Hacker News Reader

Comment by david_shaw | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you completely; however, if Harvard (for example) wants to find the next "leaders in business, innovation and politics," they are likely seeking people who've shown drive in their chosen fields.

For example, when I look to hire developers who are recent or soon-to-be college graduates, I may glance briefly at their GPA. While I care that they didn't flunk their classes (and aptitude in their language of choice is certainly important), I check to see what projects they did on the side. What open source software did they release or contribute to? Did they launch mobile or webapps while studying? Are they conversant in current events around their field of choice?

To me, passion is more important than grades or even degrees--in business. My question, which I believe is the same one posed in the article, is whether it is appropriate for schools to evaluate on that metric, too.

View on HN

My hiring process is very similar to yours. Every one of 6 devs in my office has a history of side projects if out of college, failed startups if older, etc. I don't know if I would apply the same standard to a high-schooler though.

To give a specific example, I've always thought that community involvement is one of those developmental stages that happen later in life. Bill Gates is a great example: obviously a "leader in business, innovation and politics", who went from active, principled disdain towards all charity when he was younger to the world's biggest philanthropist today. Whenever I see community involvement coming from a high schooler, I always "blame" parents, college admission coaches, church, etc.

Similarly, serious commitment to more than one sport makes me think "ambitious parents" and "affluent" rather than "drive". I just don't buy that a high-schooler, all by him/herself, has the wherewithal to manage multiple athletic training programs. I did serious ballet before I went to college, and let's face it, while I did all the sweating, my mother gets more than half the credit.

I agree with your comments here, particularly bits about detecting drive in someone that young. I may have taken my personal experiences (I did say my original comment would be anecdotal!) and applied them too broadly to the difficult and complex issue at hand.

What this boils down to, to me, is the inability for admissions boards to release their exact criteria for admitting a prospective student. If, say, MIT released the exact formula for their perfect student, then people would immediately game the system (more so than they do already).

As some other users pointed out, and as you alluded to here, how can we tell the difference between 'drive' and 'trying to appear well-rounded'? How can we tell if a high schooler wanted to do those five-hundred hours of community service, or if they were coerced into doing so by a parent or school?

I personally believe that there is more to a successful academic (and professional) career than grades, so my initial dispute was the use of standardized test scores and GPA to indicate discrimination when it may have simply been another variable skewing the results.

It would be a very interesting case study for a university to release their full (objective) admissions criteria, however--while, sure, it would result in applicants trying to game the system, would it end up resulting in a more cohesive student base? What would the main factors be? How do you weigh passions vs., as you stated, ambitious parents?

I don't have any of the answers to the questions I posed in this comment (nor in my earlier ones), but it's an interesting thought experiment nonetheless.

> how can we tell the difference between 'drive' and 'trying to appear well-rounded'? How can we tell if a high schooler wanted to do those five-hundred hours of community service, or if they were coerced into doing so by a parent or school?

that's a good question - and this same question needs to be asked by a prospective employer during hiring interviews. In other words, you have to try and understand the applicant, and see if they really want it, or is only wanting it for extrinsic reasons (which i deem to be a bad reason for wanting to study).

I played football over the strenuous objections of my parents, who would have preferred I be involved in music.

You play sports to get laid, not because your parents make you.

You're severely overestimating the ability of Harvard admissions officers to evaluate those traits based on college applications. You can at least narrow the scope to a single professional area in which the candidate must excel to do the job well. Do you think an average Harvard admissions officer can evaluate open-source projects? Or similar types of accomplishments in other specialized areas? They are looking in a vacuum and they hardly have the expertise to evaluate how passionate someone must be to have accomplished some line item in their application. They also have virtually no ability to question the applicant on anything.

This entire "holistic evaluation" thing, at this point is pretty much gamed out and the savviest parents and students know what the admissions officers are looking for, which means it plays out very much like the tests and the grades - people who really, really want to get into the top schools and will put in the effort are the ones who get in.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com