Do you have to be smart to do well in college?

<p>Do you think the smartest kids do the best in college, or the most tenacious students? Like, do you think the keeners who stay on top of everything wind up doing the best, or the kids who may not be as serious but can glance at something and get it do the best?</p>

<p>I think people who are naturally smart have an advantage, but it's what they choose to do with it that helps or hurts them. Many people who are naturally smart get bored studying, and so they don't, and may do a little worse than people who study their asses off all the time. But, like, they may still pull off a B- or B by just being naturally smart and rarely studying when the person with less intelligence that is studying their ass off all the time might get a B+ for all their hard work. I have known people that that has happened to.</p>

<p>it varies, the kids that get A's in college have enough of both smarts and work ethic.</p>

<p>You have to care about what you are majoring in. If you pick something you enjoy, you will do well, no matter how "smart" you are or whatever "natural ability" you have.</p>

<p>I don't believe in either of the above terms.</p>

<p>People who work hard do better in life than those who are just smart.</p>

<p>While there is a such thing as natural ability, hard work can overcome a lack of it. Not a total lack of it (there are just certain people who can never become math majors, or english majors, or whatever) but if you're interested in it and you're not patently horrible at it you can do well.</p>

<p>My observation, based upon both college and real world experience, is that pretty smart/strong work ethic beats brilliant/lazy more often than not.</p>

<p>My experience has been that there's a sort of intelligence 'baseline' for being a top student. The people in the bottom, say, 25% of a school's intelligence pool are never going to be the top students, no matter how hard they work. Beyond that though, I think it's mostly work ethic that matters. People are much closer together in intelligence in college than in high school, so natural ability isn't usually the difference maker.</p>

<p>Well, there are those smart kids in class who work hard and get 90s, and the freaking genius kids who never showed up for class or did work getting 100s.</p>

<p>But is anybody going to care about the difference?</p>

<p>Being smart and having a good work ethic certainly helps you succeed in life, but nothing beats pure luck.</p>

<p>Those with IQ above 135 will get a 3.7-4.0</p>

<p>IQ above 120: 3.3-3.7
IQ above 100: 2.8-3.2
below 100: <2.8</p>

<p>that's total BS, jakem. I don't think you can really tell GPA from IQ, because grading is so subjective, for one. Two, the people that are really really smart often get bored and fool around, making them less likely to get really good grades (they will still have good grades, because of natural talent, but not great).</p>

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<p>I totally agree. If you were accepted to your college you are capable of doing well in your college. If you are bottom 25% though, you might be a little incapable of getting a 3.7+, though you could still do well. Hard work will ultimately determine your grade at most colleges.


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<p>I also agree. A lot of people don't realize that the difference a lot of times between a 4.0 and a 3.8 or a 3.9, is just pure dumb luck.</p>

<p>You could easily set your alarm clock, and get up on time everyday for your classes, but one day your alarm clock just doesn't work for any reason at all. You are 25 minutes late for class and you miss something important that was said that ends up being covered on a test. Despite you finding out what you missed, and asking the teacher again, you don't quite get it as well as you would of if you would of been there the first time, so you end up getting 5 points less on the test. At the end of the semester you are 5 points shy of an A, so there goes your 4.0.</p>

<p>Or your professor just had a huge fight with his wife and ended up grading your test with not as much concentration as before, and misses marking something incorrect that he should of, so you get a couple of extra points on the test. Those couple of extra points is what is the deciding factor in you achieving your A so you get to keep your 4.0.</p>

<p>There are so many scenarios and situations you can come up with its ridiculous.


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<p>NO! As AUlostchick said, that is total BS. There are so many ways thats BS I won't even bother to write all of them. People put so much importance into IQ, just to inflate their ego, and to try to limit people, but in 99% of situations, IQ is a total BS factor that has little to no relevance to how a situation ends up being played out.</p>

<p>As long as you honestly care about what you are learning, you will master it.</p>

<p>I think it depends on how you define "doing well in college". And the type of courses. Somehow, the type of brilliant student that just "gets it" seems to translate into higher grades better in more math/science majors than in humanities majors where the grading is more subjective than getting it vs. not getting it. In humanities classes where so many of the grades are based on papers, I think there's more room for a hardworking student with less natural aptitude for a subject to do better (through presenting drafts of their papers for revision, by including thorough and interesting research and a variety of perspectives in their papers). Whereas the kid that just "gets" chemistry is probably going to do better than the kid that doesn't, regardless of how hard each of them work. Not saying one is better than the other (and I'm certainly not saying that math/science majors are easier), just that there's a bit more wiggle room when grading isn't black and white.</p>

<p>But if you define success in terms of opportunities for research, for work within the department, or in terms of glowing recommendations for grad school, I agree with gbesq that "pretty smart/strong work ethic beats brilliant/lazy", regardless of discipline.</p>

<p>But I think this is really only true if there isn't a huge disparity to begin with.</p>

<p>lmfao</p>

<p>you all are horrible at detecting obvious sarcasm.</p>

<p>Work ethic and luck will always play a huge part...sheesh.</p>

<p>I don't know. I think work ethic works better when you're talking about physical things. Intellectually, some people don't learn as quick or in the same way as others.</p>

<p>I know Chris Rock once said that, in a class, you have five smart kids, five dumb kids, and the rest in the middle. That doesn't denote who works harder...just who gets it better. A D student can work his butt off all year and only get a B, and some students can put in bare minimum and make the same thing.</p>

<p>
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People who work hard do better in life than those who are just smart.

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<p>True, you must work to do well but smarter people can put in considerably less effort and do better.</p>

<p>Intelligence does correlate with GPA
Intelligence is the best predictor of success in life</p>

<p>So GPA and success are related, but not as directly as intelligence and success.</p>

<p>source: The Bell Curve</p>

<p>
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IQ is a total BS factor that has little to no relevance to how a situation ends up being played out.

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<p>The data indicates that it is the most defining factor in how a situation ends up being played out.</p>

<p>IQ is overrated.</p>

<p>IQ matters, but only up to a certain point. The fact is, most of the jobs our society considers prestigious (doctor, lawyer, banker, etc...) don't require an IQ higher than 130. Now can you be a theoretical physicist with a 130 IQ? Probably not, but that's about it. </p>

<p>I would guess that people with IQs over 135-140 are statistically less successful than people in the 120-130 range, because people over 135 tend to have problems relating to other people and performing the social functions that people with lower IQs take for granted. For most jobs outside of academia, those social skills are equally important as intellectual ability. Bottom line, I would much rather be a well adjusted 125 than a socially isolated 160. </p>

<p>Now if someone has a 160 IQ and is socially normal, more power to them. That isn't the norm though.</p>

<p>if you find that you have nothing to do and you are above average,you will probably spend more time on academic and your gpa will be impressive....</p>