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>"The smartest kids in the class had reputable externally-recognizable marks of status --- their top-ranked grades on exams and homeworks --- and thus did not n

by xiaoma 17y ago

>"The smartest kids in the class had reputable externally-recognizable marks of status --- their top-ranked grades on exams and homeworks --- and thus did not need to assert their intelligence." Having the top grades on exams and homework doesn't in any way demonstrate that those kids are the smartest in the class. Grades are correlated with intelligence to some degree, but much more strongly correlated with work-ethic and compliance.

scott_s 17y ago
If think you replace "smartest" with "most successful", the point he's trying to make does not change.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- Confusion 17y ago
  Which is still a ridiculous point: A/A+ students are not necessarily smarter, more successful, more intelligent, whatever-you-want-to-call-it than B+/A- students. His sole defense of that assertion is if you're so damn smart, wouldn't it take you just slightly more effort to get an A which I cannot characterize as anything else but a total lack of any sense of what someone may want to do with his time, other than obtain high grades, combined with the unfounded accusation that they all consider themselves capable of doing better. He completely rules out the possibility that out of numbers 5 through 15 out of a 100, five may rather want to spend their time, let's say, starting a company, practicing a sport or contributing code to some open source project. That's when the real problem shows it's ugly head: they are made to feel like they have to excuse themselves for their grades, as anything below 'perfect' is always questioned, as the article did: "why don't you get higher grades?" For me, the answer really was exactly as he says: because I have a fucking life out of school. However, the intention of that answer wasn't to play down the grades of others or to assert my intelligence. I won't deny they usually also have a life out of school. The intention was purely and solely: to answer the question that everyone keeps asking. I've given that answer so many times I can only think of it shouted with the expletive in it. And then grade-obsessed nitwits like this guy throw a hissy fit because they think I'm trying to trump them. No, I don't bloody care about trumping you. If I cared, I would spend my time trying to score higher grades, so I'd get into that prestigious university. I'm not sure I would succeed, but the point is: I'm not even trying to best you. God, guys like this still piss me off. They don't want to accept the fact that there may have been guys that could outdo them, but didn't bother.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    A/A+ students are, by definition, more successful at school than B+/A- students. That's the only sense of the phrase I meant it in.
    - gizmo 17y ago
      Not by definition, because the definition of success at school isn't "getting high grades". School is not the end, it's only a means. If I had to give a single metric for success at school it would be 'education'; those who learn more are more successful at school. This isn't necessarily reflected by test scores.
      - scott_s 17y ago
        It's the metric that is used to judge academic success. Really, all of this is besides the point that the author was trying to make. You're getting caught up in his example, but ignoring his point. Grades are a metric of a kind of success. I agree that education is more important than grades, but that's not what the example was about.
        mnemonicsloth 17y ago
        I'm not trying to score rhetorical points here, but it seems like you're trying to change the subject after having one of your unconscious assumptions brought to your attention. Everybody has them, and, er... by definition... nobody is aware of them. Most people try and forget all about them when they do become visible, but is that the ideal reaction?
        scott_s 17y ago
        I feel not that I'm trying to change the subject, but reign it back in. I assumed people would recognize that what I meant when I said "more successful" in the context of an objective metric like grades. I hoped that pointing out that the author was more concerned about success in a general endeavor than in the specific example he used would clarify the point he tried to make. I was wrong.
timwiseman 17y ago
True, but they hold something that is generally recognized as a mark of intelligence. Whether or not it is actually a mark of intelligence is irrelevant to his point.
- elblanco 17y ago
  And for being duped into believing this little lie, Mr. Guo has singularly proven that Stanford folks are not as smart as their reputation makes them out to be.
  - elblanco 17y ago
    Downvoted obviously from a Stanford grad.
    - scott_s 17y ago
      You're new here, so please read the guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - elblanco 17y ago
        Fair enough, I can see how that was trollish. So I'll elaborate. Mr. Guo exists in a world built upon a false axiom, "only the smartest make it into the top schools, and that people who don't make it into those schools are obviously not the smartest." Making it into a top school implies top grades. And since only top grades can get you into top schools, only the smartest get top grades. Since people who have made it into top schools are the smartest, it is obvious that they do not need to demonstrate their intelligence, schooling or other such This is the thrust of his entire argument, period. Yet anybody with access to the Internet knows that top grades correlate poorly to other measures of intelligence. Being common knowledge, perpetuating notion that top grades = top intellect is clearly a basic untruth (maybe "lie" is too trollish, dunnah). Therefore (spelling it out formally now), If top grades != top intellect and top grades implies entrance into top schools the students at top schools are not guaranteed to be persons of top intellect Since we have now formally established that not all the people at Stanford (just using Mr. Guo's school as an exemplar here) are not of the top intellect, we know that there exists people who attended non-top schools who are of the top intellect (or did not attend post 12th grade schooling at all!). And we also know that, using this article as an exemplar as well, that there exists people who are inclined, like Mr. Guo, to assume that people who did not attend a top school are also not of top intellect, that persons of top intellect who did not attend a top school must therefore clarify this basic truth to persons like Mr. Guo. The problem with this of course is that Mr. Guo works off of a false axiom, so people who have tried to clarify this to him are viewed as, to use Mr. Guo's own word choice, disreputable? In other words, he's calling them liars.
richardw 17y ago
He covers that: 'I remember that some of the most arrogant kids were the A-/B+ students who always took the opportunity to assert that, although they did not get as high marks as the A/A+ students, they were somehow 'smarter' in other ways ' (kidding, kidding :)
pgbovine 17y ago
this is the author here ... since this post seems to have spawned the largest thread, hopefully i can address it at its root. i now realized that this was a horrible way to start the article, for several reasons: 1.) it makes people debate grades vs. intelligence vs. likelihood of eventual success, etc. 2.) it reminds hacker types of how schools only rewarded the teachers' pet kids who bothered doing inane homework and studying a lot for tests and didn't have proper incentives for people who liked hacking in their spare time rather than spending all their efforts trying to earn A+'s 3.) it makes people think that the point of my article is about intelligence, getting good grades, and being admitted into an elitist school I think all of these detract from the main point of my article, which is to make a very simple claim, which i've observed to be true in my personal experiences: "Given two people with comparable levels of intelligence and technical skills, the one with less-reputable external marks of status will be more likely to display outward signs of elitism, arrogance, and snobbery." i guess the moral of the story is that i should be more concise in my writing ... smaller attack surface ;)
- elblanco 17y ago
  Yes, bad example. Ignoring it, I would counter-argue that the only people I've ever had introduce themselves with their school appended to their names were tier-1 school grads. I'm unsure of your definition of "elitism", "arrogance" and "snobbery". Your examples do not demonstrate any of these three on the part of the tier-1+n people.

by xiaoma 17y ago

scott_s 17y ago

If think you replace "smartest" with "most successful", the point he's trying to make does not change.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
Confusion 17y ago
Which is still a ridiculous point: A/A+ students are not necessarily smarter, more successful, more intelligent, whatever-you-want-to-call-it than B+/A- students. His sole defense of that assertion is if you're so damn smart, wouldn't it take you just slightly more effort to get an A which I cannot characterize as anything else but a total lack of any sense of what someone may want to do with his time, other than obtain high grades, combined with the unfounded accusation that they all consider themselves capable of doing better. He completely rules out the possibility that out of numbers 5 through 15 out of a 100, five may rather want to spend their time, let's say, starting a company, practicing a sport or contributing code to some open source project. That's when the real problem shows it's ugly head: they are made to feel like they have to excuse themselves for their grades, as anything below 'perfect' is always questioned, as the article did: "why don't you get higher grades?" For me, the answer really was exactly as he says: because I have a fucking life out of school. However, the intention of that answer wasn't to play down the grades of others or to assert my intelligence. I won't deny they usually also have a life out of school. The intention was purely and solely: to answer the question that everyone keeps asking. I've given that answer so many times I can only think of it shouted with the expletive in it. And then grade-obsessed nitwits like this guy throw a hissy fit because they think I'm trying to trump them. No, I don't bloody care about trumping you. If I cared, I would spend my time trying to score higher grades, so I'd get into that prestigious university. I'm not sure I would succeed, but the point is: I'm not even trying to best you. God, guys like this still piss me off. They don't want to accept the fact that there may have been guys that could outdo them, but didn't bother.
- scott_s 17y ago
  A/A+ students are, by definition, more successful at school than B+/A- students. That's the only sense of the phrase I meant it in.
  - gizmo 17y ago
    Not by definition, because the definition of success at school isn't "getting high grades". School is not the end, it's only a means. If I had to give a single metric for success at school it would be 'education'; those who learn more are more successful at school. This isn't necessarily reflected by test scores.
    - scott_s 17y ago
      It's the metric that is used to judge academic success. Really, all of this is besides the point that the author was trying to make. You're getting caught up in his example, but ignoring his point. Grades are a metric of a kind of success. I agree that education is more important than grades, but that's not what the example was about.
      - mnemonicsloth 17y ago
        I'm not trying to score rhetorical points here, but it seems like you're trying to change the subject after having one of your unconscious assumptions brought to your attention. Everybody has them, and, er... by definition... nobody is aware of them. Most people try and forget all about them when they do become visible, but is that the ideal reaction?
        scott_s 17y ago
        I feel not that I'm trying to change the subject, but reign it back in. I assumed people would recognize that what I meant when I said "more successful" in the context of an objective metric like grades. I hoped that pointing out that the author was more concerned about success in a general endeavor than in the specific example he used would clarify the point he tried to make. I was wrong.

timwiseman 17y ago

True, but they hold something that is generally recognized as a mark of intelligence. Whether or not it is actually a mark of intelligence is irrelevant to his point.

elblanco 17y ago
And for being duped into believing this little lie, Mr. Guo has singularly proven that Stanford folks are not as smart as their reputation makes them out to be.
- elblanco 17y ago
  Downvoted obviously from a Stanford grad.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    You're new here, so please read the guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - elblanco 17y ago
      Fair enough, I can see how that was trollish. So I'll elaborate. Mr. Guo exists in a world built upon a false axiom, "only the smartest make it into the top schools, and that people who don't make it into those schools are obviously not the smartest." Making it into a top school implies top grades. And since only top grades can get you into top schools, only the smartest get top grades. Since people who have made it into top schools are the smartest, it is obvious that they do not need to demonstrate their intelligence, schooling or other such This is the thrust of his entire argument, period. Yet anybody with access to the Internet knows that top grades correlate poorly to other measures of intelligence. Being common knowledge, perpetuating notion that top grades = top intellect is clearly a basic untruth (maybe "lie" is too trollish, dunnah). Therefore (spelling it out formally now), If top grades != top intellect and top grades implies entrance into top schools the students at top schools are not guaranteed to be persons of top intellect Since we have now formally established that not all the people at Stanford (just using Mr. Guo's school as an exemplar here) are not of the top intellect, we know that there exists people who attended non-top schools who are of the top intellect (or did not attend post 12th grade schooling at all!). And we also know that, using this article as an exemplar as well, that there exists people who are inclined, like Mr. Guo, to assume that people who did not attend a top school are also not of top intellect, that persons of top intellect who did not attend a top school must therefore clarify this basic truth to persons like Mr. Guo. The problem with this of course is that Mr. Guo works off of a false axiom, so people who have tried to clarify this to him are viewed as, to use Mr. Guo's own word choice, disreputable? In other words, he's calling them liars.

richardw 17y ago

He covers that: 'I remember that some of the most arrogant kids were the A-/B+ students who always took the opportunity to assert that, although they did not get as high marks as the A/A+ students, they were somehow 'smarter' in other ways ' (kidding, kidding :)

pgbovine 17y ago

this is the author here ... since this post seems to have spawned the largest thread, hopefully i can address it at its root. i now realized that this was a horrible way to start the article, for several reasons: 1.) it makes people debate grades vs. intelligence vs. likelihood of eventual success, etc. 2.) it reminds hacker types of how schools only rewarded the teachers' pet kids who bothered doing inane homework and studying a lot for tests and didn't have proper incentives for people who liked hacking in their spare time rather than spending all their efforts trying to earn A+'s 3.) it makes people think that the point of my article is about intelligence, getting good grades, and being admitted into an elitist school I think all of these detract from the main point of my article, which is to make a very simple claim, which i've observed to be true in my personal experiences: "Given two people with comparable levels of intelligence and technical skills, the one with less-reputable external marks of status will be more likely to display outward signs of elitism, arrogance, and snobbery." i guess the moral of the story is that i should be more concise in my writing ... smaller attack surface ;)

elblanco 17y ago
Yes, bad example. Ignoring it, I would counter-argue that the only people I've ever had introduce themselves with their school appended to their names were tier-1 school grads. I'm unsure of your definition of "elitism", "arrogance" and "snobbery". Your examples do not demonstrate any of these three on the part of the tier-1+n people.