we have a problem in turning out enough science and math graduates right in this country and it's not for lack of interest by the way among high school seniors lots and lots and lots of high school seniors want to get science in math degrees but approximately half of them drop out by the end of their second year so we have a persistence problem in science and math education in this country so the question is why why does so many kids drop out well the obvious answer is that science and math are really hard and you need to have a certain level of cognitive ability to master those subjects and we don't have enough smart kids right so so if you if that's true if science and math education is a function of we should be able to see in the statistics that persistence is a function of your cognitive ability this is I've just chosen Hartwick College as a proxy for American colleges for totally random reasons hardwick is a small liberal arts college in upstate New York and what we have here is a distribution of math SAT scores by among the people who are intending to major in science and math and what you can see is that there is quite a wide range of native math ability among the kids entering the freshman stem programs at heartwood right so what we would so what do we see when we when we look at the who ends up graduating with a stem degree what we see is that at Hartley College the kids within the top third with the top third SAT scores end up getting well over half of the stem degrees and the kids with the bottom scores end up getting very few of the same degrees those kids over there are dropping out like flies what this would seem to suggest at our original hypothesis that persistence as a function of cognitive ability is true and it's one also we can also go further we can say if this hypothesis is true as we go to more and more selective institutions we should see a very different pattern of persistence we should see less kids dropping out because the kids are all smarter right so let's go to hazard these numbers are a few years old but at Harvard you can see that the bottom third of math SAT scores among kids doing science and math are equal to the top third at Hartwick the dumb students at Harvard are as smartest as smart students at Hartwick so you'd think everybody at heart at Harvard should be getting the math and science degree right why would they drop out everyone's so smart what do we see oh dear what we see is the exact same pattern at Harvard that we saw at Hardwick the smart kids are the top kids are getting all the degrees the kids at the bottom aren't getting any to be the dropping out like flies right even though these kids are brilliant well clearly what we're seeing here is that persistence in science and math is not simply a function of your cognitive ability it's a function of your relative standing in your class it's a function of your class rank right those kids who are really really brilliant don't get their math degree not because that is a function of their IQ but as a function of where they are in their class and by the way if you look at any college you want you will always see regardless of the level of cognitive ability among the students you will always see the same pattern the kids who get the science and math degrees are the ones in the top of their class and the kids in the bottom of their class never do so the name given for this phenomenon among psychologists is relative deprivation theory and it describes this exceedingly robust phenomenon which says that as human beings we do not form our self assessments based on our standing in the world we form our self assessments based on our standing in the in our immediate circle on those in the same boat as ourselves right so a classic example of relative deprivation theory is which kind of country which countries have the highest suicide rates happy countries or unhappy countries and the answer is happy trees right if you're morbidly depressed in a country where everyone else is really unhappy you don't feel that unhappy right you're not comparing yourself to the universe a whole universe of people out there no your can comparing yourself to your neighbors and the kids at school and they're unhappy too so you're so defined but if you're morbidly depressed in a country where everyone is jumping up and down for joy you are really depressed right that is a very very very profoundly serious place to be and so as a result you get that sad outcome more often so what's happening at Harvard then is the kid in the bottom third of his class at Harvard does not say rationally I am in the 99.99% I love all students in the world when it comes to native math ability even though that's true what that kid says is that kid over there Johnny over there is getting all the answers right and I'm not I feel like I'm really stupid and I can't handle math so I'm gonna drop out get a fine arts degree move to Brooklyn we're make fifteen thousand dollars a year and break my parents heart right so what is the implication of this the implication of this is that if you want to get a science and math degree don't go to Harvard right in fact we can run the numbers on this mitchell chang at UCLA recently did the numbers and he says as a rule of thumb your odds of graduating persisting successfully getting a science and math degree fall by two percentage points for every 10-point increase in the average SAT score of your peers so if you're a kid and you have a choice between a few and university of maryland is your safety university maryland has a hundred and fifty as on average SAT scores are 150 points lower at Maryland that means your chance of graduating with a stem degree from Maryland is 30% higher than it would be at Harvard right now so if you choose to go to Harvard not Maryland you are taking an enormous gamble you are since you're essentially saying this stem degree by the way the most valuable commodity any college graduate can have in today's me I am going to take a 30% gamble in my chances of getting that degree just so I can put Harvard on my resume is that worth it I don't think so when it comes to confidence and motivation and self-efficacy the things that really matter when it comes to making your way in the world relative position matters more than absolute position right the 80th percentile student at Harvard looks at those kids who are smarter than him and says I can't do it the number one student at Missouri says wow I am lord of the manor I'm gonna go out and conquer the world right so what does it mean well what it means what it means first of all when it comes to hiring it means you should hire in the basis of class rank and you should be completely indifferent to the institution attended by the applicant in fact we should have a don't-ask-don't-tell policy for the name of your undergraduate institution it's hurting us to know that doesn't help us and when you hear some institution some fabulous Wall Street investment bank some universities say we only hire from the top schools you should say you higher than the top students from any school under the Sun and it also means that when it comes if you have kids going to college when it comes to choosing your undergraduate institution you should never go to the best institution you get into never go to your second or your third choice go to the place where you're guaranteed to be in the top part of your class right so why don't we do that well why did I come here when it was profoundly in my self-interest not to write because when we have an opportunity to join elite institutions we are so enormous ly flattered and pleased with ourselves that we do things that are irrational