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<p>As this is my experience here at Pomona, and from my visits to Columbia, I think it could be applied to most selective colleges. </p>
<p>Some people are just faster at some things than others are.</p>
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<p>Can you explain what you mean by this? I wouldn’t expect many college students to be truly brilliant intellectuals, I certainly am not and I have only met about six. But what do you mean by intellectually insipid, and is it really a big issue in core classes? I would think that it would be a bell-curve type deal with about equal numbers of brilliant intellectuals and intellectually insipid people with the majority being just the regular bright kid you would find at any top school.</p>
<p>I think we must first make a distinction between an “Intellectual” and one who is “Intelligent”. Because they are not the same. </p>
<p>Like others have said, dumb is highly subjective and I don’t see it as being a lack of book smarts of anything academic. That to me, is more so being ignorant than being dumb. A lack of common sense is the area I see one being deemed as dumb in.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s a matter of being lazy. There are some students who are admitted and then don’t do as well simply because they haven’t been as well prepared as others for a certain type of rigorous curriculum. </p>
<p>There are people at less rigorous high schools who do very well there which makes them appear qualified but then can’t keep up once they are at a very advanced university. This is pretty sad as it isn’t exactly their fault that they received substandard training. They were probably working pretty hard in high school.</p>