2 ms·

Because Stanford is incredibly selective, and is one of the 4 premier CS institutions in the world? I dunno, as someone that went to a public school with a 50%

Because Stanford is incredibly selective, and is one of the 4 premier CS institutions in the world? I dunno, as someone that went to a public school with a 50% accept rate it seems difficult to imagine “academic superhumans” struggle with anything, ever.

pritambaral 9y ago
> it seems difficult to imagine “academic superhumans” struggle with anything, ever. I know a person who went to a comparable institution in my country, who was considered something of a prodigy by his peers (and me) both before being selected and after joining the institution, and who struggled a lot with his academic responsibilities. In fact, I know a few of them. One of them had to drop out of the institution after repeatedly trying to finish his academic programme, and after two years of extensions. People struggle with things, in general. Everybody has their struggles, everybody has their demons. Even "superhumans". What we should be aiming for is not the lack of struggles — for that is merely the absence of effort — but perseverance in the face of it and growth from going through it.
ubernostrum 9y ago
I'm sure you believe that there's something special about Stanford. Many people believe that. What I'm saying is that, in my experience, the belief doesn't hold up. If it were possible to reliably identify "academic superhumans" and concentrate them in one place, we'd have absolutely indisputable evidence of it. The fact that we don't suggests that perhaps your beliefs about how Stanford's admission practices correlate with quality of graduates may be mistaken.
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CuriouslyC 9y ago
The best performing students I've ever met weren't ridiculously smart. They were slightly above average, but they excelled at finding out exactly what the teacher was going to test and drilling that ruthlessly. They also worked harder than most of their peers. They also know how to present their answers well, and I think teachers subconsciously give them more credit when they're not exactly right. As a funny anecdote, once I let a top copy my homework because he had just come home from a family emergency. He actually got a higher score on that homework than I did, despite the content of our answers being the same.
kthejoker2 9y ago
I forget who, but in (99% sure) Werner Herzig's Lo and Behold there's a (Stanford?) professor who says when they first did some MOOC they had all the kids in the Stanford course taking it as well, and of the 50,000 or whatever number of people taking the course, the top Stanford student finished like #430 in the course.

pritambaral 9y ago

> it seems difficult to imagine “academic superhumans” struggle with anything, ever. I know a person who went to a comparable institution in my country, who was considered something of a prodigy by his peers (and me) both before being selected and after joining the institution, and who struggled a lot with his academic responsibilities. In fact, I know a few of them. One of them had to drop out of the institution after repeatedly trying to finish his academic programme, and after two years of extensions. People struggle with things, in general. Everybody has their struggles, everybody has their demons. Even "superhumans". What we should be aiming for is not the lack of struggles — for that is merely the absence of effort — but perseverance in the face of it and growth from going through it.

ubernostrum 9y ago

I'm sure you believe that there's something special about Stanford. Many people believe that. What I'm saying is that, in my experience, the belief doesn't hold up. If it were possible to reliably identify "academic superhumans" and concentrate them in one place, we'd have absolutely indisputable evidence of it. The fact that we don't suggests that perhaps your beliefs about how Stanford's admission practices correlate with quality of graduates may be mistaken.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

CuriouslyC 9y ago

The best performing students I've ever met weren't ridiculously smart. They were slightly above average, but they excelled at finding out exactly what the teacher was going to test and drilling that ruthlessly. They also worked harder than most of their peers. They also know how to present their answers well, and I think teachers subconsciously give them more credit when they're not exactly right. As a funny anecdote, once I let a top copy my homework because he had just come home from a family emergency. He actually got a higher score on that homework than I did, despite the content of our answers being the same.

kthejoker2 9y ago

I forget who, but in (99% sure) Werner Herzig's Lo and Behold there's a (Stanford?) professor who says when they first did some MOOC they had all the kids in the Stanford course taking it as well, and of the 50,000 or whatever number of people taking the course, the top Stanford student finished like #430 in the course.