Right Height
Would you agree that there is something untoward about a parent focusing endlessly and vociferously about their child’s height? Especially if the child wasn’t particularly vertically challenged, but a perfectly normal appropriate height? The occasional comment could be overlooked, I suppose, but repeated entreaties over years would get on my last nerve. If If only they were taller, just a few inches, is that too much to ask? were the repeated refrain of every conversation, I would be, as Bob Seeger’s sang, “late for the door.”
Hold that thought about the incessant parental height-related complaint and consider what DYPASHUC (an unwieldy amalgam of Duke, Yale, Princeton, Amherst, Stanford, Harvard, and the University of Chicago*) does for students. Acknowledge that DYPASHUC collects top students rather than produces them. That DYPASHUC has a 98% graduation rate has more to do with the students whom DYPASHUC admits than what happens to those students once they get there. True DYPASHUC professors aren’t known for shoving their students into oncoming traffic, but their valedictorian—99th percentile test score—yearbook editor—student council president—captain of the football team—students are neither hot house flowers nor snowflakes or whatever other metaphor we’re using lately to signify kids who don’t study each and every minute they’re awake. Of course all these high achieving kids graduate. Performing isn’t just what they do, it’s who they are. They come trained from the factory; they don’t know how to fail.
No one is fonder of Fozzie Bear than this author. (It will come as no surprise that I find “wocka wocka” inherently and enormously hysterical.) But were Fozzie, through some glitch in admissions, to be admitted to DYPASHUC, Fozzie would underperform against classmates who speak five languages and read a hundred pages an hour. Sorry, Fozzie.
So if a student is great—solid B+ average, good but not off-the-charts scores, competent long range meaningful extracurriculars but hasn’t been a building a nuclear submarine out of sticks and mud in their basement—is it a stretch to suggest that wishing this kid could go to DYPASHUC and obsessing about it for four years iskinda the same as wishing they were taller?
Malcolm Gladwell makes a related point brilliantly which you can watch here or appreciate from the following: Gladwell considers the math SAT scores of Harvard students and divides them into three categories—high, medium, and low. I’m paraphrasing for simplicity—truthful if not factual—to show a third of Harvard kids—the “high” group—with math scores of 750-800, the “middle” third with math scores of 700-749, and the “low” third at 650 to 699.
Note that 650 to 699 is a heckuva good score pretty much everywhere. Except at Harvard where a math score of 650 to 699 puts you in the bottom third of the class. Whereas a math score of 650 to. 699 puts you in the top third at Hartwick University where the math scores of the middle and low thirds are below 649.
Now Gladwell asks, “which students go on to study math and science, successfully apply to engineering and medical school, publish papers with their professors and basically just kick a$$ in math and science?” Both groups, the bottom third at Harvard and the top third at Hartwick have the same score, the same coursework background, the same ability. Students in both groups shold go on to graduate study in STEM, right? They’re the same kids in both groups. Actually the Harvard kids, even though they’re in the bottom third should do better, be admitted to grad school, right? They went to Harvard for goodness sake!
No. What Gladwell found was that the kids in the bottom third at Harvard did NOT go on to successful STEM careers. But the equivalent kids at Hartwick did. The implication is clear. Being in the bottom third at Harvard sucked. Being in the top third at Hartwick rocked.
Which makes total sense to me. A kid in the bottom third at Harvard might internalize: Harvard is brutal! I study five hours a day! I’m taking Calculus III! And I stink. No matter how hard I work, the other kids are leaving me behind. And those other kids only study three hours a day instead of five. I am miserable and I’m not going on to the next level.
Whereas a kid in the top third at Hartwick might be living with this narrative: Hartwick is the bomb! Life is good! I am top of the heap! I study five hours a day and I am humping it! Nobody is as smart or as motivated as I! I’m going to go to med school! Or get a PhD in chemistry! Or maybe both!
Still wish your kid were taller?
