, but here is Oxford: https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-stat...

For undergrad it's 14%.

Harvard: https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics

3%

That's quite some difference, especially if we consider that Harvard has special tracks for legacies and various others. What's the real admission rate? 2%?

For other European unis I don't know what exactly the criteria are for being elite.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#90

Post by lordnacho »

noisy_boy wrote: post #55
cantrevealname wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gotta be a doctor or lawyer ... today they'd be pushing for programmer. Where are you getting that from? Parents and teachers still push for doctor or lawyer for smart kids. Only if doctor or lawyer is unattainable would they suggest programmer. Furthermore, everybody still perceives doctors and lawyers to have higher status than programmers. Just look at TV shows from the 80s vs recent years: The high prestige cha…

Forget about status, I would rather not subject my kid to the constant catchup treadmill; jquery then, SPA yesterday, AI today, god-knows-what tomorrow, its like a never ending thing - its not enough to be stressed by work all week long, now you need to spend the couple of days of break also on learning the next flavor of the month. Sure lawyers have to catchup with changing laws and doctors need to catchup with new…

The real difference is lawyers and doctors are protected by law from competition.

If programmers had similar gatekeeping, the union would make sure everyone had access to training from time to time.

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