Reply to Competitive academics - what to tell the smart, hard-working kid who isn't "the best"

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Reply to "Competitive academics - what to tell the smart, hard-working kid who isn't "the best""

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[quote=Anonymous]I felt this intensely in high school and it produced an attitude of fatalism and defeat because no one ever talked to me about it. You’re a great parent to think about this.

The best I can think of looking back is to tell her that life is long. So much longer than she can see right now. The key is to open as many doors as possible and close as few as possible. But beyond that, it’s luck. Adult life does not give happiness or career success in a ranking system; it’s not like the #1 ranked kid gets the #1 ranked job and so on down the line. Life is SO much more complicated than that. As long as she’s done reasonably well keeping doors open (sounds like yours has!), she will have just as many opportunities to grab success in the future with all the twists and turns real careers and adult life have. Also, soft skills are way more important than raw talent in the real world. Again, as long as she’s in the general ballpark of top 30% or whatever for talent, who ends up with Big Success is much more random. Every Nobel Prize winner and CEO was not a valediction.[/quote]

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