Reply to What differentiates those non-prodigies who make it to HYPS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I honestly do think that it is down to luck for the non-prodigies. HYPS receives thousands of applications from non-prodigious kids with amazing grades, scores and great ECs. Who gets in from this pool is kind of arbitrary.

I was a Harvard undergrad and a Penn grad student who had to work a lot with undergrads ( was a TA). What I observed was that the top 15% or so at Harvard was markedly stronger because it consisted of the really extraordinary students and prodigies who tend to flock to Harvard to a much greater degree than Penn. Such students also existed at Penn but  at much smaller numbers. However once you got past the very top I didn't notice any significant difference between the middle 50% of the student body at Harvard compared to the middle 50% at Penn.  [/quote]

Of course the interesting question here is whether the top 15% in college were the kids that looked like prodigies at the applicant stage.  I was certainly in the former category and probably not in the latter (at least based on the indicators DCUM focuses on — standardized test scores and national/international competitions).[/quote]

[b]in my experience the kind of kid who was a math olympiad champion ended up effortlessly in the top 10% or so of the class at Harvard. It was quite frustrating to watch the prodigies just glide through, barely breaking a sweat lol. [/quote][/b]

This actually does not speak well for the University that it fails to challenge their most brilliant.[/quote]

I'm the one with the prodigy sibling (legit prodigy). My sibling was in the top of class but definitely was challenged at Harvard because of the research opportunities under the best professors and getting pushed by extremely brilliant professors on the thesis, summer research work, and small courses. My sibling's thesis adviser had standards on the thesis that were probably higher than standards for dissertations at most universities.

I know people say otherwise, but my sibling had a lot of one-on-one opportunities with top professors at Harvard. Almost all the instruction was from those professors, not TAs or grad students, like some would have you believe. I have no idea if that's unique to the top students at H, or everyone though (I did not go there. I went to another HYPS).[/quote]

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