If you were to attend a top-ranked university in the United States, where would you put yourself on the bell-curve of students in your class? You might see yourself in the top 10% of your class, in the middle, or the last person listed in your class rank. Rank in a college setting mainly depends on the numbers configured from your GPA and test scores during your high school education that establish where you fall among the thousands of other hopeful students that want to earn their degrees. It is well accepted that the students that went above and beyond their peers in academics (not to mention extracurriculars as well) are admitted and go on to attend the prestigious colleges and universities that accept them.

Most people believe that when these elite, “best of the best” students are attending some of the highest institutions in education, they should be achieving a greater amount of success during their years of attending a given university and beyond than their other college students because that kind of education prompts them to do so. I would have thought likewise until I watched a video of Canadian author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell speaking at the Zeitgeist Americas conference in 2013 in my economics class last year. As I am heading off to my college campus in Evanston this weekend (Go Wildcats!), I was reminded of this video and how mentality, not intelligence, plays a huge role in true success.

At this conference, the panel of speakers were asked to discuss a topic where they imagined a world without this certain idea, thought, or event. Malcolm Gladwell discussed about wanting to stop a common phenomenon that has been overlooked by adults, companies, and all top universities which he referred to as Elite Institution Cognitive Disorder or EICD.

Though EICD does not have a direct definition (Malcolm Gladwell made up the term himself), Gladwell explained this problem with real examples and statistics.

Every human has a persistence of cognitive ability, how well they can accomplish and complete tasks. A person with a higher level of cognitive ability is able to excel at harder tasks than a person with a lower cognitive ability; for a top-ranked student, they have a high level of cognitive ability and IQ, which correlates to them being able to pass exams and earn harder degrees at a higher rate than students that have lower cognitive skills and intelligence. In addition, as anyone can assume, being admitted into the top universities in the country presumes that all of those students admitted are seen and have presented themselves as the best and brightest of their incoming class in numbers and on paper, with the highest levels of cognitive ability and intelligence to study in a rigorous and challenging environment, and that makes complete sense. It’s why Ivy League institutions and the West’s Stanford University are pickier than the food connoisseur who only will eat at restaurants with three Michelin stars; they know what they want and that’s the best. And very few graduating seniors will turn down an invitation to study at such high universities, so they attend with little hesitation.

To sum up all of those ideas, with the students that have proved to have high persistence in cognitive ability and high levels in IQ being admitted and accepting to attend the top-ranked universities in the nation, every one of those students should be graduating with the best and hardest degrees because they are technically smarter than probably 95% of all the students in that given graduating class around the world.

But surprisingly, that is not the case at all.

In his talk, Gladwell shows the statistics of students attending a lower ranked school called Hartwick College. In his model, the school was split into thirds based on their math SAT scores and who were taking majoring in a STEM major. It was shown that the bottom third of the students, with the lower SAT scores dropped out of their STEM major after their first year. He then turned to Harvard University and did the same model. He first showed the math SAT scores for Harvard and saw that the lower SAT scores for the bottom third of students at Harvard were equal to the top SAT scores of the top third of students at Hartwick. When he showed the rate of students still continuing in a STEM major at Harvard after a year, the dropout rate was the same as the bottom third of students at Hartwick. This means students at high level universities that are smarter than every single student at a less rigorous university are dropping out of classes and degrees when they clearly shouldn’t be.

This is the problem Malcolm Gladwell saw at all top universities and colleges around the country. Students were psyching themselves out in the classroom from achieving the amount of success they were capable of, stuck in a negative mentality about their smarts and strengths. What is causing this problem?

The root to the issue is class rank. Students see and compare themselves amongst their peers constantly based on test scores, how they are ranked in a class or at their school, and how they view another person as being better or worse than them. From this, students judge themselves if they feel they are not as intelligent as another student or passing a class as easily as another student. Students are viewing their absolute position of where are “ranked” at a university, hindering their mentality by making them feel they aren’t good enough to take harder courses or degrees as their peers, alas dropping out. Even though they are smarter than thousands of other students at other universities and colleges, those students are only seeing what is around them and not their relative position in college education, being at top institutions in the world.

This is a troubling and puzzling issue. How can this be solved? Should students not go to the harder universities like Dartmouth and Princeton? Malcolm Gladwell believes this, but I on the other hand do not.

I watched another video, this one being a TED talk, of Angela Lee Duckworth discussing what the key to success is from 2013. She was a teacher for 7^th graders in New York for years and saw the differences in her students’ work and grades and noticed an inverse relationship between a student’s intelligence and how well they succeed in the classroom. She wanted to study this phenomenon and went to get a bachelor’s degree in psychology to study who were successful in different, challenging settings, such as teachers teaching in underprivileged neighborhoods, kids competing in the National Spelling Bee, and cadets going through military academy, and why. She saw the significant factor in achieving success was not intelligence, but grit. Having passion and perseverance to achieve your long-term goals, to build the future you envision and to not give up on your goals when obstacles and challenges face you.

I see this as the solution to EICD. It wouldn’t matter if a student was at the bottom of the class because he or she found a class or course difficult; if the student has the perseverance and work ethic to complete and pass a course, they can and will. Though I can’t say that going into an engineering degree at MIT won’t be a walk in a park, if you were selected to go to that institution, they see the intelligence and wit you possess that are necessary for that school and know you can succeed. Going to any college for that matter is no easy task and requires a strong work ethic. In the end, it’s all up to you and your own mindset. All students should not focus on how well someone else is doing or how easy their peers are passing courses; they should only be thinking about what they need to do to succeed, even if the road might be harder with more curves and turns.

Malcolm Gladwell pointed out a problem too many college students are having and Angela Lee Duckworth pointed out a solution. College students, like myself, will be facing tough times ahead with a new level of education and having a strong mentality when times get tough is essential to accomplish the goals we have in college. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter about the path you take, but where you reach in the end.