Anonymous wrote: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.

There’s always luck involved and great timing but the persistence and hustle makes a huge difference.

What is your definition of success op?

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Anonymous wrote:How are you defining success? Job title, graduate degree, lawyer, medicine, money?

I mean one of the highest earners I know was a bozo in Hs and went to a mediocre school but man- can he sell stuff. He is in sales and makes a lot of money.

We all know what success is. I was a Harvard educated investment banker and married a surgeon. We now have three mini versions of us.

We are now twenty years ahead of OP’s children. I don’t always see a correlation between academic success and professional and financial success. Lots of smart academics in low paying fields.

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.

I love having a mini me. I’m not labeling my kids anything.

That wasn’t meant for you, it was general. it’s not a great idea to label them so early in life.

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Anonymous wrote:I think the fact that the op's "sample"of people are all married in their late 20s makes for a very narrow group she is referring to. Maybe 10 people tops.

Marriage trends among wealthy and/or smart kids are changing. Sophia Ritchie was 24 when she got married last year.

1 person does not equal a trend

You're in denial. Either you're projecting because you waited so long to marry or worried about your unmarried adult kids.

Did you go to college? Take a stats class?

Maybe you should open a book before popping out any more spawn.

Anonymous wrote:There are actually studies on this topic. Mega successes - those who will invent and create new valuable things - typically had spiky grades, not straight As. Although the straight A conformists are set up well to be successful middle managers.

https://globalleadership.org/articles/leading-yourself/what-straight-a-students-get-wrong

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 wrote: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.

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.

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.

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Anonymous wrote:I think the fact that the op's "sample"of people are all married in their late 20s makes for a very narrow group she is referring to. Maybe 10 people tops.

Marriage trends among wealthy and/or smart kids are changing. Sophia Ritchie was 24 when she got married last year.

1 person does not equal a trend

You're in denial. Either you're projecting because you waited so long to marry or worried about your unmarried adult kids.

Nope. I married at 27 and my kids are teens/too young to marry. I just think it’s stupid to say something is a trend and cite “evidence” of 1 famous person who did it.

You are out of touch or in denial. Millie Bobby Brown, age 20, just married last month. It’s become cool to marry young.

No, I’m just smart enough to realize that 2-3 examples of people marrying young does not equal a trend. You need to look at some statistics. If you do, you’ll see that average age of first marriage in the US is in the early 30s for women w masters or professional degrees. I couldn’t find statistics that specifically broke down age at first marriage by income level or socioeconomic status but I thought education level often corresponds w income level so it’s a pretty reliable statistic for the purposes of this discussion.

Of course there are examples of upper class people marrying young as cited here w a few random famous people and some anecdotes about HYPS kids that posters knew marrying young that is not a “trend” and it’s certainly not the norm. It’s just a few outliers, statistically speaking.

Sure but young marriages are now a TikTok trend.

You have yet to show me any data that supports your point of view.

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Anonymous wrote:I think the fact that the op's "sample"of people are all married in their late 20s makes for a very narrow group she is referring to. Maybe 10 people tops.

Marriage trends among wealthy and/or smart kids are changing. Sophia Ritchie was 24 when she got married last year.

1 person does not equal a trend

You're in denial. Either you're projecting because you waited so long to marry or worried about your unmarried adult kids.

Nope. I married at 27 and my kids are teens/too young to marry. I just think it’s stupid to say something is a trend and cite “evidence” of 1 famous person who did it.

You are out of touch or in denial. Millie Bobby Brown, age 20, just married last month. It’s become cool to marry young.

Just keep citing examples of individuals to prove a point about groups. You sound dumb.

Millie is an A list zoomer actress. The Ritchie girl is an A list zoomer influencer. You’re old and out of touch.

And you’re still incapable of producing statistical evidence of your claim and keep citing the same 2 individuals…you’re an idiot.

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Anonymous wrote:How are you defining success? Job title, graduate degree, lawyer, medicine, money?

I mean one of the highest earners I know was a bozo in Hs and went to a mediocre school but man- can he sell stuff. He is in sales and makes a lot of money.

We all know what success is. I was a Harvard educated investment banker and married a surgeon. We now have three mini versions of us.

We are now twenty years ahead of OP’s children. I don’t always see a correlation between academic success and professional and financial success. Lots of smart academics in low paying fields.

so is the high earning sales guy not successful?

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.

The surgeon, as well as non-surgeon MDs, are in the more respected field though. Money isn't everything.

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Anonymous wrote:How are you defining success? Job title, graduate degree, lawyer, medicine, money?

I mean one of the highest earners I know was a bozo in Hs and went to a mediocre school but man- can he sell stuff. He is in sales and makes a lot of money.

We all know what success is. I was a Harvard educated investment banker and married a surgeon. We now have three mini versions of us.

We are now twenty years ahead of OP’s children. I don’t always see a correlation between academic success and professional and financial success. Lots of smart academics in low paying fields.

+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")

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Anonymous wrote:How are you defining success? Job title, graduate degree, lawyer, medicine, money?

I mean one of the highest earners I know was a bozo in Hs and went to a mediocre school but man- can he sell stuff. He is in sales and makes a lot of money.

We all know what success is. I was a Harvard educated investment banker and married a surgeon. We now have three mini versions of us.

We are now twenty years ahead of OP’s children. I don’t always see a correlation between academic success and professional and financial success. Lots of smart academics in low paying fields.

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.

I love having a mini me. I’m not labeling my kids anything.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are you defining success? Job title, graduate degree, lawyer, medicine, money?

I mean one of the highest earners I know was a bozo in Hs and went to a mediocre school but man- can he sell stuff. He is in sales and makes a lot of money.

We all know what success is. I was a Harvard educated investment banker and married a surgeon. We now have three mini versions of us.

We are now twenty years ahead of OP’s children. I don’t always see a correlation between academic success and professional and financial success. Lots of smart academics in low paying fields.

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 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are you defining success? Job title, graduate degree, lawyer, medicine, money?

I mean one of the highest earners I know was a bozo in Hs and went to a mediocre school but man- can he sell stuff. He is in sales and makes a lot of money.

We all know what success is. I was a Harvard educated investment banker and married a surgeon. We now have three mini versions of us.

We are now twenty years ahead of OP’s children. I don’t always see a correlation between academic success and professional and financial success. Lots of smart academics in low paying fields.

so is the high earning sales guy not successful?

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 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are you defining success? Job title, graduate degree, lawyer, medicine, money?

I mean one of the highest earners I know was a bozo in Hs and went to a mediocre school but man- can he sell stuff. He is in sales and makes a lot of money.

We all know what success is. I was a Harvard educated investment banker and married a surgeon. We now have three mini versions of us.

We are now twenty years ahead of OP’s children. I don’t always see a correlation between academic success and professional and financial success. Lots of smart academics in low paying fields.

so is the high earning sales guy not successful?