It's been 10 years since our oldest graduated from high school. The most successful are
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Anonymous
so is the high earning sales guy not successful? |
Anonymous
I just said there isn’t always a correlation between academic and financial success. Of course the sales guy is successful. DH is a surgeon. He has a rep friend who probably earns 700-800k doing med sales. He earns equal or more than many surgeons. |
Anonymous
The surgeon is a success as far as we can tell. Important job, high income. Investment banker not as successful but ok. Moves money around for a living. The smart academics in lower paying jobs might be making a significant difference in their area of expertise but you didn’t name their fields so not sure what kind of success they can claim if any. Your kids are kids. We don’t label them, at least decent people don’t. |
Anonymous
I love having a mini me. I’m not labeling my kids anything. |
Anonymous
+100. Same. T10/ivy, married another one, know many former peer school colleagues who are now MD/JD couples or MD/research phD couples who are extremely smart academically but do not rake in huge $ (most have HHI above 300k so are doing just fine, in Boston suburbs no less--just not what DCUM thinks is "success") |
Anonymous
The surgeon, as well as non-surgeon MDs, are in the more respected field though. Money isn't everything. |
Anonymous
And you’re still incapable of producing statistical evidence of your claim and keep citing the same 2 individuals…you’re an idiot. |
Anonymous
You have yet to show me any data that supports your point of view. |
Anonymous
| I don't know - I think there is a lot of element of luck that goes into how "successful" people are -right timing/opportunity/exposure as well as high EQ as well as IQ. Of my high school friends, I was probably the least paper perfect, but I make maybe 4X what the other 1600 SAT friends make through some hustle and also some luck, to be honest, and exposure of putting myself out there. The scrappy, lucky kid wins. |
Anonymous
Everyone’s definition of success is different. Some people may think earning 150k and living in Ashburn is successful while others would not. Some people may think earning 200k as a lawyer or young finance guy in nyc is successful. We are in our forties now and anything below 500 seems low but we live in a high cost area. It would be hard to raise a family, live in a nice house for less. |
Anonymous
That’s an interesting opinion piece, thanks for sharing. I agree with some of the author’s points, especially about the importance of finding interesting problems to solve or the value of taking intellectual risks in college. That said, I think this business school prof needed more references before claiming so conclusively that “academic excellence is not a strong predictor of career excellence… across industries.” (Also, perhaps some definitions would’ve helped… what counts as academic or career excellence?) There were three references I saw. One (no link) described a study of 40 architects from the 60s. That’s a bit too narrow, small, and old to draw big conclusions from, imo. The second was a book discussing a 14 year longitudinal study following 81 high school valedictorians. My understanding is that study showed generally successful but not world changing outcomes. But how many world changing outcomes would we expect in a sample of only 81 by age 32? To me the third reference was the closest to surprising. That described a study where around 15% of entry level jobs seemed to prefer lower GPAs. I looked briefly at that study. Setting aside the excluded jobs (which included things like too few applicants or too selective a job), the researchers reported that there was a correlation between those jobs that preferred lower GPAs and smaller numbers of applicants, suggesting in their view that those jobs might have been less appealing, so perhaps they didn’t think the recruiters thought that higher achieving students would find those positions interesting or would stay. Still, a worthwhile read! |
Anonymous
Did you go to college? Take a stats class? Maybe you should open a book before popping out any more spawn. |
Anonymous
That wasn’t meant for you, it was general. it’s not a great idea to label them so early in life. |
Anonymous
| What is your definition of success op? |
Anonymous
There’s always luck involved and great timing but the persistence and hustle makes a huge difference. |