You’re speaking from anecdotal life experience. My anecdotal life experience tends to disagree with several of the points you have made.
I’m writing solely from the perspective of and about the top ~5% of a high school class. I assume that students taking the time to weigh the human capital growth prospects vs. the signaling benefits of an opportunity belong to this class
Bad assumption, even when only taking into account similar schools and demographics to the one you attended. I did make exactly this sort of cost-benefit calculation in high school and I was only above average and not close to the top 5% when it came to GPA. To avoid having you attribute this to low intelligence, I’ll also mention that I was in the top 1% when it came to standardized test scores. I attribute this to the fact that GPA primarily measures organization, conscientiousness, working memory,and signalling while test scores primarily measure English verbal and quantitative proficiency.
What I’m against is a student using signaling benefits as a deciding factor in any amount when selecting extracurriculars, classes, etc
I paid zero attention to signalling in high school. I’d engage in auto-didactic activities such as browsing google-scholar and reading stuff which interested me in favor of working on my assignments. I signed up for all of the most challenging classes because I knew that in the competition between regular course X and AP course X, the AP course would be more fun, more interesting, teach me more, and suck up roughly equal time. For the same amount of studying, a high level course will give you a lower grade but more knowledge. I didn’t even think about my GPA—I didn’t even bother keep track of how many points I had in my classes. I had a terribly single-minded focus on learning...because signalling was just too damn boring to bother with. To this day I still struggle to force myself into putting up adequately strong signalling, even when it’s dull. Not signalling adequately is akrasia, it is bad, don’t do it.
I was one of very few among the top 1% of my class who didn’t force themselves into AP US History, AP Chemistry
Right, but that means you took non-AP History and non-AP chemistry courses. You could have chosen to take the AP classes and simply spend the same amount of time studying for them as you would for the non-AP equivalent , and been content with a lower grade because you learned more about the material. If you weren’t signalling at all, why would you ever take a lower level course if you have the prerequisite knowledge to understand the higher course?
If it takes 5 hrs/wk to get an A in AP english and 2 hrs/wk to get an A in regular English, you can (but shouldn’t!) still just spend 2 hrs/wk on AP english, get a B-, and still learn more than you would have with an A in regular English.
Forget about how “significant” or “impressive” this issue might look on paper to an admissions officer.
So when I started college (due to my GPA, it was not a high-flying Ivy league) and started taking courses, when it came to the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and sociology I had already read much of the original research off of which the material was based. Some of the professors I encountered felt like celebrities because I had happened to read one of their papers once. Of course, this didn’t help me at all when it came to introductory courses where most of the material was memorization, but now that I’m taking upper level courses dealing with primary source material it’s finally beginning to pay off. But even now, those introductory courses are leeching my GPA, and are going to effect my graduate admissions process.
So lets return to high school: how exactly do I put: “For the past three years I’ve I spend hours every day reading primary literature and so I am intimately familiar with how science is done, but you’ll just have to take my word on that” on a transcript without sounding completely lame? That might fly in grad school interviews, but your average undergraduate admissions officer probably doesn’t understand why this is a really valuable and rare thing for a high school student to do. They’re thinking, “Yeah, my kid reads Scientific American too, big deal”. The fact that I won several science fairs, which should actually be the much less impressive accomplishment, probably helped my resume more than all my reading combined.
Evidence of a true passion can show through in application essays, and will mean more than 10 club presidencies or 50 letters of recommendation. Rip out of the chains of high school and do something that you’re passionate about!
So here’s what I see: You are someone who followed their passions and excelled in school, and you think doing well in school is about passion. I am someone who followed his passions and did above average in school (an underachiever relative to what IQ-proxy standardized tests expected), and I thought doing well in school was about signalling.
Here’s my updated conclusion after reading your story: some people have natural passions which take them in a direction that happens to cause good signalling—passions which cause them to succeed in school and get admitted into high level colleges. Such people like the system and tend to feel that its indicators are good and honest. Others have natural passions which take time away from signalling activities, and these people perceive a constant strain between signalling and passion. Such people tend to think that the system has perverse incentive structures.
I didn’t often connect this work with college admissions, however.
And that’s the crux of it. You did signal optimally, and the fact that you didn’t signal optimally on purpose doesn’t change that.
See, when your passions just happen lead to high GPA and good resumes, you don’t need conscientiousness-ly cultivated signalling behavior. This is why you are advising others to simply do what comes naturally.
For the rest of us - if you want to get into a high level university, I’d advise you to keep signalling, or switch into a different set of incentive structures (homeschooling, alternative schools, etc).
Some of the professors I encountered felt like celebrities because I had happened to read one of their papers once. Of course, this didn’t help me at all when it came to introductory courses where most of the material was memorization, but now that I’m taking upper level courses dealing with primary source material it’s finally beginning to pay off. But even now, those introductory courses are leeching my GPA, and are going to effect my graduate admissions process.
Admission to graduate school is easy to hack, especially if you know the people in the field. Decide now on a short list of people you’d like to be your advisor, and talk to your professors about them. Work your way up to emailing / calling them, but an introduction from a professor that likes you will go far. If a professor says “I want Ishaan to be my graduate student,” you will be admitted.
Seconded. This seemed outrageous and unthinkable to me before I was in grad school; now that I’ve been to grad school, I recognize it as obviously true.
Work your way up to emailing / calling them, but an introduction from a professor that likes you will go far.
Well-known professors get cold-emailed pretty frequently by prospective students, and are largely ignored. An introduction from a professor that likes you, in a related field of study, will get you pretty far.
Of course, you won’t get those introductions without having a professor that likes you; the easiest way to get a professor to like you is to demonstrate interest, and start to build expertise, in the field you want to do work in. Start reading papers, ask your professors questions about research, or just pointers to relevant research. If you want to do math or CS or theoretical X, make serious attempts at solving interesting problems. If you’re in a lab science, ask to help with relevant experiments at your university.
I did not do these things when I was an undergrad. Doing them would have made a serious difference; I’ve seen that difference in grad students since then. If you seriously want to do graduate research, this stuff is at least as important as your grades. It’s good practice and good signaling.
You’re speaking from anecdotal life experience. My anecdotal life experience tends to disagree with several of the points you have made.
Bad assumption, even when only taking into account similar schools and demographics to the one you attended. I did make exactly this sort of cost-benefit calculation in high school and I was only above average and not close to the top 5% when it came to GPA. To avoid having you attribute this to low intelligence, I’ll also mention that I was in the top 1% when it came to standardized test scores. I attribute this to the fact that GPA primarily measures organization, conscientiousness, working memory,and signalling while test scores primarily measure English verbal and quantitative proficiency.
I paid zero attention to signalling in high school. I’d engage in auto-didactic activities such as browsing google-scholar and reading stuff which interested me in favor of working on my assignments. I signed up for all of the most challenging classes because I knew that in the competition between regular course X and AP course X, the AP course would be more fun, more interesting, teach me more, and suck up roughly equal time. For the same amount of studying, a high level course will give you a lower grade but more knowledge. I didn’t even think about my GPA—I didn’t even bother keep track of how many points I had in my classes. I had a terribly single-minded focus on learning...because signalling was just too damn boring to bother with. To this day I still struggle to force myself into putting up adequately strong signalling, even when it’s dull. Not signalling adequately is akrasia, it is bad, don’t do it.
Right, but that means you took non-AP History and non-AP chemistry courses. You could have chosen to take the AP classes and simply spend the same amount of time studying for them as you would for the non-AP equivalent , and been content with a lower grade because you learned more about the material. If you weren’t signalling at all, why would you ever take a lower level course if you have the prerequisite knowledge to understand the higher course?
If it takes 5 hrs/wk to get an A in AP english and 2 hrs/wk to get an A in regular English, you can (but shouldn’t!) still just spend 2 hrs/wk on AP english, get a B-, and still learn more than you would have with an A in regular English.
So when I started college (due to my GPA, it was not a high-flying Ivy league) and started taking courses, when it came to the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and sociology I had already read much of the original research off of which the material was based. Some of the professors I encountered felt like celebrities because I had happened to read one of their papers once. Of course, this didn’t help me at all when it came to introductory courses where most of the material was memorization, but now that I’m taking upper level courses dealing with primary source material it’s finally beginning to pay off. But even now, those introductory courses are leeching my GPA, and are going to effect my graduate admissions process.
So lets return to high school: how exactly do I put: “For the past three years I’ve I spend hours every day reading primary literature and so I am intimately familiar with how science is done, but you’ll just have to take my word on that” on a transcript without sounding completely lame? That might fly in grad school interviews, but your average undergraduate admissions officer probably doesn’t understand why this is a really valuable and rare thing for a high school student to do. They’re thinking, “Yeah, my kid reads Scientific American too, big deal”. The fact that I won several science fairs, which should actually be the much less impressive accomplishment, probably helped my resume more than all my reading combined.
So here’s what I see: You are someone who followed their passions and excelled in school, and you think doing well in school is about passion. I am someone who followed his passions and did above average in school (an underachiever relative to what IQ-proxy standardized tests expected), and I thought doing well in school was about signalling.
Here’s my updated conclusion after reading your story: some people have natural passions which take them in a direction that happens to cause good signalling—passions which cause them to succeed in school and get admitted into high level colleges. Such people like the system and tend to feel that its indicators are good and honest. Others have natural passions which take time away from signalling activities, and these people perceive a constant strain between signalling and passion. Such people tend to think that the system has perverse incentive structures.
And that’s the crux of it. You did signal optimally, and the fact that you didn’t signal optimally on purpose doesn’t change that.
See, when your passions just happen lead to high GPA and good resumes, you don’t need conscientiousness-ly cultivated signalling behavior. This is why you are advising others to simply do what comes naturally.
For the rest of us - if you want to get into a high level university, I’d advise you to keep signalling, or switch into a different set of incentive structures (homeschooling, alternative schools, etc).
Admission to graduate school is easy to hack, especially if you know the people in the field. Decide now on a short list of people you’d like to be your advisor, and talk to your professors about them. Work your way up to emailing / calling them, but an introduction from a professor that likes you will go far. If a professor says “I want Ishaan to be my graduate student,” you will be admitted.
Seconded. This seemed outrageous and unthinkable to me before I was in grad school; now that I’ve been to grad school, I recognize it as obviously true.
Well-known professors get cold-emailed pretty frequently by prospective students, and are largely ignored. An introduction from a professor that likes you, in a related field of study, will get you pretty far.
Of course, you won’t get those introductions without having a professor that likes you; the easiest way to get a professor to like you is to demonstrate interest, and start to build expertise, in the field you want to do work in. Start reading papers, ask your professors questions about research, or just pointers to relevant research. If you want to do math or CS or theoretical X, make serious attempts at solving interesting problems. If you’re in a lab science, ask to help with relevant experiments at your university.
I did not do these things when I was an undergrad. Doing them would have made a serious difference; I’ve seen that difference in grad students since then. If you seriously want to do graduate research, this stuff is at least as important as your grades. It’s good practice and good signaling.