<p>"“I have the distinct feeling you are confusing assertiveness, which can be practiced by anybody, with aggressiveness, which is a particular style.”</p>
<p>Some of these distinctions are questions of taste, even within one geographic region. One person’s aggressive self-promotion may be another’s polite self-advocacy. My classroom conversation style was considered kind of loud and pushy at Bryn Mawr, but not at Harvard. Unless we’re talking about overt bullying (like, say, Bobby Knight or Donald Trump, or QM’s example), people will often disagree about whether one kid’s behavior is unappealing or not.</p>
<p>I think the issue I have with this kind of thinking in regards to social intelligence, is that it is frequently put forward by the same people who argue for a stronger reliance on standardized test scores and less on holistic admissions. It is as if some are saying, “Math skills matter, social skills? Not so much.” But, it has been demonstrated that people intelligence is an intelligence just as important as math intellect.</p>
<p>So, that is why the nonreader question became interesting to me.</p>
<p>Why do you believe that social intellect “should” be given more time to develop but that someone with great social intellect ought not be given more time to develop the math skills? I think this is ALSO a prejudice you might want examine, since you are examining everyone else’s biases.</p>
<p>The point, though, and when it comes to admissions to such competitive places like MIT, is that they do not HAVE to compromise. For the most part they can get students who have both.</p>
No, bogi didn’t mention that her S was bullied or ostracized, just that other “average” (kind of a veiled insult, but I let that pass) students couldn’t see his wonderful qualities. Probably S was quiet and reserved and didn’t find much in common with his classmates. They, likewise didn’t find much in common with him. There’s nothing wrong with that. There should be room for lots of personality types in the world. </p>
<p>Once the S found people he had things in common with, he was more outgoing with them. Seems pretty normal. My problem was in blaming the other students for not appreciating him or for being too “average” to see his wonderfulness. Wonderfulness means different things in different contexts and to different relationships. A wonderful mathematician is not necessarily a wonderful dad.</p>
It would be nice to think that being mean would hurt your college chances, but it probably doesn’t unless it’s bad enough to affect your recommendations.</p>
<p>I’m sympathetic to the idea that we shouldn’t judge the social skills of 17-year-olds too much. However, when we’re talking about the most selective colleges, they have the luxury of choosing students who already have the full package of academic achievement, ECs, social skills, and everything else. They don’t need to compromise on any of these without a really good reason to do so. That’s tough, but it’s the reality.</p>
<p>See how calling it social skills and relating some mean girls/boys tales gets off track? No? Really think adcoms are going to dismiss Z? That it’s about popularity?</p>
<p>The SAT math section covers what should be junior high school math for bright students. If they are smart enough, they should have it down by 12th grade.</p>
<p>NO! I’m sorry, QM, this is where you go entirely too literal - and it’s a shame, because it obfuscates the point.</p>
<p>We are not talking about whether our hypothetical applicant can charm the pants off the lunch table crowd or whether he’s accepted by the athletic stars and big-men-on-campus or whether when he enters a room the ladies swoon and the menfolk are jealous. We aren’t talking about his popularity among peers, NOT AT ALL. We are talking about our hypothetical applicant’s ability to demonstrate that he can learn from, work with and interact with others. It may be that he’s doing so mostly with intellectual peers over intellectual topics – but that’s FINE. It may be that he’s doing so in a quiet setting (videogames in someone’s basement) as opposed to partying-til-dawn-at-the-nightclub, but that’s FINE. We are talking whether he is able to carry off meeting a new person (interviewer) and comport himself with some degree of grace and general social niceties (“How are you today?” “Thank you” to the waitress pouring the coffee, a reasonably friendly demeanor).</p>
<p>A shy, quiet, retiring bookworm type could absolutely do just fine on this measure and be apparent to the interviewer that she was a person of thoughtful substance who would add to the campus community. </p>
<p>Why are so many of you taking this to “Mr. Popularity” and “Mr. Meet-and-Greet Look-at-Me-and-My-Accomplishments” and “Mr. Own-The-Room” when that is NOT AT ALL what we are discussing?
Sometimes I think the literalness of the math / science cohort gets in the way of conceptual discussion here. Some of you can’t discuss social skills without extrapolating it to the extroverted class president type.</p>
<p>Beliavsky, you know I’m not going to discuss The SAT with you, today. I’m discussing social intelligence today. I have discussed the SAT with you. Discuss social intellect with me, today. ;)</p>
<p>Yes, because all junior high schools across the US offer exactly the same opportunities and curriculum. Sigh, Beliavsky. You KNOW this – do you not care?</p>
<p>Yes, exactly, lookingforward. This is the literalness at work here – QM, with all due respect, your stories of Z being bullied at the lunch table or a girl being excluded by the Mean Girls – have absolutely ZERO to do with what we are talking about.</p>
<p>Boy, sylvan8798, talk about being misunderstood. I meant no insult nor blame concerning my son’s situation. I will be sure to choose my words very carefully next time, but just to clarify a little:</p>
<p>You said:
</p>
<p>I said this in my first post about the topic:
</p>
<p>My use of the term “average” was referring to the “average man on the street”, not someone of average intellect or otherwise insulting term. </p>
<p>I see that sharing this anecdote was a failed attempt at giving a different perspective on the smart “outlier” and the request to sometimes forgive him for his underdeveloped social skills in mainstream settings.</p>
<p>I appreciated your earlier anecdote. “Average intellect” or for that matter “below-average” intellect are not insulting terms, any more than average height or below-average height are.</p>
oldfort, oldfort, they did fine* because* they weren’t typical Asians. ;)</p>
<p>Most of the Asians I know well don’t seem terribly stereotypical either, but then my younger son ran with the crowd that was smart, but pretended to be slackers. </p>
<p>My older son had very few friends in high school, because really there didn’t seem to be anyone who shared most of his interests. It was great to see him at CMU and how different he was when everyone got him.</p>
Your S is at MIT - apparently someone out there was able to appreciate him, eh? Isn’t that the subject here? Whether the MIT’s of the world would/do reject students with less than BMOC social skills? He would be an example of that not being uniformly the case?</p>
<p>Interesting clarification of “social skills,” Pizzagirl. But if social success is not meant by the term “social skills,” then why bother to rate the applicant’s ability to handle the general social niceties that most 10-year-olds can handle? If the applicant cannot do those things, then I think that the applicant has a disability that should be covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act. </p>
<p>I am not sure about the “comporting himself with grace” component. That may cover different elements.</p>
<p>Well, the other thread got closed down after PiperXP accused me of “dripping with condescension.” Didn’t mean to be condescending. Didn’t get to reply. Did send a PM. Have learned a lot since I was 22. Probably not enough.</p>
<p>I noticed that,QM.Sorry you did not get to reply. But I think that thread was closed down for numerous other reasons as well-the rather crude name he gave to the perception he had of your posts, the fact that the thread was 3 years old, that it was starting to veer into racial stuff,etc. Hopefully, this thread will remain civil so that it remains open.</p>
<p>Heh, 3 years old. I once asked my spouse about the historical antecedents of some issue, and he told me that he needed to start with the Treaty of Tilsit (1807). I commented on this once, and I think JHS replied that was short-sighted, and one needed to go back to the 1340’s, maybe earlier.</p>
<p>“But if social success is not meant by the term “social skills,” then why bother to rate the applicant’s ability to handle the general social niceties that most 10-year-olds can handle?”</p>
<p>Because there are folks out there who can’t do it, and they cause headaches for the college when they live on campus. I do not assume at ALL that most 10-year-olds could live peaceably and independently in a tiny room with a stranger for a year while hundreds of miles away from their family. That is sophisticated stuff. It is challenging for a lot of 18-year-olds.</p>
<p>It’s important to separate social skills from character. Socially skilled people who use their abilities to torment others lack good character. Social skills are just a set of techniques, like the ability to play the piano. They can be used to play beautiful music or mean, nasty music.</p>