But for Usain Bolt to make a living as a runner, and to contribute back to the training ground monetarily, he needs additional skills. What separated Bolt from the rest of the pack literally and metaphorically is that he is a personality on top of being fast.
I don’t know if Bolt plays the oboe, but Lizzo plays the flute. A broad base of skills broadens the likelihood of success.
I note that you are focusing specifically on academia’s measures of success, which is fine, but the number of academic job openings every year is very very small. It could be that the elite American schools are trying to admit only the future Nobel Prize winners as undergraduates and measure their success that way, but I doubt it.
That said, I would be delighted if my math/physics geek of a kid went to Oxbridge to focus narrowly on his passion, and I think he would be quite happy there, perhaps more so than in America. It isn’t going to happen, though, and I expect he will do just fine in whatever college he goes to. We are talking about the elite of the elite experiences, and fact of the matter is it makes little difference for most people. And for those for whom it does, there is no way to know which is the better path for happiness and fulfillment in life. If someone is Field Medal material, whether they go to Harvard, Cambridge or University of Chicago isn’t going to be the determining factor of success and happiness.
I suspect Carl Lewis did perfectly fine financially despite being “haughty and arrogant, cold and calculating, aloof and abrasive” (ESPN.com: King Carl had long, golden reign). It is interesting to me that according to this article Lewis supposedly did much better in terms of endorsements in Europe and Japan compared to the US. Perhaps foreign countries are just better at rewarding true talent, rather than requiring the best and the brightest to have a “personality” (or excellent “character”) as well?
Yes, I think they are. European countries are more likely to care about intellectual talent in an academic institution, and reserve athletic or musical talents for those venues instead. Likely part of the reason US grad schools have so many foreign students, who have been selected and trained for intellectual study.
Having completed requisite calculus courses is helpful but it’s neither necessary nor sufficient. What’s most important about learning physics is to learn the physics in physics. Math is just the tool to formulate it. Students will often hear a good physics professor in a class describing the physics of something and then s/he would just say “the rest is just math” and let the students read the books or work out the (less-important) mathematical details themselves. The famous Feynman Lectures on Physics (for college freshmen) contain very little math.
I’m not sure most American students (brilliant or otherwise) are interested in a future of intellectual study. Some might be, but I suspect it’s a small number --and that includes Ivy League students who mainly exit the hallowed halls for lucrative gigs in finance or consulting.
Or it could be that Europe and Japan’s societal racism is not particularly engaged against Black Americans, as opposed to the US endorsement market. Ta-Nehisi Coates has spoken quite a bit about living in France and how he realized that he was treated well there not because there is no racism in France/Europe, but rather because Black Americans aren’t France’s n******. A thought also expressed by James Baldwin, I believe.
But black NBA athletes do fine in terms of endorsements. Here is an article from over 20 years ago that showed this to be the case. Sometimes it really is just a specific person’s personality.
How many Black athletes had large endorsement deals at the time Carl Lewis would have been looking for those kinds of deals? I can only think of Michael Jordan and his image was very carefully crafted at that time. He definitely wasn’t the only big Black star.
Endorsement deals have changed quite significantly since Carl Lewis was in that market (his heyday was 1982 - 1988).
This is actually a problem for the US system, not something worth bragging about. It’s a severe misallocation of human capital (financial service firms are supposed to be in the business to help properly allocate capitals).
None of the career paths you mentioned really require all the skills these “winners” may possess (some highly quantitative HFs, which you didn’t mention, are possible exceptions).
That’s because everyone who took Feynman’s class at Caltech had the requisite math already. Without at least concurrent Calculus, a student would struggle in Physics C unless the instructor also taught the math. It’s a Calculus based course.
BTW, my Dad gave my son the Feynman Lectures for Christmas one year when he was still in HS.
Calculus can be easily learned concurrently. After all, Newton invented calculus while working on mechanics. In fact, I’d argue that a student may learn calculus better if s/he knows something about physics. They mutually reinforce each other.
BTW, I did the same thing as your Dad for my S when he was in HS. I still consider the 3-volume series to be the best introduction to physics, even though it isn’t suitable for everyone.
It would be interesting to me to understand who US colleges brag about in terms of alumni when you go to reunion events etc. The headline at my college is always the latest Nobel Prize, occasionally an honorable mention for a successful politician, but successful business people don’t rate any comment at all. What happens at US college reunions?
Most of the students at my son’s school took it after calculus, but he took it concurrently and did well. They are structured to work concurrently. I don’t think a student who didn’t do at least that though would fare well. I think I misread your comment as suggesting that the math wasn’t required at all.
"This is actually a problem for the US system, not something worth bragging about. It’s a severe misallocation of human capital (financial service firms are supposed to be in the business to help properly allocate capitals).
None of the career paths you mentioned really require all the skills these “winners” may possess (some highly quantitative HFs, which you didn’t mention, are possible exceptions)."
I’m not bragging- I’m observing. And pointing out that if you assume that the reason Harvard wants the top science prize winners in the student body is because Adcom’s believe that all of them are going on to glorious careers in scientific research- I have a bridge to sell you.
And I suspect there is some conflating going on in people’s minds as to “grad school” equals ground-breaking research. A substantial number of the grad school population is there for ticket punching and credentialing and are in programs which are not research oriented at all; a smaller number (but not a trivial percentage) of kids who end up in doctorate programs are there because they A- got admitted and B- couldn’t figure out anything else to do. Just witness the posts we see on CC (not representative of course) of 17 year olds who are going to “do a PhD but they’re not sure in what”. And we read the SAD posts of college seniors who are ALSO going to do a PhD but they’re not sure in what. And when the old wise folks here suggest going to talk to their advisor or a mentor (who presumably understands the students interests, capabilities, competitive edge for doctoral work) we read 'I really don’t have an advisor- I tried to get a research spot but I applied too late".
But isn’t this discussion illustrating that there is no singular “best”?
The parents who think their kids are the best aren’t necessarily wrong – because they have crafted their own definition of best.
Schools also want the best – but not all the same. Sure, a lot of applicants to any selective school may miss the mark altogether but the rest are viable. Even those with the same 4 year training will likely have different skills and interests. Some engineers, for example, may want to do more theoretical work and may want additional schooling. (And among those, some may realize their appetite for that was not as great as they thought and they may peel off before getting their PhDs.) Some may want to work in business, either in a company that uses their skills less directly (sales, production, management) or in one that invests in them (VC,). Some may want to teach. Others may become patent attorneys. And some may simply use their schooling as a framework for thinking about and solving problems that have nothing to do with engineering.
Schools, I think, value this diversity of interest and aptitudes. And they select for it in their own ways for the variety of thought it brings to campus and the various ways those students may use their education. I couldn’t more with @EyeVeee that our society, in its need to see everything in a hierarchical way, dulls our ability to see and celebrate what is outstanding in each person. One of the reasons schools like having so many applications isn’t for the joy of rejecting them but for the ability to see more “bests” for them.
For the most part, elite colleges/universities aren’t just looking for the best academic talent when they compose a class - they are also looking for athletes, musicians, future donors, poets, students from a mix of backgrounds etc. I think that fact is what frustrates many people - beyond the obvious academic admits (international prize winners and the like) and hooks (athletes, kids of wealthy parents, legacies) people haven’t been able to identify a winning “formula”. In a society where performance is valued so highly, not having a way to “ace the test” must be tough for students who are used to only success. And that’s the other issue. Most kids looking at Harvard and the like have known only success in the academic realm so they are ill-equipped for failure - thus the numerous posts lamenting “only” getting into Georgetown or UNC instead of Princeton or Yale.
My use of the term “best” was meant as a comparative parental view to others (and hierarchy as you say)…not that parents wouldn’t want what’s best for their child.
In a world of trophies for 13th place, my comment was a suggestion that parents often focus too much on their own child’s “special” abilities, without acknowledging to their children that some kids have gifts not bestowed on their progeny.
Returning to topic - We would never let an admissions decision shape anything about our child…because we were engaged and honest about opportunities. That’s a privilege that kids and parents on these boards take for granted. The real issue in this discussion is why we let colleges encourage unreasonable excitement for so many kids they know will never get in? The people interacting here know (and aggressively play) the game. Most don’t even appreciate they’re playing one.
I certainly wasn’t suggesting that you were bragging (I observed some of the same things), but just wanted to point out the faults and inefficiencies in our system. Come to think of it, the misallocation in human capital is not only a waste of talents, but it also contributed to the multiple financial stresses and crises we’ve experienced (including the crisis in '08). I’m not naive enough to believe all the “science prize winners” will end up working in sciences or related fields. Only a few of them will truly succeed in those fields. Many others won’t because they aren’t sufficiently talented or are seduced by things that are more financially rewarding.
CC may be overrepresented by top HS students and their families. However, the opposite is true for undergraduate students looking for grad schools. Top undergraduate students who are planning to go to grad schools aren’t generally represented on CC. They typically don’t need advices from us.
more with