Mamadou Diallo
Sunday, January 31

Sources Discussed: The 10,000 Hour Rule and The Problem With Geniuses 

          Due to the fact that we are high school juniors in the midst of our college process, this is currently the most opportune time for us to contemplate the message conveyed in these pages. Gladwell has transformed my previous outlook on the correlation between innate intellect and academic success. He cleverly proves that past a certain border, this correlation ceases to exist and success begins to depend on other complementary characteristics.
          In Chapter 2, Gladwell uses prominent billionaires, sports stars, and musicians to push his claim that, egardless of a person's innate talent, people seldom achieve success without exerting a considerable amount of hard work; at least 10,000 hours. Gladwell's examples are sufficient enough to convince me of this claim and they incited me to notice some more common examples. Today, the socioeconomic body that performs the best on standardized tests and gains the most admission to prestigious educational institutions are rich, white kids. This comes as no surprise since their wealth grants them access to individualized test prep and better schooling. In the end, the kids in this group get more hours of efficient test prep and consequently, they are more prepared for their SAT and for the rigor of college courses. Rich, White kids aren't inherently smarter than us minorities. Rather, all students are created equal but, as a result of experiences and the lack of, they develop differently.
       Similar to his contest of the concept of innate talent, Gladwell goes on to debase the fantasies and misconceptions that surround geniuses, or people of abnormal intellectual abilities. Though Gladwell acknowledges that a person of high intellectual capacity possesses a higher chance of success in life, he argues that after a certain intellectual threshold, intellect ceases to yield apparent benefits. This latter concept completely makes sense and is relevant to the college process. All colleges judge their applicants on a holistic agenda;they consider every part of a student's application. For this reason, it is irrational to believe that the only way to gain admission to a prestigious university is by acing the SAT and attaining an A+ GPA. Indeed, as Gladwell points out, Harvard regularly rejects these types of students. If one can attain  grades that are high enough to prove their intelligence and academic capability, standardized tests and GPA will become less important in the eyes of admissions officers and they will begin to look at other aspects; extracurriculars,  teacher recommendations, personal statement, etc.