babble: Success: Nature or Nurture

FAQ | Forum Home

»	babble » right brain babble » humanities & science » Success: Nature or Nurture

Email this thread to someone!

Author

Topic: Success: Nature or Nurture

clockwork
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 690

posted 20 February 2002 10:21 AM

quote:
In their own ways, the films provoke a much more interesting question: can anybody succeed at Harvard? In other words, what if what it takes to get into an elite college and what it takes to prosper there are two entirely separate things? The only way to truly test the admissions process would be to accept enough homecoming queens and homeboys to make a meaningful comparison. And not many schools are willing to take that risk.
But it has happened. In 1979, the University of Texas Medical School selected 150 first-year students from a pool of 800 interviewees. The State Legislature then mandated that the class size be increased by 50 students, who had to be pulled from the bottom of the original pool. The initially rejected students came in with inferior marks, poorer test scores and lower personal evaluations. Yet at every measurable step during their medical education, from term marks to residency, their performance as a group was indistinguishable not just from the rest of their peers but also from the top 50 students in the class.

This is a small article that makes an interesting point that pops up on occasion.

Unfortunately, the last bit in this peice is sure to draw the wrath of a certain poster.

From: Pokaroo! | Registered: May 2001 | IP: Logged

skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 20 February 2002 10:40 AM

Yup. I feel I observed this effect when I was teaching. What happened after students were admitted mattered more than how they were ranked before admission. And my work experience has pretty much convinced me of this:

quote:
We like to believe that Great Men (and Women) shape events and not the other way around. Even the thriving self-help movement emphasizes the recovery of our ''authentic selves.'' Part of this belief is vanity: we all like to think we're irreplaceable. It's difficult to accept that many people could perform equally well if given a seat in the front row. But the evidence is that they can, and not just in the classroom.

(Can't say I'm a fan of the Dubya example myself, clock -- I mean, that would require agreeing that the Shrub actually has grown on the job.)

From: gone | Registered: May 2001 | IP: Logged

Victor Von Mediaboy
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 554

posted 20 February 2002 10:44 AM

That's damned interesting.

Hey, I was a lousy high school student but a rip-roarin' university student (at least in first and second year. By third year I started to slack off.).

From: A thread has merit only if I post to it. So sayeth VVMB! | Registered: May 2001 | IP: Logged

Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 20 February 2002 10:50 AM

I was a high school drop out. But I was in the top 3% of my class last year in university. Go figger. Of course, there has been a few years of life experience in between - that never hurts.

From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001 | IP: Logged

clockwork
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 690

posted 20 February 2002 11:15 AM

Hey, I was the complete opposite. I made the honour role in high school. I got in the top 20% in the Descartes Mathematics Contest (written in Grade 12, I might gloat) and top 25% writing the Sir Isaac Newton Contest. I got a whole stack of “proficiency certificates” in mathematics and a few other subjects (they are issued to the top grades in a class, if I remember correctly). I even got the Northern Telecom Award for Technical Excellence once (and a handy graphics calculator which made me a real dweeb in my one of my math classes cause I was the only student to have my own).

I completely fucked up in university.

My placement in the average is of a good student doing poorly, where someone who didn’t do as well as me would have done much better.

But that isn’t really my point here. The point I’m getting at is the idea of a meritocracy, that wonderful phantasm certain strains of political thought love to espouse (and Bush would be another example against the meritocracy).

From: Pokaroo! | Registered: May 2001 | IP: Logged

DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 20 February 2002 11:54 AM

I have been able to test the row-placement theory empirically.

In my technical school classes I tended to sit in the middle or the back. My grades were average but not stellar.

In my just-returned-to-college classes I have sat in the front and found my grades to be considerably better.

I have also read of a statistical treatment of this - although all I know is that the statement read "there is a one-grade differential between those who sit near the front and those who sit near the back".

From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001 | IP: Logged

Victor Von Mediaboy
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 554

posted 20 February 2002 01:33 PM

Able to hear the instructor better?

Able to see the blackboard better?

Less distracted by the number of chatty students between you and the instructor?

From: A thread has merit only if I post to it. So sayeth VVMB! | Registered: May 2001 | IP: Logged

'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064

posted 20 February 2002 02:52 PM

quote:
The point I’m getting at is the idea of a meritocracy, that wonderful phantasm certain strains of political thought love to espouse (and Bush would be another example against the meritocracy).

Nicholas Lemann, of The New Yorker among other publications, has written about this:

The Big Test

From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001 | IP: Logged

Trespasser
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1204

posted 20 February 2002 03:57 PM

It's amazing how 'excellence' and 'talent' are dependent on so many non-related things. Personal contact with the teacher, or at least making yourself physically visible to her; a room and a computer of one's own; a strong sense of entitlement; things like that.

Now I'm off to read 'lance's link.

[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: Trespasser ]

From: maritimes | Registered: Aug 2001 | IP: Logged

All times are Pacific Time

Hop To: