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Colleges Want Students with Character, but Can’t Measure It (2014)

56 points by dnetesn 8y ago

choonway 8y ago
Maybe you really can't measure 'grit' unless you put the student through several orthogonal tests and see how he does for the worst. e.g. to determine whether the monkey or the fish has more 'grit', ask the monkey how deep it can dive into the ocean depths, and ask the fish how high a tree can it climb.
- Animats 8y ago
  You can measure grit. The military routinely does. It takes an ordeal like BUD/S.
  - lsc 8y ago
    eh, I would assume (hope) that the 'grit' required to do something physically unpleasant and the grit required to do something mentally unpleasant would be different sorts of things. Some of the best tech workers I've known have been... pretty out of shape.
    - jacobush 8y ago
      I saw a documentary about SAS recruits. (British special forces.) The instructors said that many recruits were in pretty bad shape and that it was still hard to tell who were going to make it. In the end, those who just wouldn't quit made it through.
      - lsc 8y ago
        Yeah, gym teachers love to express the same set of beliefs. I personally think that's a lot like saying anyone who studies hard enough can become a great programmer. I mean, sure, in both cases, someone who doesn't try hard isn't going to make it, but most of us aren't going to become SEALs or Donald Knuth no matter how hard we train. Really "someone who doesn't try hard enough isn't going to make it" is true of both and pretty important. From that perspective, if you know some of it is effort and some of it is innate, but you cant properly measure the innate part, you are best off telling everyone whatever it is that makes them try hardest. (this, of course, is only true if you don't have to pay the cost of failure. Both businesses and sports coaches are really only concerned about picking out the very best. the washouts are on their own. An externality)
        jacobush 8y ago
        Yeah, it didn't come out in my comment, but I didn't mean it to be "anyone can do it". Just that the doggedness and determination is a big part. The person making it to be a SEAL might never be able to buff up to Arnold levels and vice versa. The motivation might not be there. The physical stamina might not be there.
        gaius 8y ago
        gym teachers love to express the same set of beliefs I think that’s orthogonal. The SAS aren’t looking for Olympic level athletes in any given sport. They’re looking for people who will keep going in the face of exhaustion beyond anything any athlete will ever experience. That’s a test of will and character more then anything physical. Like, Usain Bolt and Meb Keflezighi are amazing athletes, but neither of them do anything like Test Week or Hell Week in training.
        barry-cotter 8y ago
        > They’re looking for people who will keep going in the face of exhaustion beyond anything any athlete will ever experience. You should talk to some ultramarathon runners. A woman I know did a 100K and slept for seven minutes en route. She didn’t win. The people who do go faster and sleep less.
        joelrunyon 8y ago
        A 100k isn't that long in the scheme of ultra running. Most finish in 12-18 hours - so it's just a long, long day on your feet. The 100 milers are the ones that tend to be 24 hour+ endeavors for non-winning runners (even though some of the elites run it much, much faster). However, ultra runners are insane and now they're launching 200+ mile races where the winers only sleep a few hours. Source: am an ultra runner.
        logfromblammo 8y ago
        Sounds like a research project to see if any humans are capable of the dolphin trick--sleeping with only one half of their brain at a time.
      - deleted 8y ago
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      - mikekchar 8y ago
        If we reverse the logic, though, it's a bit more obvious: Those who quit don't make it through ;-) But the question is, are they actually selecting the best candidates by using that criteria (ability to persevere)? In the case of the SAS it may very well be true, but possibly it's a special case.
        jacobush 8y ago
        This was what I was after, actually. If you quit, and they tell you to all the time! - you can't make it. :-)
      - deleted 8y ago
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    - randomdata 8y ago
      I would assume that grit is dependent on desired outcome, rather than something that is divided on physical and mental lines. Someone who has the grit to become a top Olympic athlete is not necessarily going to fare well in the military.
      - germinalphrase 8y ago
        Which, to extend the BUDS example further, is something commonly referenced for aspiring Navy Seals. Legit Olympic athletes will drop out of BUDS while some less impressive good old boy from Duluth passes through successfully. You can’t tell who will succeed.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      Being in or out of shape is a lifestyle choice, not a measure of personality. Grit isn’t in doing a workout well, grit is in getting through a workout at all. Grit is pushing through when it’s all going to hell and you think you’re gonna just keel over and die. (I’m about 5 minutes from leaving for my 6am class, can you tell?) I’d argue that fit people have grit, because they can tough it through unpleasant workouts repeatedly. But un-fit people may or may not have grit, you just don’t know. It’s entirely possible for someone with a lot of grit to not value athleticism or health and be out of shape, while showing extreme resiliency in other aspects of their lives.
      - lsc 8y ago
        >Being in or out of shape is a lifestyle choice Are you young? this is all very different when you are young. I know I didn't have any trouble staying fit when I was college aged. For most people, there comes a point in your late 20s or early 30s where being not fat suddenly requires a lot of effort. (I am only now applying that effort in an effective way, a bit more than a decade after I should have.)
        barry-cotter 8y ago
        There’s a difference between not being fat and being fit. I’m almost 10kg over my ideal weight but I can run a marathon on the flat no problem and squat 80kg for five sets of five without significant strain. I’m unlikely to ever be as thin as I was on my wedding day again but three hours of exercise a week will keep you fit. Even one hour will pay substantial dividends in terms of how you feel though at that level I’d definitely lift weights rather than run.
        lsc 8y ago
        If you think 3 hours a week is enough to make you "fit" - we have very different definitions of that word. Certainly, 3 hours a week is a lot better than nothing, and does make an absolutely huge difference over a sedentary lifestyle, but it's not going to make you what I would call fit, unless those three hours are incredibly intense. (to be clear, I think I'm a long ways away from 'fit' - I do pretty reliably hit your 3 hour a week number.) That, and excess fat is a problem, even if the rest of you is strong Over the last six months, I went from about 100kg to 90kg; (now I'm about as far as you are from my ideal weight, at least with the muscle mass that is historically realistic and a fat content goal that isn't.) We will see if I can keep up my calorie counting and make it to the goal or not. Oddly, I can lift a lot more and run a lot less than you can. Running seems to be a lot harder on my knees than squats are. I could run forever and squat very little when I was young and skinny. I still bicycle, but running, if I really push myself, pretty reliably ends in minor injury, and I always attributed this to the extra weight I wasn't carrying around as a youngster. my problem before calorie counting was that it didn't matter how much I worked out, working out makes me hungry, and I'd put on more fat to go with the new muscle, and... that gets to be a problem. I mean, I wasn't weak, sure, but I was also 30% body fat. That's... a lot more fat than is healthy for a guy. I started developing the medical problems you'd expect from someone who was on the low end of obese. After losing enough weight to put me reliably in the 'just overweight' classification, some of those problems seem to be receding. I mean, I'm losing muscle, too, which is bad; I can't lift what I could three months ago; partly just 'cause I'm eating less and partly 'cause I switched to a new office and there's a lot more contention for the barbells than there was at the old office, so while I'm not doing a lot less cardio, I am doing a lot less lifting. But I have a whole lot of confidence in my ability to build muscle; if I can prove that I can actually lose fat... well, that would be a new thing for me. That, and in spite of my neglect of the gym, I am feeling better, and like I said, objective measures like blood pressure are looking better, so that seems like a datapoint, for me at least, to say that excess fat matters and is a real problem that needs to be dealt with. (on the other hand, those health metrics might be improving because I've treated the obesity-associated problems. Sleep apnea messes you up good, but is fairly straightforward to treat. So maybe that's why I'm doing better rather than the reduced excess fat. But, sleep apnea is very strongly correlated with excess fat. Still, it's possible that just treating the sleep apnea and then working out while continuing to be fat would result in the same sorts of improvement in overall health. If I'm being truthful, vanity is a big driver of me wanting to lose weight. I mean, the health benefits are also really important, but there's vanity in there too.)
  - maaark 8y ago
    A process which most recruits survive. Not too useful for university admissions, which are generally expected to have a 100% survival rate...
  - jki275 8y ago
    Wasn't smart enough to quit, is an expression I've heard from more than one SEAL. It's not really about grit, BUD/S measures the ability to be an Olympic athlete who doesn't know how to quit and can problem solve effectively and efficiently underwater and out of air. It's really a very niche skillset.
- darawk 8y ago
  > to determine whether the monkey or the fish has more 'grit', ask the monkey how deep it can dive into the ocean depths, and ask the fish how high a tree can it climb. Except that those things also measure biological variables like lung capacity and grip strength.
  - baud147258 8y ago
    Except if you already have that biological variable measured, with a test that do not ask for effort. Then for each candidate, you can measure how they will perform, compared to their expected performance, depending on their lung capacity or grip strength. Reaching their limit (or going beyond them) should be a good indicator of 'grit', since reaching one's physical limits is usually painfull and/or difficult.
    - darawk 8y ago
      But how will you measure those variables independently of grit?
flossball 8y ago
Grit is not unknown in business and has similar problems with hiring. I helped a start up ran by some executives trying to pitch B average state school engineers as they reach senior status significantly faster than more competitive school graduates. HR depts in most tech companies pushed back as they like to hire top school candidates. Similarly as they pivoted to produce advanced hiring processes to recommend these students, HRs refused to lower their days and days of interviews that have low completion rates. HR is almost always the failure in hiring and I am sure the recruiting/admissions will fight against whatever 'grit' factors and measurement is figured out as they still feel good personally about good grades and test scores.
- hobs 8y ago
  That's because HR does not have the same incentives as the business has, any hire that's even slightly below average can be blamed on HR, and spending more and more resources on "the difficult job hunt" also justifies their budget. When people setup departments that definitely dont have each other's best interests in mind, its not surprise that fight.
ericdykstra 8y ago
"Grit" is basically just Big 5 Personality Traits repackaged in a way that sounds good, but doesn't predict success better than established things like trait Conscientiousness or IQ. Here's one article that summarizes some of the problems: https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/09/15/lets-dial-down-the-hype-about-grit-new-paper-finds-no-association-with-creative-achievement/ https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/09/15/lets-dial-down-the-hype...
motohagiography 8y ago
There is a famous old military quote on this topic: "There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief. " The qualities of a student and an engineer vs. say, a good hacker or product manager are wildly different. For a large organization, you need reliable and focused people to keep it running, where for a startup, you need to find and actualize outlier potential.
- bryanrasmussen 8y ago
  "We will encourage you to develop the three great virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris." -- LarryWall, ProgrammingPerl (1st edition), OreillyAndAssociates
- hindsightbias 8y ago
  > qualified for the highest leadership duties The problem is that it's hard to stay lazy when everyone wants you to make more decisions and you're not clever enough to event an AI to do it for you.
  - motohagiography 8y ago
    Lazy can be fixed. The others, not so much.
brobdingnagians 8y ago
"class-neutral" sounds like code-word for "the most direct measure of competency doesn't serve our agenda, so we will throw it out". Should colleges find people who have integrity, honesty, grit and determination, commitment to ideals? Sure, but I'm not sure that is what this is, because they wouldn't need to use "class-neutral" in that case. Talent at mathematics is class neutral, though prior training for it might not be. If you want to raise a generation of mathematicians, scientists, and engineers, then "higher education" is for continuing the education they have already received and adding to it. Parents from different classes give their children different opportunities and levels of education, fact of life, higher education is for research and extending human knowledge beyond what normal institutions do, some classes may not be at that level, and that is okay, they should receive as much education as possible, but not at the expense of driving the state of the art. If you want to find those who are prodigies at mathematics, test their skill at that and hone their gift, regardless of what class they are.
- mav3rick 8y ago
  This is an immensely parochial view. You're essentially saying, "poor people will have limits to their growth and that is okay as long as the rich are the vanguard of sciences". Views like this are the starting of a generation of oppression and hate. There are enough examples of universities admitting geniuses as well as students who almost met the bar but were constantly let down by their environment. Given the right resources the latter can match and even outperform the former. It's funny how you mention nothing about finding and nourishing talent in the poor communities yet you stand up for the rich. Get outside your bubble, dismissing uplifting policies as being "PC" has become some sort of popular stance without any nuance or understanding of the other side.
  - LeifCarrotson 8y ago
    > finding and nourishing talent in the poor > students who ... were constantly let down by their environment The problem is that the effects of talent are usually masked to obscurity by more powerful effects of environment. We ought to focus on not causing these students to fall behind at the start, rather than thinking we're doing something virtuous by graciously uplifting them alongside those who weren't artificially held back.
madengr 8y ago
It’s enjoying to watch the universities (most of which are comprised of loud-mouthed liberals) squirm under the dilemma of political correctness. As if some Asian kid with a 1600 SAT doesn’t have grit. I hope Harvard loses that lawsuit, big time.
village-idiot 8y ago
Grit is an extremely important personality trait, the most important imho, but you only get to see it when you see someone fail or struggle. It’s not easy to determine with an individual, let alone with a population.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Kids don't struggle and fail? I think we all know who's who on the Grit scale, by the time they reach college.
  - gaius 8y ago
    I don’t think that’s true. When I arrived at college I was in a group where most, including myself, had coasted to being one of the top in their previous classes with minimal effort. Now we all had to actually work. My class of 80 was reduced to 40 by the end of the first term.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      I see that a lot with kids who were labeled as talented or gifted early on. The question is: can you develop grit, or is it natural? Did you respond to the new pressures in college, or were you uncovering a latent skill the remaining 40 did not have? I genuinely don’t know.
      - toast0 8y ago
        I'm pretty sure it's a skill to be developed, although certainly some find it easier to develop, and some use the new freedoms of adulthood to choose not to develop the skill. Based on my experience, and that of my peer group, I've decided it's important to try to make sure children have some experience with things that are hard, so they can start developing skills to handle it. For some (most?), this may not require anything extra; for others, it requires extra effort to provide activities that are actually a challenge, but also engaging.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
notyourday 8y ago
So. Much. Bullshit. Colleges want students that would pay the most money which is why they are heavily recruiting out of state and international students -- out of state paying out of state fees but potentially qualifying for some scholarships while international students paying a total rack rate for tuition + housing + meal plan with no scholarships. The rest is sprinkles.
- CelestialTeapot 8y ago
  Sorry, no, I work in higher education and that's not how higher education works. We recruit international students because we want a more diverse class. Some of them even get merit scholarships from the college. Right now, the drive is for Hispanic students from the southern and western states, because that demographic is where the growth in college students will be domestically.
  - notyourday 8y ago
    Hispanic students for Southern and Western states pay out of state tuition unless they are resident of the same states that colleges are in. So TX university recruiting a Hispanic student from AZ is recruiting an out of state student that pays out of state fees. Merit scholarships issued to international students are akin to mattress stores discounts - increase list price via fees and discount those fees not to mention that as a condition of college scholarship one agrees that all additional money he or she gets as scholarships obtained separately from a university or a college that money goes back into repaying the scholarship that was offered by a college. So say that tuition is $30k a year, room and board is $20k a year and fees are $3k a year for a student from Poland ( for in state the rate is $20k/$12k/$3k - room and board is $12k because the school wants in state students to live on campus and it knows that the dorms are 400% more expensive than the off campus housing that the parents of the student would be able to easily find out). Merit scholarship ( 5, for all 679 international students but with that 5 the school says it offers merit scholarships across the board ) is 50% discount on tuition. So the international student now has to pay $15k+$20k+$3k to come to the school vs in state student with no merit scholarship paying $20+$12+$3k. Oh, look, we diversified and we got more money per student! And we also got the student to sign that should he or she get a scholarship from some other organization, the first 15k of it would go back to replenish the merit scholarship fund of the school. Source: personal experience. P.S. I cannot wait until the college system in the US collapses. It would be glorious to watch everyone who participated in a financial rape of 17-18 year olds and their families being financially ruined in their 40-60s. P.P.S. Next time during the college administration all hands make administration answer why the college has different tuition rates for in state, out of state and international students and why it does not offer scholarships/grants/discounts uniformly to everyone.
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Balgair 8y ago
So, in summary, these organizations are struggling with two related factors: 1) How do you predict the future? 2) How do you do that at scale? In regards to 2) many of these educational places have decided for the past few decades that test criteria makes some sense. However, they have recently discovered that the testing metrics have been gamed. Therefore, as the metrics have become the goals unto themselves, their ability to accomplish 1) has been diminished to the point of uselessness. They are back at square one (or at least they were in 2014 when the article was written). We all know that you really can't predict the future, that black swan events override all the metrics you could ever come up with. So, the article is talking about 'grit' as a metric that they could use instead, as it seems to predict the future a bit better than the SAT. Of course, we all know that the 'grit' metric will be gamed as well. There's a neuron firing somewhere in my head that is saying: Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, but I think it's a bit more base than that. The issue is that these higher ed places would LOVE to really dig deep into a person, but they've not the time or money to do that at scale. I think, that like in many militaries and corporations, the issue is not the selection process, but the construction process. Given the right resources and support, you can actually turn lead into gold. It's that these institutions need to support, mentor, and trust their students. However, that is very expensive and takes a long timeline to measure if it works at all. Let alone what to fix or improve upon. Inherently, it does not scale either. It's messy, personal, and complex. It's real and not well reflected in charts and tables, hence the bureaucrats dislike it as it has a null/negative effect on their careers. Some good examples of such a process that actually does produce results are the Free Democratic Schools [0] though they tend to be very liberal arts focused. Specifically, I'd love to call out Deep Springs College [1] as a prime example. St. John's College [2] is also structured well in the 'nurture' aspect. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_democratic_schools#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_democratic_schools#Uni... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Springs_College https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Springs_College [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_College_(Annapolis/Santa_Fe) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_College_(Annapoli...
robterrin 8y ago
"[Applicants] shouldn’t be discounted because [they don't] have one exceptional skill, nor should [they] be propped up because this lack of one exceptional skill misleads us into thinking [they are] succeeding only through [their] own effort like some sort of [academic] Horatio Alger character. It’s bad for [applicants], it’s very bad for [applicants] of color who never get the same breaks, and it’s just bad for [education]. Period." https://www.draysbay.com/2018/8/13/17678388/tampa-bay-ray-joey-wendle-hustle-stereotypes-racism-and-white-privilege-in-baseball-broadcasting https://www.draysbay.com/2018/8/13/17678388/tampa-bay-ray-jo... P.S. Headline should read, "Colleges Say They Want Students with Character..."

56 points by dnetesn 8y ago

Maybe you really can't measure 'grit' unless you put the student through several orthogonal tests and see how he does for the worst. e.g. to determine whether the monkey or the fish has more 'grit', ask the monkey how deep it can dive into the ocean depths, and ask the fish how high a tree can it climb.

Animats 8y ago
You can measure grit. The military routinely does. It takes an ordeal like BUD/S.
- lsc 8y ago
  eh, I would assume (hope) that the 'grit' required to do something physically unpleasant and the grit required to do something mentally unpleasant would be different sorts of things. Some of the best tech workers I've known have been... pretty out of shape.
  - jacobush 8y ago
    I saw a documentary about SAS recruits. (British special forces.) The instructors said that many recruits were in pretty bad shape and that it was still hard to tell who were going to make it. In the end, those who just wouldn't quit made it through.
    - lsc 8y ago
      Yeah, gym teachers love to express the same set of beliefs. I personally think that's a lot like saying anyone who studies hard enough can become a great programmer. I mean, sure, in both cases, someone who doesn't try hard isn't going to make it, but most of us aren't going to become SEALs or Donald Knuth no matter how hard we train. Really "someone who doesn't try hard enough isn't going to make it" is true of both and pretty important. From that perspective, if you know some of it is effort and some of it is innate, but you cant properly measure the innate part, you are best off telling everyone whatever it is that makes them try hardest. (this, of course, is only true if you don't have to pay the cost of failure. Both businesses and sports coaches are really only concerned about picking out the very best. the washouts are on their own. An externality)
      - jacobush 8y ago
        Yeah, it didn't come out in my comment, but I didn't mean it to be "anyone can do it". Just that the doggedness and determination is a big part. The person making it to be a SEAL might never be able to buff up to Arnold levels and vice versa. The motivation might not be there. The physical stamina might not be there.
      - gaius 8y ago
        gym teachers love to express the same set of beliefs I think that’s orthogonal. The SAS aren’t looking for Olympic level athletes in any given sport. They’re looking for people who will keep going in the face of exhaustion beyond anything any athlete will ever experience. That’s a test of will and character more then anything physical. Like, Usain Bolt and Meb Keflezighi are amazing athletes, but neither of them do anything like Test Week or Hell Week in training.
        barry-cotter 8y ago
        > They’re looking for people who will keep going in the face of exhaustion beyond anything any athlete will ever experience. You should talk to some ultramarathon runners. A woman I know did a 100K and slept for seven minutes en route. She didn’t win. The people who do go faster and sleep less.
        joelrunyon 8y ago
        A 100k isn't that long in the scheme of ultra running. Most finish in 12-18 hours - so it's just a long, long day on your feet. The 100 milers are the ones that tend to be 24 hour+ endeavors for non-winning runners (even though some of the elites run it much, much faster). However, ultra runners are insane and now they're launching 200+ mile races where the winers only sleep a few hours. Source: am an ultra runner.
        logfromblammo 8y ago
        Sounds like a research project to see if any humans are capable of the dolphin trick--sleeping with only one half of their brain at a time.
    - deleted 8y ago
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    - mikekchar 8y ago
      If we reverse the logic, though, it's a bit more obvious: Those who quit don't make it through ;-) But the question is, are they actually selecting the best candidates by using that criteria (ability to persevere)? In the case of the SAS it may very well be true, but possibly it's a special case.
      - jacobush 8y ago
        This was what I was after, actually. If you quit, and they tell you to all the time! - you can't make it. :-)
    - deleted 8y ago
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  - randomdata 8y ago
    I would assume that grit is dependent on desired outcome, rather than something that is divided on physical and mental lines. Someone who has the grit to become a top Olympic athlete is not necessarily going to fare well in the military.
    - germinalphrase 8y ago
      Which, to extend the BUDS example further, is something commonly referenced for aspiring Navy Seals. Legit Olympic athletes will drop out of BUDS while some less impressive good old boy from Duluth passes through successfully. You can’t tell who will succeed.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    Being in or out of shape is a lifestyle choice, not a measure of personality. Grit isn’t in doing a workout well, grit is in getting through a workout at all. Grit is pushing through when it’s all going to hell and you think you’re gonna just keel over and die. (I’m about 5 minutes from leaving for my 6am class, can you tell?) I’d argue that fit people have grit, because they can tough it through unpleasant workouts repeatedly. But un-fit people may or may not have grit, you just don’t know. It’s entirely possible for someone with a lot of grit to not value athleticism or health and be out of shape, while showing extreme resiliency in other aspects of their lives.
    - lsc 8y ago
      >Being in or out of shape is a lifestyle choice Are you young? this is all very different when you are young. I know I didn't have any trouble staying fit when I was college aged. For most people, there comes a point in your late 20s or early 30s where being not fat suddenly requires a lot of effort. (I am only now applying that effort in an effective way, a bit more than a decade after I should have.)
      - barry-cotter 8y ago
        There’s a difference between not being fat and being fit. I’m almost 10kg over my ideal weight but I can run a marathon on the flat no problem and squat 80kg for five sets of five without significant strain. I’m unlikely to ever be as thin as I was on my wedding day again but three hours of exercise a week will keep you fit. Even one hour will pay substantial dividends in terms of how you feel though at that level I’d definitely lift weights rather than run.
        lsc 8y ago
        If you think 3 hours a week is enough to make you "fit" - we have very different definitions of that word. Certainly, 3 hours a week is a lot better than nothing, and does make an absolutely huge difference over a sedentary lifestyle, but it's not going to make you what I would call fit, unless those three hours are incredibly intense. (to be clear, I think I'm a long ways away from 'fit' - I do pretty reliably hit your 3 hour a week number.) That, and excess fat is a problem, even if the rest of you is strong Over the last six months, I went from about 100kg to 90kg; (now I'm about as far as you are from my ideal weight, at least with the muscle mass that is historically realistic and a fat content goal that isn't.) We will see if I can keep up my calorie counting and make it to the goal or not. Oddly, I can lift a lot more and run a lot less than you can. Running seems to be a lot harder on my knees than squats are. I could run forever and squat very little when I was young and skinny. I still bicycle, but running, if I really push myself, pretty reliably ends in minor injury, and I always attributed this to the extra weight I wasn't carrying around as a youngster. my problem before calorie counting was that it didn't matter how much I worked out, working out makes me hungry, and I'd put on more fat to go with the new muscle, and... that gets to be a problem. I mean, I wasn't weak, sure, but I was also 30% body fat. That's... a lot more fat than is healthy for a guy. I started developing the medical problems you'd expect from someone who was on the low end of obese. After losing enough weight to put me reliably in the 'just overweight' classification, some of those problems seem to be receding. I mean, I'm losing muscle, too, which is bad; I can't lift what I could three months ago; partly just 'cause I'm eating less and partly 'cause I switched to a new office and there's a lot more contention for the barbells than there was at the old office, so while I'm not doing a lot less cardio, I am doing a lot less lifting. But I have a whole lot of confidence in my ability to build muscle; if I can prove that I can actually lose fat... well, that would be a new thing for me. That, and in spite of my neglect of the gym, I am feeling better, and like I said, objective measures like blood pressure are looking better, so that seems like a datapoint, for me at least, to say that excess fat matters and is a real problem that needs to be dealt with. (on the other hand, those health metrics might be improving because I've treated the obesity-associated problems. Sleep apnea messes you up good, but is fairly straightforward to treat. So maybe that's why I'm doing better rather than the reduced excess fat. But, sleep apnea is very strongly correlated with excess fat. Still, it's possible that just treating the sleep apnea and then working out while continuing to be fat would result in the same sorts of improvement in overall health. If I'm being truthful, vanity is a big driver of me wanting to lose weight. I mean, the health benefits are also really important, but there's vanity in there too.)
- maaark 8y ago
  A process which most recruits survive. Not too useful for university admissions, which are generally expected to have a 100% survival rate...
- jki275 8y ago
  Wasn't smart enough to quit, is an expression I've heard from more than one SEAL. It's not really about grit, BUD/S measures the ability to be an Olympic athlete who doesn't know how to quit and can problem solve effectively and efficiently underwater and out of air. It's really a very niche skillset.
darawk 8y ago
> to determine whether the monkey or the fish has more 'grit', ask the monkey how deep it can dive into the ocean depths, and ask the fish how high a tree can it climb. Except that those things also measure biological variables like lung capacity and grip strength.
- baud147258 8y ago
  Except if you already have that biological variable measured, with a test that do not ask for effort. Then for each candidate, you can measure how they will perform, compared to their expected performance, depending on their lung capacity or grip strength. Reaching their limit (or going beyond them) should be a good indicator of 'grit', since reaching one's physical limits is usually painfull and/or difficult.
  - darawk 8y ago
    But how will you measure those variables independently of grit?

flossball 8y ago

Grit is not unknown in business and has similar problems with hiring. I helped a start up ran by some executives trying to pitch B average state school engineers as they reach senior status significantly faster than more competitive school graduates. HR depts in most tech companies pushed back as they like to hire top school candidates. Similarly as they pivoted to produce advanced hiring processes to recommend these students, HRs refused to lower their days and days of interviews that have low completion rates. HR is almost always the failure in hiring and I am sure the recruiting/admissions will fight against whatever 'grit' factors and measurement is figured out as they still feel good personally about good grades and test scores.

hobs 8y ago
That's because HR does not have the same incentives as the business has, any hire that's even slightly below average can be blamed on HR, and spending more and more resources on "the difficult job hunt" also justifies their budget. When people setup departments that definitely dont have each other's best interests in mind, its not surprise that fight.

ericdykstra 8y ago

"Grit" is basically just Big 5 Personality Traits repackaged in a way that sounds good, but doesn't predict success better than established things like trait Conscientiousness or IQ. Here's one article that summarizes some of the problems: https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/09/15/lets-dial-down-the-hype-about-grit-new-paper-finds-no-association-with-creative-achievement/ https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/09/15/lets-dial-down-the-hype...

motohagiography 8y ago

There is a famous old military quote on this topic: "There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief. " The qualities of a student and an engineer vs. say, a good hacker or product manager are wildly different. For a large organization, you need reliable and focused people to keep it running, where for a startup, you need to find and actualize outlier potential.

bryanrasmussen 8y ago
"We will encourage you to develop the three great virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris." -- LarryWall, ProgrammingPerl (1st edition), OreillyAndAssociates
hindsightbias 8y ago
> qualified for the highest leadership duties The problem is that it's hard to stay lazy when everyone wants you to make more decisions and you're not clever enough to event an AI to do it for you.
- motohagiography 8y ago
  Lazy can be fixed. The others, not so much.

brobdingnagians 8y ago

"class-neutral" sounds like code-word for "the most direct measure of competency doesn't serve our agenda, so we will throw it out". Should colleges find people who have integrity, honesty, grit and determination, commitment to ideals? Sure, but I'm not sure that is what this is, because they wouldn't need to use "class-neutral" in that case. Talent at mathematics is class neutral, though prior training for it might not be. If you want to raise a generation of mathematicians, scientists, and engineers, then "higher education" is for continuing the education they have already received and adding to it. Parents from different classes give their children different opportunities and levels of education, fact of life, higher education is for research and extending human knowledge beyond what normal institutions do, some classes may not be at that level, and that is okay, they should receive as much education as possible, but not at the expense of driving the state of the art. If you want to find those who are prodigies at mathematics, test their skill at that and hone their gift, regardless of what class they are.

mav3rick 8y ago
This is an immensely parochial view. You're essentially saying, "poor people will have limits to their growth and that is okay as long as the rich are the vanguard of sciences". Views like this are the starting of a generation of oppression and hate. There are enough examples of universities admitting geniuses as well as students who almost met the bar but were constantly let down by their environment. Given the right resources the latter can match and even outperform the former. It's funny how you mention nothing about finding and nourishing talent in the poor communities yet you stand up for the rich. Get outside your bubble, dismissing uplifting policies as being "PC" has become some sort of popular stance without any nuance or understanding of the other side.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  > finding and nourishing talent in the poor > students who ... were constantly let down by their environment The problem is that the effects of talent are usually masked to obscurity by more powerful effects of environment. We ought to focus on not causing these students to fall behind at the start, rather than thinking we're doing something virtuous by graciously uplifting them alongside those who weren't artificially held back.

madengr 8y ago

It’s enjoying to watch the universities (most of which are comprised of loud-mouthed liberals) squirm under the dilemma of political correctness. As if some Asian kid with a 1600 SAT doesn’t have grit. I hope Harvard loses that lawsuit, big time.

village-idiot 8y ago

Grit is an extremely important personality trait, the most important imho, but you only get to see it when you see someone fail or struggle. It’s not easy to determine with an individual, let alone with a population.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Kids don't struggle and fail? I think we all know who's who on the Grit scale, by the time they reach college.
- gaius 8y ago
  I don’t think that’s true. When I arrived at college I was in a group where most, including myself, had coasted to being one of the top in their previous classes with minimal effort. Now we all had to actually work. My class of 80 was reduced to 40 by the end of the first term.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    I see that a lot with kids who were labeled as talented or gifted early on. The question is: can you develop grit, or is it natural? Did you respond to the new pressures in college, or were you uncovering a latent skill the remaining 40 did not have? I genuinely don’t know.
    - toast0 8y ago
      I'm pretty sure it's a skill to be developed, although certainly some find it easier to develop, and some use the new freedoms of adulthood to choose not to develop the skill. Based on my experience, and that of my peer group, I've decided it's important to try to make sure children have some experience with things that are hard, so they can start developing skills to handle it. For some (most?), this may not require anything extra; for others, it requires extra effort to provide activities that are actually a challenge, but also engaging.
- village-idiot 8y ago

notyourday 8y ago

So. Much. Bullshit. Colleges want students that would pay the most money which is why they are heavily recruiting out of state and international students -- out of state paying out of state fees but potentially qualifying for some scholarships while international students paying a total rack rate for tuition + housing + meal plan with no scholarships. The rest is sprinkles.

CelestialTeapot 8y ago
Sorry, no, I work in higher education and that's not how higher education works. We recruit international students because we want a more diverse class. Some of them even get merit scholarships from the college. Right now, the drive is for Hispanic students from the southern and western states, because that demographic is where the growth in college students will be domestically.
- notyourday 8y ago
  Hispanic students for Southern and Western states pay out of state tuition unless they are resident of the same states that colleges are in. So TX university recruiting a Hispanic student from AZ is recruiting an out of state student that pays out of state fees. Merit scholarships issued to international students are akin to mattress stores discounts - increase list price via fees and discount those fees not to mention that as a condition of college scholarship one agrees that all additional money he or she gets as scholarships obtained separately from a university or a college that money goes back into repaying the scholarship that was offered by a college. So say that tuition is $30k a year, room and board is $20k a year and fees are $3k a year for a student from Poland ( for in state the rate is $20k/$12k/$3k - room and board is $12k because the school wants in state students to live on campus and it knows that the dorms are 400% more expensive than the off campus housing that the parents of the student would be able to easily find out). Merit scholarship ( 5, for all 679 international students but with that 5 the school says it offers merit scholarships across the board ) is 50% discount on tuition. So the international student now has to pay $15k+$20k+$3k to come to the school vs in state student with no merit scholarship paying $20+$12+$3k. Oh, look, we diversified and we got more money per student! And we also got the student to sign that should he or she get a scholarship from some other organization, the first 15k of it would go back to replenish the merit scholarship fund of the school. Source: personal experience. P.S. I cannot wait until the college system in the US collapses. It would be glorious to watch everyone who participated in a financial rape of 17-18 year olds and their families being financially ruined in their 40-60s. P.P.S. Next time during the college administration all hands make administration answer why the college has different tuition rates for in state, out of state and international students and why it does not offer scholarships/grants/discounts uniformly to everyone.

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Balgair 8y ago

So, in summary, these organizations are struggling with two related factors: 1) How do you predict the future? 2) How do you do that at scale? In regards to 2) many of these educational places have decided for the past few decades that test criteria makes some sense. However, they have recently discovered that the testing metrics have been gamed. Therefore, as the metrics have become the goals unto themselves, their ability to accomplish 1) has been diminished to the point of uselessness. They are back at square one (or at least they were in 2014 when the article was written). We all know that you really can't predict the future, that black swan events override all the metrics you could ever come up with. So, the article is talking about 'grit' as a metric that they could use instead, as it seems to predict the future a bit better than the SAT. Of course, we all know that the 'grit' metric will be gamed as well. There's a neuron firing somewhere in my head that is saying: Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, but I think it's a bit more base than that. The issue is that these higher ed places would LOVE to really dig deep into a person, but they've not the time or money to do that at scale. I think, that like in many militaries and corporations, the issue is not the selection process, but the construction process. Given the right resources and support, you can actually turn lead into gold. It's that these institutions need to support, mentor, and trust their students. However, that is very expensive and takes a long timeline to measure if it works at all. Let alone what to fix or improve upon. Inherently, it does not scale either. It's messy, personal, and complex. It's real and not well reflected in charts and tables, hence the bureaucrats dislike it as it has a null/negative effect on their careers. Some good examples of such a process that actually does produce results are the Free Democratic Schools [0] though they tend to be very liberal arts focused. Specifically, I'd love to call out Deep Springs College [1] as a prime example. St. John's College [2] is also structured well in the 'nurture' aspect. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_democratic_schools#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_democratic_schools#Uni... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Springs_College https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Springs_College [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_College_(Annapolis/Santa_Fe) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_College_(Annapoli...

robterrin 8y ago

"[Applicants] shouldn’t be discounted because [they don't] have one exceptional skill, nor should [they] be propped up because this lack of one exceptional skill misleads us into thinking [they are] succeeding only through [their] own effort like some sort of [academic] Horatio Alger character. It’s bad for [applicants], it’s very bad for [applicants] of color who never get the same breaks, and it’s just bad for [education]. Period." https://www.draysbay.com/2018/8/13/17678388/tampa-bay-ray-joey-wendle-hustle-stereotypes-racism-and-white-privilege-in-baseball-broadcasting https://www.draysbay.com/2018/8/13/17678388/tampa-bay-ray-jo... P.S. Headline should read, "Colleges Say They Want Students with Character..."