This is particularly exaggerated among Stanford undergrads, presumably by intent of the admissions department. I didn't do my undergrad at Stanford, but I've h

This is particularly exaggerated among Stanford undergrads, presumably by intent of the admissions department. I didn't do my undergrad at Stanford, but I've heard many stories from undergrad friends about the guy down the hall who didn't seem particularly outstanding or bright, until he turned out to be e.g. the #2 model airplane builder in the world. This line in particular stood out to me: >Admissions officers would agree. They’re not looking to build hardworking and diligent classes. Instead, they want to build classes that are interesting. The emphasis on this elusive impressive/unusual quality over raw academic prowess also explains the quality of some of the problem sets I've graded...but then, doing well on problem sets and starting successful companies (or becoming an outlier by some other metric of success) are completely different things. Stanford optimizes for the latter.