Malcolm Gladwell revealed why you shouldn't go to Harvard:
1. America does not have a shortage of students who want science and math degrees. It has a shortage of students who finish them. Half of all high school seniors who intend to study STEM drop out by the end of their second year. The problem is not interest. It is persistence.
2. The obvious assumption is that smarter students persist longer. So Gladwell tested it. At Hartwick College, a small liberal arts school in New York, the top third of math SAT scorers took the majority of STEM degrees. The bottom third dropped out in large numbers. The data seemed to confirm it. Smarter kids stick around longer.
3. Then he looked at Harvard. The bottom third of Harvard's math SAT scores are equal to the top third at Hartwick. By the logic above, everyone at Harvard should graduate with a STEM degree. They are all brilliant. Nobody should be dropping out.
4. Harvard showed the exact same pattern as Hartwick. Top students graduated. Bottom students dropped out like flies. Even though the bottom Harvard students were objectively brilliant by any global standard. Something else entirely was driving the dropout rate.
5. That something is called relative deprivation theory. Human beings do not measure themselves against the world. They measure themselves against the people immediately around them. A Harvard student in the bottom third does not think I am in the top one percent of all students globally. They think that kid next to me keeps getting everything right and I keep getting it wrong. So they quit.
6. The research from UCLA puts a specific number on it. Your odds of graduating with a STEM degree fall by two percentage points for every ten point increase in the average SAT score of your peers. Choose Harvard over the University of Maryland and your chance of finishing a STEM degree drops by thirty percent. Thirty percent. Just to put a brand name on your resume.
7. Relative position matters more than absolute position when it comes to confidence, motivation, and self belief. The eightieth percentile student at Harvard looks up at the people above them and feels like they cannot compete. The number one student at a state school feels like they can conquer the world. That feeling drives everything.
8. The practical hiring implication is radical. Class rank matters more than institution name. Gladwell argues companies should have a don't ask don't tell policy for where someone went to college. Hiring only from top schools means missing the top students from every other school. That is not smart hiring. That is brand worship.
9. When choosing a college, never go to the best school you get into. Go to the school where you are guaranteed to be near the top of your class. Being a big fish in a smaller pond does not just feel better. It statistically produces better outcomes than being a small fish in the most prestigious pond available.
10. So why do we keep choosing Harvard over Maryland? Because we are flattered. Because the acceptance letter feels like validation. Because we make an irrational decision in a moment of enormous flattery and call it ambition. Gladwell's conclusion is simple and brutal. When we have the chance to join an elite institution we do things that are genuinely against our own interest and we feel great about it the whole time.
A community college professor named Marty Lobdell taught the same study skills lecture for 30 years. The video quietly became one of the most watched educational recordings online, with over 10 million views.
He spent his career watching students fail not because they were lazy, but because no one had taught them how their brain actually works when learning something difficult.
The lecture, “Study Less Study Smart,” contains a powerful framework.
Your brain cannot sustain focus the way most people believe. Studies show the average learner hits a wall between 25 and 30 minutes. After that, efficiency collapses. You’re still sitting there, but almost nothing is being absorbed.
Lobdell told the story of a student who planned to study 6 hours a night, 5 nights a week. Thirty hours total. She failed every class. She was not lacking effort. She was confusing time near books with actual learning. The fix is simple: when focus drops, stop, take a 5 minute rewarding break, then return. That reset makes a massive difference.
He also destroyed the myth of highlighting and re reading. Recognition is not the same as recall. To prove it, he read 13 random letters. Almost no one remembered them. Then he turned them into “Happy Thursday.” The entire room recalled them instantly. The brain stores meaning, not repetition.
This is why elaborative encoding works so well.
Finally, he shared the most important principle: 80 percent of study time should be active recitation. Close the book and explain the material in your own words. Teach it to someone else or an empty chair. Retrieval is where real learning happens.
His closing line stuck with me: If this information does not change your
behaviour, you have not actually learned it.
The best students do not study more hours. They stop confusing the feeling of studying with the reality of learning.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR CHAIRPERSON EMERITUS, @lenirobredo! 💗
You have shown us that the work that matters is the work that reaches people, especially those too often left behind.
Through #AngatBuhay, that commitment continues in communities where service becomes real and felt.
@NedoKing20@ABSCBNNews Leni doesn’t need you to feel sorry for her. She needs you to hold your leaders (or idols) accountable and to answer corruption charges against them.
How can you convince Filipinos to travel to other parts of the Philippines, when it’s cheaper to fly to Hong Kong, Singapore or other ASEAN destinations, than it is to fly to some tourist destinations IN the Philippines?
Make flights cheaper to destinations INSIDE the Philippines. @TourismPHL
LOOK: UP lights its Quezon Hall with green to honor the De La Salle University who emerged as champions in UAAP Season 88 Men's Basketball tonight.
UP President Angelo Jimenez said the Green Archers were worthy opponents, even chanting 'Animo La Salle!' @ABSCBNNews
Personal observation: I’m seeing better maturity among the #UPFight fans this time around.
While there are posts of regret and grief, most of the posts I’ve seen have been more on appreciation, gratitude, sportsmanship, and calm acceptance of the result.
A win in itself!