Malcolm Gladwell's Most Likely To Succeed

A person’s ability to succeed should not be determined by their past achievements but should instead be judged by their ability to adapt and overcome the obstacles placed in their way. To often do we allow our perception of our ability to do one thing skew the perception of our ability to do something else we hold in close relation. For example, this is often seen in children who struggle with the first sport they chose to participate in. Often their inability to perform well in one aspect of the sporting world causes them to they’ll other sports; sometimes resulting in the child giving up on sports entirely when they might actually have been successful a sport they had yet to try. The problem with attempting to measure future success based

“There are certain jobs where almost nothing you can learn about candidates before they start predicts how they’ll do once they’re hired,” says Gladwell. He talked with a seasoned N.F.L scout named Dan Shonka who explained to him that it is extremely difficult to predict how a college quarterback will perform in the N.F.L because of how different the two environments are. To one unfamiliar with the trade, a star college quarterback would seem like the perfect candidate for the N.F.L. However, that would assume that there is direct correlation between one’s success in college football and one’s success at a professional level which simply can’t be proven. It is not until a player is actually given the chance to participate in a real professional level game that predictions of their future success can be accurately

In order to prevent academic inflation-- the declining value of higher degrees of education-- and to be able to provide an appropriate level of higher education, colleges must limit their enrollment to only those who are prepared and have the potential to be successful. However, it is hard for universities to predict which students will be successful in college based solely on how they performed in high school due to the environments being almost incomparable. There is so much more that factors into someone’s potential to succeed than simply their past achievements. A lot of what motivates us to succeed are the morals and values we are taught early in life by our parents, yet even these core values can change over time. Colleges and high schools also ask very different things from their students. For one student, the rigid daily structure of high school might appeal to their learning style whereas for another it might be the more “on your own” style of college that allows them to flourish. In order to obtain the best possible candidates, universities look at three different categories: ACT/SAT scores, GPA, and class