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Comment by 1differential | Hacker News Reader

I married someone from an IIT/IIM background and I think the public should really meet them and reduce this hype. My wife, while relatively smart and working at a FAANG - is not that smart (I'm trying to use my words respectfully). I've met many of her friends from a similar background from IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, and IIM-A. Infact the IIT-JEET exam is not even "that" competitive, I think a lot of people get caught up in their own smoke and believe millions of indians take it every year - the fact is that less people take the IIT-JEET (a couple of hundred thousand), than some of our exams here - like for law school and medical school. Overall, while I think my wife is a wonderful person, I would peg her and many of her classmates at the equilance of a UC Davis graduate - (Cal/Stanford alum myself, but going off reference points off my high school cohort).

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As someone from an IIT, an average student in IIT would possibly pass for an average student in aUS state college (UT Austin, UCSD etc), but the geniuses in the Indian student population are over represented in IIT’s. The top student in my batch, decided to do independent research from his home, published a blog post that Ian Goodfellow praised in a tweet and now switched fields and is pursuing a PhD in mathematics from Stanford.

> I would peg her and many of her classmates at the equivalence of a UC Davis graduate

Wouldn't you say the same about most MIT and Stanford grads as well? A lot of eminent people in Tech industry graduated from MIT and Stanford. But, in my experience, the reverse isn't true: graduating from those schools is usually not an indicator of eminence.

Generalizing wildly from anecdata, I'd say the only thing correlated with graduating from those schools is arrogance.

The same can be said for Cal/Stanford students. (An alum from both) I’ve met some really smart people and some really mediocre people out of these schools. Same is probably true for IITs and IIMs. Testing well shouldn’t be taken as a proxy for being a genius, but at the same time, concluding that all of them are average, is a bit of a stretch.

That being said, we had students transfer over from UC Davis to Cal, and I think comparing your wife to a UC Davis graduate, is not as big of a put down as you think. Most UC Davis grads would perform almost the same as an average UC Berkeley grad if they had the same opportunity.

> the fact is that less people take the IIT-JEET (a couple of hundred thousand)

This is factually incorrect, or maybe you are referring to JEE-Advanced. The top of the funnel (i.e., JEE Mains), is over 1MM out of which about 25% qualify for JEE-Advanced.

Echo this. While there are smart people. Entry into IITs is based on pure rote learning and discipline. Kids who memorize tomes of math and science and go through rote practice exams over and over again over their peers who are experiencing life normally usually are the ones who get in.

I have met much smarter and successful people who went into regular technical schools and are much more creative than IIT types.

The fun thing is that it doesn’t even matter how smart you are to begin with beyond a surprisingly low threshold.

> it doesn’t even matter how smart you are

If you care about being "happy"? Sure.

But plenty of things require a bit more than "a surprisingly low threshold". You're not going to be Jeff Dean (for example) if you're just "smart".

Why do you need to be Jeff Dean? Might as well say you’re not going to be Tom Brady by being smart.

Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned a specific name. The point is, some things are impossible to do unless you are extremely smart.

So, in response to your first comment, "it doesn't even matter how smart you are" is not accurate unless you specify the context you're referring to.

Sure and certain things are impossible to do unless you’re extremely strong. So what? Pure intelligence, like strength, is generally not the limiting factor

Yep, in many situations intelligence beyond a certain threshold isn't the limiting factor. That's the qualifier missing from the first comment that I addressed. In some situations (that HN members may be disproportionately interested in), it is and it matters.

imo most people give up before their intelligence would become the true limiting factor

> the fact is that less people take the IIT-JEET (a couple of hundred thousand), than some of our exams here - like for law school and medical school

Do you have some source backing this up? A cursory search reveals that more than 850,000 applicants attempted the IIT-JEE exam in 2023. Total available college vacancies slightly more than 16,000. This number would be around 5000 for the OG IITs.

For US medical colleges, for 2022-2023 admission cycle, 22,712 of the 55,188 students who applied to medical school matriculated. Perhaps these numbers belongs to a specific US region?

I would say that attempting JEE is now more or less a cultural thing. 90% of the applicants (pardon the number out of thin air) sit the exam because that's just something you do after finishing school.

the problem is most standardized tests aren't good at really finding the extremes of the spectrum. There are some proposed solutions to this, whatever government actually implements them will reap the rewards of finding and recruiting the best talent available and nurturing them to reach their potential.

basically what you are talking about is the difference between someone who is very smart, one in a thousand, that can score well with lots of studying compared to a one in a million type genius capable of winning math Olympiads. Most standardized tests lump these people in the same category

> one in a thousand

That's probably way too high of a threshold. Many standardized tests lump everyone who is in the top 5-10% of ability, as long as they prepare sufficiently well.

IITs signal a combination of high IQ and great work ethic. People with that combination, as a general rule of thumb, do well in the professional world. But they should not be confused with Einsteins.

People with low neuroticism and high fluid intelligence do well in the professional world.

High crystallized intelligence (memorization, knowledge transfer) gets you through the door but won't make you a leader.

Can you elaborate on these skills please?

Essentially people who can adapt fast and care a lot about their work?

How do we develop these traits

> My wife, while relatively smart and working at a FAANG - is not that smart (I'm trying to use my words respectfully).

Hopefully she doesn't read Hacker News!

Hopefully she does.

People love branding and tribes.

All of these tests and hoops are proxies for IQ. High IQ tends to lead to better outcomes, but doesn’t guarantee them.

Where did you learn the word "Infact"? (which does not exist) Was it at Stanford?

Does typing that not result in a word highlighted with a red squiggly line for you?

You seem to have high expectations of others (i.e.: "not that smart"), but something as basic proofreading seems to be beneath you.

If you have impressive credentials but still communicate poorly and speak ill of your own family, you will fail to impress much.

Infact I learned that word in my postpostdoc at HarvPrinceYalefordbridge

Iam sorry you dontknow it

Don’t take his comment personally..

"I am so important that I do not need to proofread anything I write"

"Everyone (including my own family) is not that smart"

It is hard to not get upset with people that go through life with that mindset.

Treat others the way you want to be treated is the way things work over here.

Neither of your quoted statements are things the OP implied.

He may not value proofreading but you are poor at reading comprehension.

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