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Is this entire article based on the datapoint that asks mothers to evaluate their children's relative academic performance? Because that data proves its own lac
by skywhopper 12y ago
Is this entire article based on the datapoint that asks mothers to evaluate their children's relative academic performance? Because that data proves its own lack of validity when at most 12% of moms rate one of their kids in the bottom half of their class.
- hga 12y agoWell, while it's not, or perhaps is just about as rigorous, a friend and I went through a large set of incoming MIT student folders one year looking for ones we wanted to advise (before they choose a major it's any credible volunteer in the Institute, mine was a random Dean for Student Affairs who's now the Chaplain), and they were overwhelmingly first born or single children. For that matter, I'm the eldest of 4, although I'm sufficiently genetically distinct (phenotypically very close to my father) that that's undoubtedly the greats part of why I ended up the smartest by a lot and got into MIT.
- sokoloff 12y agoI attended MIT, and I can't recall ever telling the Institute that I was a first-born (of 3). What was the source of the data you had on incoming frosh?
- hga 12y agoTheir admissions folders, MIT doesn't have much to speak of more than that prior to matriculation. This would have been for the academic year 1988-9 I think; I don't remember how we came to this conclusion, just that it was self-evident. Hmmm, for that matter, as a member of the class of '83, I too don't remember explicitly telling them that.... Or maybe I'm misremembering this, it was a quarter century ago; my friend interacted with a large fraction of the undergraduates (EECS) and would through that have gotten a rough but good picture of this sort of thing over the years. But I'm pretty sure I remember us going through some paper files and coming to this conclusion.