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Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, anyone who uses the word "striver" is someone with an unhealthy obsession with other people's children and insecurity about their own children.

Nope. It is people who want to surround their children with smart, interesting, funny, kind, curious, sincere people. I think for you that list stops at smart.

The highest concentration of this type that either of our kids ever met was/is at their ivies. They are like this too. Almost everyone there studies and puts in effort to get to the next step, but they also have fun, hang out, have time for sleep, have extracurriculars that really do bring them joy. They are supportive of each other.
There were more "grinders" and "strivers" (the negative way DCUM describes them on this thread) at their private high school and some of their competitive summer programs. However, to be successful reaching the next goal when one is surrounded by other smart interesting creative disciplined students, as happens at Ivies/stanford/MIT, one does have to "grind" (study hard) and "strive"--make sure they are networking and chasing opportunities at the ivy. Newsflash the award-winning, faculty favorite top kids in physics, engineering are studying hard! These are difficult subjects.

Neither of ours had to do this level of studying at their competitive high school, everything came easier to them than peers. One is likely top 5% at their ivy and the other is/was top 1/4(class of 2026 just graduated).
Each student has to make their own calculation of how much they want to work to reach their goals, and to me at least I do not see anything wrong with those who had to work a lot harder in high school versus those that did not feel the real competition until college. Better to have them put their heart into it than face the competition and give up their dreams(MD/phd for one and phd later after they see what happens with a funded startup). If that is "grinding" and "striving" so be it. Very few people on this board have the intelligence level of the 99.9% to know what it really feels like, even when you sit near the top of a competitive peer group.

I am an MD married to a stem professor: neither of us got where we were without grinding at times and striving at times especially grad/med. We credit our top-15 college(s) for helping teach us how to compete for the next level. We would have stagnated at easier schools without that peer group push.

You're not getting the true definition of a striver. I can tell from your response that unlike others, you are being very sincere in your comment. Working very hard and/or being very smart does not make one a striver. It is doing it in more of a a less genuine way that is the difference.

You can tell who is genuine based on skin color.

Whern a white kids strts a non-profit, they have passion, when an indian kid starts a non-profit, they are only doing it for college admissions.

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Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, anyone who uses the word "striver" is someone with an unhealthy obsession with other people's children and insecurity about their own children.

Nope. It is people who want to surround their children with smart, interesting, funny, kind, curious, sincere people. I think for you that list stops at smart.

The highest concentration of this type that either of our kids ever met was/is at their ivies. They are like this too. Almost everyone there studies and puts in effort to get to the next step, but they also have fun, hang out, have time for sleep, have extracurriculars that really do bring them joy. They are supportive of each other.
There were more "grinders" and "strivers" (the negative way DCUM describes them on this thread) at their private high school and some of their competitive summer programs. However, to be successful reaching the next goal when one is surrounded by other smart interesting creative disciplined students, as happens at Ivies/stanford/MIT, one does have to "grind" (study hard) and "strive"--make sure they are networking and chasing opportunities at the ivy. Newsflash the award-winning, faculty favorite top kids in physics, engineering are studying hard! These are difficult subjects.

Neither of ours had to do this level of studying at their competitive high school, everything came easier to them than peers. One is likely top 5% at their ivy and the other is/was top 1/4(class of 2026 just graduated).
Each student has to make their own calculation of how much they want to work to reach their goals, and to me at least I do not see anything wrong with those who had to work a lot harder in high school versus those that did not feel the real competition until college. Better to have them put their heart into it than face the competition and give up their dreams(MD/phd for one and phd later after they see what happens with a funded startup). If that is "grinding" and "striving" so be it. Very few people on this board have the intelligence level of the 99.9% to know what it really feels like, even when you sit near the top of a competitive peer group.

I am an MD married to a stem professor: neither of us got where we were without grinding at times and striving at times especially grad/med. We credit our top-15 college(s) for helping teach us how to compete for the next level. We would have stagnated at easier schools without that peer group push.

You're not getting the true definition of a striver. I can tell from your response that unlike others, you are being very sincere in your comment. Working very hard and/or being very smart does not make one a striver. It is doing it in more of a a less genuine way that is the difference.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, anyone who uses the word "striver" is someone with an unhealthy obsession with other people's children and insecurity about their own children.

Nope. It is people who want to surround their children with smart, interesting, funny, kind, curious, sincere people. I think for you that list stops at smart.

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Anonymous wrote:I live in NYC. My kid got the necessary score to go to Stuyvesant. We opted out. Total striver fest. It is big enough that this does not refer to everyone. It is very heavily Asian. But there are Asian kids there who are not strivers. But there are many who are. And some non-Asians who are.

It seemed like a miserable place to go to school. My child is smart enough to succeed there. And there are plenty of kids who go there and end up as smart, well-rounded, kind, well-adjusted human beings. But too many don't. Not how we wanted them to spend four years. Bronx Science also had lots of strivers, but it did not permeate the culture in the same way.

IYKYK (that means If You Know You Know - a good term to differentiate non-strivers from strivers).

Sounds like "striver" is just your lack of faith in your own child's personality and your parenting.

Actually the opposite. Most of these kids have zero personality. My child has one. While also being as smart or smarter than all of these kids - it is possible to be really smart and well-adjusted. If it takes 100% of your child's effort to excel academically and the have no bandwidth left for anything else, perhaps your child actually isn't that smart. And again - I said most, not all. Plenty of exceptions to the rule who are great kids at Stuy.

Your childish response screams striver. Very defensive. Irrational self-assurance. Totally lacking self-awareness. No emotional intelligence. I'm sure that you think none of these are important personality characteristics. I beg to differ.

Anonymous wrote:To clarify: there are lots of examples of strivers who are Asian. But it is not a negatively Asian term.

The Trump example above is excellent - total social striver. And everyone should step away from DCUM for a second and watch the movie Election - she is a total striver - and is a pretty blond American girl.

I am Jewish and some of the worst strivers I know are fellow Jews.

So would the Asians here stop being so defensive. Stop completely lacking self-awareness. There are countless highly successful Asian-Americans who are not strivers at all. Sundar Pichai is ridiculously successful. He is brilliant. He is not the coolest guy around but he is not a total nerd. But he is universally acknowledged for working his way up through an incredibly competitive company that is likely full of strivers without being a striver. It can be done.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in NYC. My kid got the necessary score to go to Stuyvesant. We opted out. Total striver fest. It is big enough that this does not refer to everyone. It is very heavily Asian. But there are Asian kids there who are not strivers. But there are many who are. And some non-Asians who are.

It seemed like a miserable place to go to school. My child is smart enough to succeed there. And there are plenty of kids who go there and end up as smart, well-rounded, kind, well-adjusted human beings. But too many don't. Not how we wanted them to spend four years. Bronx Science also had lots of strivers, but it did not permeate the culture in the same way.

IYKYK (that means If You Know You Know - a good term to differentiate non-strivers from strivers).

Your description of Stuy is how I currently feel about Princeton.

That element exists at Princeton but it is far from common and is far less common at Princeton than at Stuyvesant. Though I think it is likely more common at Princeton now than it was 30 years ago when many of us went to college.

Princeton does have a decent sized cohort of quirky intellectual type. But there is a very nuanced difference between them and strivers. Primarily in that they truly enjoy learning for the sake of learning. They might want to achieve the highest level of academic excellence possible, but a lot of them actually are going for academia (which can be really cut-throat, but again, in a different way).

Speaking of which, a great example of a striver is Kent from Real Genius. If you haven't seen it, you need to. Great movie. Hilarious. A bit dated but still worth it. And again, note that Kent was white.

Anonymous wrote:It is the people on this board that put the wrong meaning on striver and grinder. Both have been and are great things. Everyone should be those. The weird spin on those words is from this board.

A grinder is someone who may not have all of the advantages and strengths but still is elite. You would call a football player a grinder who maybe was a little undersized and went to a smaller program who in a couple of years has made their game as elite as an Alabama first round draft pick.

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Anonymous wrote:I am now starting to see that many of you think “grinder” just means hard working, so maybe I better be careful about using it pejoratively. But I still don’t think that’s what most people mean when they use the term

Agree that most people do not use the definition "merely hard working" for "grinder". Clearly some here do, but I doubt it is the most common meaning.

+1. But even amongst the people claiming that grinder means merely hard working, I don’t think most of them truly believe that. I think they realize that the negative strivery, grinder behavior being described here hits a little too close to home. And they feel the need to try to redirect it to “oh they’re just jealous because I/my kid are hard working and more successful.”

I can understand being confused by the term striver the first time you hear it here but after that it is pretty obvious what it refers to. We’ve all experienced strivery people in our lives, and if you haven’t, you might be the striver.

When someone calls my immigrant parents strivers because they pulled themselves up from almost nothing, yes, that hits close to home. I am proud my family is a bunch of strivers.

Your whole family went to an Ivy?

huh?

You clearly don’t know the definition of striver.

Isn’t this whole discussion about the definitions of these terms?

A PP said they judge people negatively when they are only “grinding” or “striving” for money and advancement, rather than for the pure joy of discovery and intellectual curiosity. Some people don’t have that luxury, including when applying to college.

And no, my striver family are not (all) Ivy League. Is that all that’s important to you? Then you are a climber.

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Anonymous wrote:Would put these terms in a nature/nurture context.

First generation arrival, doesn’t speak English, successful in home country “strives” to reclaim that success in America. Positive implication of striver. Average American spends all their time studying trying to make the best of their situation at the expense of foregoing a balanced life. Negative implication of striver.


Grinder is someone who again tries to make the most of their natural ability. Positive or negative implication will be based on totality of lifestyle.

Curator, someone with the resources to create the illusion of competency. Can get you in the door but eventually the illusion falls apart.

This.

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Anonymous wrote:I think the pejorative associations are kind of rooted in its English heritage.
In Britain, it is unseemly to strive. It all should come naturally. Think about all the British explorations that were so amateurishly executed with tragic and fatal consequences. All because one (the organizer) should not appear to be trying so hard.
Maybe it comes from their resignation to social class structure. Michelle Obama was derided as a striver by their press which is kind of hard to understand. Her work hard ethic and pull yourself up by the bootstraps is actually very American. I guess the British dont do that.

I don't think the pejorative associations have to do with work ethic. Yes, that may have been true in aristocratic times, when the gentry didn't work, but this is modern America. Notice that when you describe a student as "hard working" most people would not consider this description pejorative. "Hard working" is a positive trait. There is additional meaning associated with "grinder" and "striver" as it applies to college students and that's the part that carries the negative weight.

The additional meaning is ascribed by those seeking to devalue the hard work put in by other students so their students look better.

Nope. There is a difference, even if you refuse to acknowledge it.

What’s the difference?

Let’s take two hard working kids. Both Asian if you like. One loves physics and enthusiastically studies it. Genuinely contributes to class discussions, helps his friends when they struggle. Second kid doesn’t give a darn about linguistics but heard it was an undersubscribed major and his best shot of getting into Harvard. He’ll drop the major for something else that will get him to Wall Street. Will only talk in class if participation is graded or if the teacher is a letter writer. And why would he help his friends if they are competing with him in college apps. Which one is the striver? It’s not hard to tell!

Both Asian? Really? Why would you include this sentence?

DP. Another poster said striver was just a racist term for Asians. This person is trying to explain the difference is between the attitude of a striver and a hard worker, and you can just assume they are the same race (Asian presumably because it was brought up) because the race isn't the issue at all.

Thank you! I am Asian, btw. Back in my day we used the term gunner, and it was applied pretty equally to white or Asian or any other student who was fake, hyper-competitive and self-promoting without considering others.

Yeah we used gunner in undergrad(ivy) and again at my T5. It was mostly a joke because we were all gunners or we wouldn't have gotten there. However, there were levels: front row gunner(honest about their ambition), second row gunner(the worst--did not realize their top-gunner nature), and back row gunner(stopped gunning once they got in, knew they'd made it, but were still baseline gunners). It's all for fun!
Kid is premed BioEngineering at a different ivy and they use "grinding" or "lock in and grind" on themselves or each other all the time. They jest but they are far more collaborative than 30 years ago when I took the brutal semesters orgo and physics. The premed advising tables show higher % success for average students now than at my ivy 30 yr ago, and I have asked friends with kids at my ivy for the internal data: it has a higher %too compared to my day.
I pulled up tables and converted SATs through two SAT recentering cycles and it makes sense: Only about 1/4 were 98-99th%ile then, now it is 3/4 (pre-TO). Almost everyone there has the ability to get 510+ on the MCAT, even the below average 3.6 kids get in to US programs.

What you don’t understand is that there were people there that were not gunners.

They were just naturally intelligent, it came easy, somebody probably went and found them in the middle of nowhere because their SAT score with no prop was in the 99.9 percentile.

You didn’t socialize with them so you never met them.

There are also people there that other talents who weren’t gunners, like musicians. They didn’t care that they were in the 95% dial or that they were in the bottom 1/3 of their class because they have other talents.

Let’s not glorify natural genius too much. There’s always the cautionary tale of the kid who scored 1600 on the SAT but failed out of high school because they couldn’t be bothered to put in any effort they deemed mundane. As an adult they constantly have a chip on their shoulder because they are annoyed life didn’t go their way and recognize their genius. If grind is a continuum, everyone needs to have at least a little bit of grinder in them to succeed.

Anonymous wrote:I am a grown up adult now, and when I look back on myself I see someone that had a great deal of curiosity and enthusiasm for many subjects, and who worked hard at many things I found boring or unrewarding because I needed to.

Was I a “striver” for turning in extra credit projects in subjects I hated? Was I wrong for volunteering at a hospital, which I have never done again since getting into college?

Am I still a striver today for working hard on projects that don’t fulfill my intellectual curiosity, as I do on the ones that do?

I have been very successful in a challenging and prestigious career. I enjoy going to work each day and consider myself extraordinarily lucky, but also know that a big part of my “luck” was anything but.

I won’t apologize for any of it. I learned from the subjects I hated, and came to find I have used some of the knowledge I gained in them.

If I only made my best effort on work I found most intellectually stimulating I would not be where I am today, and don’t think I would be happier in that alternative world.

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Anonymous wrote:I live in NYC. My kid got the necessary score to go to Stuyvesant. We opted out. Total striver fest. It is big enough that this does not refer to everyone. It is very heavily Asian. But there are Asian kids there who are not strivers. But there are many who are. And some non-Asians who are.

It seemed like a miserable place to go to school. My child is smart enough to succeed there. And there are plenty of kids who go there and end up as smart, well-rounded, kind, well-adjusted human beings. But too many don't. Not how we wanted them to spend four years. Bronx Science also had lots of strivers, but it did not permeate the culture in the same way.

IYKYK (that means If You Know You Know - a good term to differentiate non-strivers from strivers).

Sounds like "striver" is just your lack of faith in your own child's personality and your parenting.

Actually the opposite. Most of these kids have zero personality. My child has one. While also being as smart or smarter than all of these kids - it is possible to be really smart and well-adjusted. If it takes 100% of your child's effort to excel academically and the have no bandwidth left for anything else, perhaps your child actually isn't that smart. And again - I said most, not all. Plenty of exceptions to the rule who are great kids at Stuy.

Your childish response screams striver. Very defensive. Irrational self-assurance. Totally lacking self-awareness. No emotional intelligence. I'm sure that you think none of these are important personality characteristics. I beg to differ.

What is that? A racist a-hole like yourself?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, anyone who uses the word "striver" is someone with an unhealthy obsession with other people's children and insecurity about their own children.

Nope. It is people who want to surround their children with smart, interesting, funny, kind, curious, sincere people. I think for you that list stops at smart.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day, anyone who uses the word "striver" is someone with an unhealthy obsession with other people's children and insecurity about their own children.

Nope. It is people who want to surround their children with smart, interesting, funny, kind, curious, sincere people. I think for you that list stops at smart.

The highest concentration of this type that either of our kids ever met was/is at their ivies. They are like this too. Almost everyone there studies and puts in effort to get to the next step, but they also have fun, hang out, have time for sleep, have extracurriculars that really do bring them joy. They are supportive of each other.
There were more "grinders" and "strivers" (the negative way DCUM describes them on this thread) at their private high school and some of their competitive summer programs. However, to be successful reaching the next goal when one is surrounded by other smart interesting creative disciplined students, as happens at Ivies/stanford/MIT, one does have to "grind" (study hard) and "strive"--make sure they are networking and chasing opportunities at the ivy. Newsflash the award-winning, faculty favorite top kids in physics, engineering are studying hard! These are difficult subjects.

Neither of ours had to do this level of studying at their competitive high school, everything came easier to them than peers. One is likely top 5% at their ivy and the other is/was top 1/4(class of 2026 just graduated).
Each student has to make their own calculation of how much they want to work to reach their goals, and to me at least I do not see anything wrong with those who had to work a lot harder in high school versus those that did not feel the real competition until college. Better to have them put their heart into it than face the competition and give up their dreams(MD/phd for one and phd later after they see what happens with a funded startup). If that is "grinding" and "striving" so be it. Very few people on this board have the intelligence level of the 99.9% to know what it really feels like, even when you sit near the top of a competitive peer group.

I am an MD married to a stem professor: neither of us got where we were without grinding at times and striving at times especially grad/med. We credit our top-15 college(s) for helping teach us how to compete for the next level. We would have stagnated at easier schools without that peer group push.