The Case for Introverts

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

A recent piece in the Washington Post by a UPenn prof asserts that the admissions policies of the ivy league schools misguidedly favor extroverted kids:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/one-group-that-definitely-faces-prejudice-in-college-admissions/2018/08/05/906095e0-11e8-a679-b09212fb69c2_story.html?utm_term=.f88036ee10b4

That preference for the outgoing, the gregarious and the talkative is at the heart of the case against Harvard by Asian Americans, but the author wants to make a larger point - that there’s “zero evidence” for the proposition that leadership and ability are linked to extroversion. Some of the best leaders - he cites Charles Schwab and Bill Gates - are introverts, who “govern by example rather than charisma, by listening rather than talking.”

It was interesting to hear that case made. In an earlier era these extroverted types - sometimes stigmatized as “organization men” or the “other-directed” - were not so universally admired. There’s room for all types, of course, and there is more fluidity among types than is commonly recognized. Still, I trust that at the U of C the introverted still hold the place of honor.

2

The premise of the piece is dead wrong. There are plenty of introverts at Harvard. (Also – Bill Gates, definitely an introvert – leads by listening? I don’t think that’s the experience of people who have dealt with him.) Maybe there’s some prejudice against introverts at the margin – it’s awfully hard to tell the 1% of introverts who will go on to be great leaders from the 99% who won’t, while extroverts know how to look like what you are looking for – but that hardly means they are unrepresented. Many of the Harvard alumni I know – maybe even a slight majority – are introverts. The Yale I attended had scads of them. That’s not the public reputation of those colleges, but it is the reality.

I do agree that, whatever the situation at Harvard, Chicago used to have more introverts than its peers. Whether that’s still true in the age of hyperselectivity, I don’t know.

3

Aren’t you conceding the point of the piece, @JHS , when you surmise that even at Chicago in the “age of hyperselectivity” the introverted may now be being culled in favor of the extroverted? You must be assuming - probably correctly - that admissions officers who have a choice among lots of types will favor the extroverted ones. If that is happening at Chicago, how much more likely is it to be happening at the other elite schools, which have always favored those types? The UPenn prof may be operating with some first-hand observation of the matter. He has written a book - I haven’t read it - making a detailed case that the extroverted coming out of high school do not live up to their supposed promise. For all their showiness and volubility they will not exceed their drab classmates in becoming peerless leaders and sterling contributors to society. The quiet kids with grit and self-direction more often have the inner resources and classic virtues that in time make for real adult accomplishment. Who among us does not recognize some truth in that depiction of the high school scene? Well, apparently admissions officers at ivy league schools. I hope their counterparts at the U of C haven’t drunk the same Kool-Aid.

4

The problem with your (and his) simplistic analysis is that it’s nothing like a question of Harvard (or Penn) admitting 90% extroverts and 10% introverts, or Chicago having done the reciprocal of that. If you assume a “natural” 50-50 split, I think the result of the bias (if any) at Harvard would be something like admitting 55% extroverts and 45% introverts, and maybe Chicago was the other way round. I don’t even really think it’s a bias. I suspect that when you have to make hard admissions decisions, you tend to make them in favor of the people about whom you have the most information, and that will somewhat favor extroverts who are a little more likely to have gotten more information about themselves in front of the admissions staff – through many channels, including interviews, essays, the reports of teachers and counselors, and accomplishments with ECs. It’s far from an absolute thing. Plenty of introverts, especially those who wind up going to elite universities, are pretty good at doing things like filling out admissions forms for elite universities.

The whole introvert/extrovert characterization is fraught with difficulties and actually quite dynamic over time. I have seen lots of people take Meyers-Briggs tests, and the majority cluster close to the line on the I/E axis. Over time people tend to shift towards introversion, as they become more driven by their internal compass and less driven by others’ expectations, but it’s still pretty subtle. Yesterday’s extroverts may be tomorrow’s introverts. I suspect that as a matter of normal development teens tend to skew extroverted.

If you met my wife and me, you would immediately assign both of us to the extrovert category, because we are both articulate and have good social skills, and because she, at least, is a classic joiner and leader. But she tests as an introvert – justly so, because she is almost completely inner-directed – while I am borderline, my glibness and joy in schmoozing balanced by hours and hours of solitary work and study.

Plus, when you are talking about the kids who are applying to and accepted by elite universities, including Chicago, you aren’t talking about the garden variety b.s.-er or drone. The extroverts have a lot of substance, and the introverts are not slipping through the shadows unnoticed. As I remember it, among my son’s friends, the one with the most sensational college admissions results – Harvard SCEA, Stanford RD, no other applications – was an absolutely classic Asian introvert . . . whom everybody, students and faculty alike, considered the smartest person in his class. He didn’t have the best grades or the best test scores, he had absolutely no leadership, he had no prizes and few ECs. All he had was the best brain, and everyone knew it. That gets you into Harvard, or Chicago, or wherever. Meanwhile, the guy in my college class who was the most complete (and fundamentally hollow) extrovert has had a sensational career, working at a high level for two Presidents and getting pretty darn rich when his party was out of power.

When my daughter was at Chicago – a while ago, now – she estimated that 10% of her classmates were somewhere on the autism spectrum. The ultimate introverts. That was high relative to other colleges, no doubt. But it wasn’t 10% vs. 0%. If you had made the same assessment for my class at Yale, it would have been 4-5%. So, yeah, Chicago had more introverts. But it was a matter of sliding the fulcrum over an inch or two, not striking some radically different balance.

5

Introverts can be articulate and can have good social skills. They are just introspective and tend to get their energy from time alone as opposed to being surrounded with others. The majority of people are extroverts IIRC from some very non-academic reading on the subject. Introverts have to live in an extroverted world enough as it is - let’s hope they continue to have a home at places like the University of Chicago.

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Do you accept, @JHS , that there’s any correlation between studiousness and introversion, on the one hand, and EC participation and extroversion, on the other? I speak only of correlation, not deterministic certainty. To me the linkage seems rather obvious. We have Zimmerman in this article reinforcing the description by Deresiewicz in “Excellent Sheep” and the quoted words of the Harvard admissions officers in the Asian-American law suit (all of which is supported by the common wisdom here on cc) to the effect that it’s these EC’s that make you or break you with elite schools. Granting the existence of idiosyncratic outliers of the sort you describe, are these observers - and these kids - simply deluded in believing that for most of them it’s demonstrating their chops outside the classroom that really matters? If so, we would expect these kids, once admitted, to be less inclined toward the introverted activity of studiousness. That was the testimony of Pinker about Harvard kids. They are smart but too busy with ECs to be very interested in cracking books or even coming to class. Why should they be? That’s not what Harvard selected them for. Study is for introverts - shudder - and is lonely and unsocial and not “fun”. Losers like that don’t get into Harvard. Ah, but there’s at least one college where fun famously comes to die. Let it remain so. To a true introvert study is meat and drink and sustenance in the battle of life. And the dirty little secret is that, as Plato knew, it can be a hell of a lot sexier than playing volleyball.

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“I suspect that when you have to make hard admissions decisions, you tend to make them in favor of the people about whom you have the most information, and that will somewhat favor extroverts who are a little more likely to have gotten more information about themselves in front of the admissions staff – through many channels, including interviews, essays, the reports of teachers and counselors, and accomplishments with ECs.”

. . . and, beginning this upcoming admissions cycle at UChicago, optional video profiles. Who will be more likely to submit those?

8

As a parent of twins - one who is pretty far toward the introvert end of the spectrum - I find this article compelling. And it’s not just college admissions. Introverts often feel the need to “fake it” to make it through any selective or evaluative process. It’s hard on 18 year olds who are trying to understand themselves, their value, and their place in the world.

9

What makes you think 17-year-old extroverts don’t feel the need to “fake it” to make it through any selective or evaluative process? The only ones who don’t are people who completely lack any insight about themselves, and who can’t tell the difference between their public persona and their inner core.

High-performing kids, extroverts and introverts, do lots of ECs, because our system encourages them to do lots of ECs. In Europe or Asia, the system doesn’t encourage either type of kid to do extensive ECs, and, guess what?, they don’t, extroverts and introverts alike. I’ll give you that extroverts here may do somewhat more ECs, but that’s because they are more responsive to external signals than the introverts. The quality of the introverts’ ECs may well be higher.

And no, I don’t believe there’s a correlation between studiousness and introversion, at least not in the Harvard admissions pool (or at least not in the pool of people who actually have a shot at getting admitted to Harvard).

10

I’d have to agree with JHS, introvert/extrovert is way too simplistic. I would look more at a scale from socially inept to socially gifted. I have three daughters and two fall in the middle, but one is in the gifted area. She is a top 10% student but not top 1%, but if she gets to an interview then she becomes a top .1%. (e.g. if she makes it to the interview she always gets an offer no matter what the competition). There in lies the value of the socially gifted, but as far as Harvard can discern this from an application, it has little to go on.

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You guys seem to me to be denying the obvious, but admittedly sometimes the seemingly obvious proves not to be the true. There must be research on the question of what type of personality best correlates with spending lots of time alone with books and what type correlates with trying out for the glee club and running for student council. If I discover anything on this, I may weigh in again.

@JHS , on parsing further your comments, I take this from them: Whether or not there is a correlation in the general population between studiousness and introversion (which you deny), there would definitely not be any such correlation in the gifted class of kids who have a chance of getting accepted at Harvard. That’s an interesting distinction, though again it seems counter-intuitive. One would expect it to be the case that excellence in any activity (the study of a subject matter or matters in this case) correlates with time spent in that activity (as well as with natural aptitude, of course). And behind time spent there must lie (if that time is to be effective) deep emotional commitment to the activity itself. That’s in fact the way I remember the enthusiasms and manias of both high school life and college life. You seem to be suggesting that the kids who are capable of really excelling in their studies would be more, not less, likely to be ones with time and emotional energy left over to excel in those non-studious social activities that consume time and emotional energy in their own right. It would be nice to think that humans are that versatile and polyvalent. But even Leonardo with all his talents and interests had little of these left to spare for social life. Shakespeare sounds like he was also cut from that cloth. And don’t get me started on Newton. Maybe the subset of kids applying to Harvard transcends all such limitations.

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I’m not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but Silverman has done some research on introversion in the gifted population.

http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/articles/what-we-have-learned-about-gifted-children

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Thanks, @evergreen5 . That data shows a correlation between intellectual giftedness and introversion. I would suppose that the intellectually gifted would generally also be studious since that is the natural way of using their special gifts. The psychological and temperamental habit of studiousness would come secondarily. An interesting statistic would be one that correlated the gifted and the studious. I doubt that the correlation is absolute, but it must be very strong. The correlation must be somewhat less strong for those who are smart enough but not truly gifted. That group must divide between those who are temperamentally studious and those who study and learn only what they need to know for another end. I suppose I am suggesting that introversion tends to characterize the first part of this subdivided group, less so the second part.

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And that sort of study is exactly why it’s silly to suggest that somehow Harvard (or wherever like that) is full of extroverts. Harvard’s “bias” (if there really is any) in favor of extroverts doesn’t mean anything like 80-90% of each class is made up of extroverts. It’s more like 35-40%, vs. the 25% you might get if 100% of the students were “gifted.”

Of course, @marlowe1 's bar for disqualification as an introvert is crazy low. The last of my many relatives who attended Harvard College is a total introvert. She can barely look someone in the eye as she is talking to them. Her social skills are negative. She is absolutely as nerdy as they come. (She was also the top student in her class at a famous high school, and was accepted at 100% of the colleges to which she applied, including MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale. But she went to Harvard, where she was a third generation legacy, and therefore presumably unqualified.) She was a math concentrator at Harvard who wound up getting a PhD in a social-science field, and she is a tenure-track junior faculty member at a quality university.

Anyway, notwithstanding her high level of introversion and studiousness, in college she managed to play in the Gilbert & Sullivan orchestra (her academic work also focuses to some extent on music) and to be the librarian for a science fiction club. She picked up swing dancing in graduate school. Which probably qualifies her as an extrovert in @marlowe1 's taxonomy.

At the Yale I attended, hardly anyone could be said to “study and learn only what they need to know for another end.” That was so unusual as to be practically nonexistent, except maybe for a thin layer of helmet-sport recruits who truly struggled with academics and had to devote enormous effort to merely passing their classes and remaining eligible to play sports.

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Here’s a helpful article by org. psychologist Adam Grant at Wharton. One of my take-aways is that there’s a whole spectrum with many “ambiverts” (withdraw in some situations, light up in others) as well as those who are more purely innie or outie.

https://www.quietrev.com/5-myths-about-introverts-and-extroverts/

One of the most gregarious and outgoing people I know - capable of hobnobbing with intellectuals and schmoozers alike - was not only a “Committee on Social Thought” major at University of Chicago (back in the days when the College didn’t have anywhere near the enrollment or social activities it does now), but also went on to obtain a PhD in theology! As the head honcho at a prestigious educational institution, he is skilled both at thinking deep and hitting up the big guns for money. In contrast, most academic PhD’s I know detest the burden of administrative leadership with its various committee responsibilities and loathe fundraising. They just want to be left alone to work on their stuff. Some of these types will or have won a variety of academic accolades including the Nobel so they clearly are leaders in their field.

My mother-in-law was always sociable and outgoing and used to entertain constantly. She’s the type to be surrounded by 1,000 of her “closest friends” at a party. In contrast, I’d much rather invite just one or two “real” friends for a wonderful evening of spirited and interesting conversation - anything larger seems superficial to me. Both she and I served in a variety of leader posts in our respective high schools and colleges.

My mom was always personable but very introverted and uncomfortable in crowds of people she didn’t know well. She was elected class president her senior year of high school, despite admitting to me that the cheerleaders would send her into an angst tailspin with their constant cheerfulness and energy.

My large public high school was FILLED with both natural “people leaders” and quieter, introverted types. Looking through my old yearbook, I notice that some of the quietest were also involved in a variety of clubs and leadership positions - they just all gravitated to stuff they enjoyed doing. My kids’ high school experience is pretty much the same. When D graduated last year, one of her friends elected to speak at commencement was extremely nervous. The other - piece of cake. The two kids were very different from one another and yet both were elected by their peers to give a public address to hundreds and hundreds of watchers (and many many more via livestream). This same scenario happened at my college - the student body president (outgoing - people leader) had exactly the same number of votes as an extremely shy, gentle and brilliant philosophy major. Both gave great speeches. And to bring this long narrative back to topic: both ended up at UChicago. One attended a professional grad school; the other is tenured faculty.

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Thanks for the article, @JBStillFlying . It sounds to me like people are distributed on a spectrum, with some in the middle and the ones on the ends crossing over or even migrating from time to time and over time. It also sounds like some of the stereotypes about the two types are not quite true - as well as some of the assumed outcomes (which was the point being made by the Penn Prof). I buy all that. But, in the end, the categories do really exist as human typologies, and that makes me want to ask again the question of which type correlates most strongly with the temperament and habit of studiousness and which with the temperament and habit of social interaction. I still hope to come up with some research specifically on that question. Anecdotal evidence is interesting, but statistics are convincing.

Years ago, when I was a draftee into the U.S. Army, I was administered a test meant to determine whether I had officer potential in me. I remember some of the questions in that test: Would you prefer to read a book or attend an athletic event? Would you prefer to go for a walk in the woods by yourself or take a scout troop on a camping expedition? Do you like conversation with a close friend or group discussion? Do you like fiction or non-fiction? --You get the idea. The great minds who designed that test certainly thought they knew what personal habits and predilections showed leadership potential. Of course the laughable part of it all was that if you really wanted to go to OCS it would be easy to lie your way in by answering those questions in the clearly signalled preferred way. The Harvard admissions people are perhaps a little more subtle than that, and they are looking for kids to demonstrate that they actually do the things they claim to like to do, but at bottom aren’t their comments showing that they’re operating on the same old knee-jerk assumption that the talkative, the gregarious, the sporty, the social - all the movers and shakers in the little world of high school - are the ones meant to inherit whatever of the earthly paradise Harvard can bestow? Life may be more complicated than that, but, if so, these guys show no sign of appreciating it. The sinister side of all this could be - as Deresewiecz believes - kids are contorting their natural inclinations in order to go out and acquire all these brownie points merely for the purpose of getting into the elite schools. Are kids that would otherwise be searchingly brilliant and studious diverting their energies to social clubs and the like activities in order to pad their resumes? And if they do that, do they form habits - as Aristotle predicts and Steven Pinker observes - that warp what a college education is really all about?

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@marlowe1 - haven’t seen any of the studies you are seeking - they would be an interesting addition to this conversation. While psychologists tend to link introversion to studiousness and studiousness to higher academic achievement, some also point out that there’s a difference between knowing all the answers for the test and asking the really “out of the box” questions. I’d guess that both UChicago and Harvard look for the latter when selecting for intellectual brilliance. Harvard, of course, also selects for those showing “brilliance” in other ways (best rugby player, music composer, political activist, break dancer, etc.) and seems to indulge those students to the point of not really caring whether they show up in class or not. I strongly prefer UChicago’s philosophy; however, I do think that if H selected the best break dancer using some threshold of academic excellence then educated the hell out of that individual, it would go a longer way toward fulfilling it’s responsibility to provide “what college education is all about” than it currently does. College should be intellectually challenging, more than anything else, regardless of your particular talent.

David Brooks wrote a great piece many years ago about the Organization Kid - the young person who sacrifices alone time and contemplation for more external accomplishments (music lessons, sports, leadership clubs, etc. and so forth). Not sure all that is directed toward resume-padding but it has definitely become a problem over time, and it’s possible that colleges and universities are noticing, as I’ve heard at least one Admissions director advise the audience to quit anything they were doing just for the sake of the resume. Seems that adcoms would rather see fewer, more meaningful activities than a flurry of involvement that doesn’t go very deep. At least that’s what they are presenting to their young hopefuls - and I actually believe them on this one. I also believe that it’s quite possible to engage in intellectually enriching activities - even entering a nationally competitive process for some of them - and not only satisfy an intellectual craving or two but actually receive a ton of insight into what it is you want to do long-term. And have a ton of fun. In addition, I tend to notice how many truly bright kids play an instrument exceptionally well and participate at the elite level of their local youth symphony or jazz ensemble (these usually have a very competitive audition process). So perhaps EC’s are a good thing but the focus should be on “quality” instead of “quantity”.