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That said: prereq is you’re bonkers smart. Meh. I went to an Ivy league, as did my sister. My wife was a grad student at Stanford. My classmates were clever, b

That said: prereq is you’re bonkers smart. Meh. I went to an Ivy league, as did my sister. My wife was a grad student at Stanford. My classmates were clever, but they weren't that smart! The standardized test scores can be improved with work. As for standing out with your essay and CV, I remember a talk from an admissions officer from Harvard. His take was that it's easy to stand out from 99% of students just by actually doing real, substantive work. He wasn't talking about the stuff that's designed to be a student CV stuffer to impress admissions. Do actual, substantive work. Something like a substantive contribution to a scientific field. Amateurs can still do this. Maybe run a real business. The example this admissions officer gave was someone who dropped out of High School, got a GED, then started repairing motorcycle engines. Then, you also need to make sure your essay is well written, which is another skill which can be learned. Relate your experience back to the academic opportunity, and how this would enable you to benefit society. There is a problem with this way of thinking of admissions: If you do pursue it in earnest, you might well decide to skip university entirely.

whimsicalism 6y ago
To some extent, I wonder if the perception that your peers aren't that smart is just due to getting adapted to your environment. I went to an Ivy coming from an inner city public school and I found it a big culture shock in terms of both how well behaved people were in classrooms and also how quick/smart people were to grasp what I was saying and build on it. By the time I was a senior, I had lapsed to the "people here actually aren't that smart" line of thought - but I wonder if I just got used to being around more intelligent people.
- _huayra_ 6y ago
  I did not go to an Ivy, but I went to the 1-2 ranked public institution in the US (for CS). The baseline is definitely higher, but there is a big gap between people who got there by their own grit and determination and people who got there almost helplessly due to a tidal wave of fortunate circumstances (e.g. parents were in sweng, went to cushy private schools that inflated grades, "did" a bunch of charity work / extracurriculars to pad their resume for college). The "not smart" people are the latter category: they can still pick things up quickly, but they viewed getting into the institution as the last hurdle they'll have to go through in order to be set for life. They just coasted and got Cs and didn't really care about learning new stuff because they knew the university's name on their degree alone would land them some cushy PM job where they wouldn't need that pesky coding ability every again). It was actually infuriating because I really enjoy CS and getting paired up with these folks who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths but didn't care was disappointing. Most of them were uncomfortable with the mental struggle of doing difficult group projects, often just showing up for the "design session" but skipping out on most of the coding. I made a lot of enemies out of them when I told the profs to look at my (GPG-signed) git commits and consider how they want to distribute grading points.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    > I made a lot of enemies out of them when I told the profs to look at my (GPG-signed) git commits and consider how they want to distribute grading points. I laughed. Did it change something in the end?
    - _huayra_ 6y ago
      In most cases it did: I even wrote a python script to use matplotlib to generate a few "contribution graphs" like one sees on github. That visual was usually enough to tell the profs to not give my teammates any credit when they didn't do diddly squat for code. I learned most of the "defensive git" tricks during this time because I caught one of these guys trying to rewrite history to claim credit for my commit. That guy got referred to the university's "ya dun messed up bigtime" committee (I forget the actual title) and I think he was kicked out for academic dishonesty. Ever since then I gpg sign all my commits!
      - stcredzero 6y ago
        I was in a group project for a Psychology of Business class. This 4th string quarterback/son of a politician or some such just told us on the 1st day, "Well, considering we're graded as a group, I want to tell you I don't care what grade I get, so you guys are doing all of the work!"
      - 908B64B197 6y ago
        > because I caught one of these guys trying to rewrite history to claim credit for my commit. Great. It's one thing not to do anything (and get penalized for it accordingly) but trying to claim ownership is a whole new level. There's an expensive way of protecting one's work: have an individual oral quiz on the code that was written.
- stcredzero 6y ago
  To some extent, I wonder if the perception that your peers aren't that smart is just due to getting adapted to your environment. I've met people who I would describe as "bonkers smart", as the comment I was replying to had it. That is, people who are literally 2-3 times faster at getting to the next step, and just leave the entire room behind, when the room contains a dozen graduate students. They are not that common, even in a place that's supposed to be populated by the intellectual elite. how well behaved people were in classrooms and also how quick/smart people were to grasp what I was saying and build on it These are just skills/habits that can be learned!

whimsicalism 6y ago

To some extent, I wonder if the perception that your peers aren't that smart is just due to getting adapted to your environment. I went to an Ivy coming from an inner city public school and I found it a big culture shock in terms of both how well behaved people were in classrooms and also how quick/smart people were to grasp what I was saying and build on it. By the time I was a senior, I had lapsed to the "people here actually aren't that smart" line of thought - but I wonder if I just got used to being around more intelligent people.

_huayra_ 6y ago
I did not go to an Ivy, but I went to the 1-2 ranked public institution in the US (for CS). The baseline is definitely higher, but there is a big gap between people who got there by their own grit and determination and people who got there almost helplessly due to a tidal wave of fortunate circumstances (e.g. parents were in sweng, went to cushy private schools that inflated grades, "did" a bunch of charity work / extracurriculars to pad their resume for college). The "not smart" people are the latter category: they can still pick things up quickly, but they viewed getting into the institution as the last hurdle they'll have to go through in order to be set for life. They just coasted and got Cs and didn't really care about learning new stuff because they knew the university's name on their degree alone would land them some cushy PM job where they wouldn't need that pesky coding ability every again). It was actually infuriating because I really enjoy CS and getting paired up with these folks who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths but didn't care was disappointing. Most of them were uncomfortable with the mental struggle of doing difficult group projects, often just showing up for the "design session" but skipping out on most of the coding. I made a lot of enemies out of them when I told the profs to look at my (GPG-signed) git commits and consider how they want to distribute grading points.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > I made a lot of enemies out of them when I told the profs to look at my (GPG-signed) git commits and consider how they want to distribute grading points. I laughed. Did it change something in the end?
  - _huayra_ 6y ago
    In most cases it did: I even wrote a python script to use matplotlib to generate a few "contribution graphs" like one sees on github. That visual was usually enough to tell the profs to not give my teammates any credit when they didn't do diddly squat for code. I learned most of the "defensive git" tricks during this time because I caught one of these guys trying to rewrite history to claim credit for my commit. That guy got referred to the university's "ya dun messed up bigtime" committee (I forget the actual title) and I think he was kicked out for academic dishonesty. Ever since then I gpg sign all my commits!
    - stcredzero 6y ago
      I was in a group project for a Psychology of Business class. This 4th string quarterback/son of a politician or some such just told us on the 1st day, "Well, considering we're graded as a group, I want to tell you I don't care what grade I get, so you guys are doing all of the work!"
    - 908B64B197 6y ago
      > because I caught one of these guys trying to rewrite history to claim credit for my commit. Great. It's one thing not to do anything (and get penalized for it accordingly) but trying to claim ownership is a whole new level. There's an expensive way of protecting one's work: have an individual oral quiz on the code that was written.
stcredzero 6y ago
To some extent, I wonder if the perception that your peers aren't that smart is just due to getting adapted to your environment. I've met people who I would describe as "bonkers smart", as the comment I was replying to had it. That is, people who are literally 2-3 times faster at getting to the next step, and just leave the entire room behind, when the room contains a dozen graduate students. They are not that common, even in a place that's supposed to be populated by the intellectual elite. how well behaved people were in classrooms and also how quick/smart people were to grasp what I was saying and build on it These are just skills/habits that can be learned!