Hypnotized by the right choice...or not....

We humans are pretty interesting. Often we think we are making a good choice, but sometimes that is not the case at all. You then think you are doing something very well, making the right choice, and that choice may even cause it to affect the rest of your life. One interesting study involved choosing the right school

Choosing the right school

I myself am in the middle of it. My oldest son has to choose high school and, of course, you want the best for your child. But what is the best. If you are guided by achievements, success schools and the best educations, you may well go badly wrong.

As a parent, you want the best for your child. You want to give them the opportunities you didn't have and save them from the wrong decisions you made. Then you see parents making decisions that seem right but are.

How do we make decisions? Do we do it with our reason or with our feelings. Do we look at the facts or are we influenced by other things. And yes the facts, what does that really mean.

Imagine you can choose from 2 schools.

Let's say two universities. One university is regarded as the best university in the Netherlands and the other as less than mediocre.

Your son is gifted, very smart, skipped a class and in vwo he was one of the top students in his class. He is graduating from vwo with high grades and a brilliant career lies ahead of him.

What would you do? What would you advise your son to choose? Go for the prestigious university or the mediocre one.

The choice is easy or not...

The choice seems easy enough, your son is smart enough, performs like one of the best so your choice will probably go to the prestigious university. He's going to get there just fine, at least that's what you assume and that's where the shoe pinches. You are hypnotized and you have created an unconscious automatic program that makes you think this is the best decision.

Because it makes sense after all. He goes there, graduates from the university that is highly regarded, has a diploma with that university's name on it and all the doors swing open, you hope.

But for most, this is false hope. It's not true, and I'll explain why.

In the book David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell explains this phenomenon. They compared test scores from Harvard University (the most prestigious university in the world) and Hartwick college (a small university).

Hartwick's top students' scores came to 569, on a test where you could score 800 points. Harvard students, of course, did many times better with a score of 753. These were the top of both universities.

The worst scoring achieved 407 at Hartwick and 581 at Harvard, respectively . You see the "worst" at Harvard still beat the best at Hartwick on the test.

But then...

Those who performed the worst on the test at Harvard published an average of 0.07 articles in those years after and thus get far fewer opportunities and also lesser jobs than the best scoring ones. This is also quite logical, but then.

The top ranked on Hartwick published an average of 2.5 articles in subsequent years. Interesting statistic right? Even though they scored worse on the test and were therefore less smart.

The environment is important

What they discovered is that the environment where you go to learn determines whether you will also have better opportunities. When you are smart and you go to Harvard you get to be around all smart people and often smarter than you. You are then going to feel dumber and more likely to give up.

If you are smart and you choose a school where you can excel it does something to your self-confidence and you were offered better jobs with better pay.

So if you have to choose for your son or daughter, first think carefully about whether you want to send him or her to that competitive, best-performing school. You may be depriving him of the very opportunity to become really good....

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