Malcolm Gladwell is such a brilliant writer that he can make any idea or concept into a controversial statement and back it up in a form that captivates readers. A lot of people are pessimistic about Gladwell's writing, saying he "Lacks scientific rigor or depth" and because of that he may suffer from a bias. Others say he "forces analogies" and that his examples are don't back up his ideas like they did in Outliers, without a doubt his best book. I think what is really interesting about this book, whether what the critics say are true or not, is that it is very relevant. I think that Gladwell backs up his claims with anecdotes that are not only interesting but reach a wide crowd of people. One of the stories that really resonates with me is the story of Caroline Sacks, the brilliant college girl who got lost in the "Big Pond" of higher education.
Caroline Sacks was a brilliant high school senior planning to go to a prestigious university and study chemistry. She applied to the prestigious Brown University, with the University of Maryland as her backup. She was accepted to Brown and the next fall she went there to study chemistry. While at Brown, Caroline took chemistry classes and it just didn't click for her; concepts were making sense, she was falling behind, spending countless hours studying, and yet she still couldn't pass. She tried again her Sophomore year and the same thing happened. Caroline just stuck as a little fish in a Big Pond.
Gladwell highlights the importance of being a Big Fish in a little pond by telling Caroline's story. "If I went to University of Maryland, I would probably still be in science," said Sacks. He compares the number of papers published by the top students at the Harvards and Yales and Browns of the country with the number of papers published by the top students at “lower caliber” schools of the country. His findings stated that, without much digression, the top students at the Harvards and Yales published a much larger number of articles than the top student at lower caliber schools, but the surprising thing is how those students did compared with the lower students and Harvard and Yale. The top students at lower caliber schools published more articles than most of the students at the prestigious schools. What that means is that the students at Harvard, who are obviously brilliant but not the top of their classes, are not published nearly as many articles as the top students at the lower schools. Hence, Gladwell argues it is better to be a Big Fish in a little pond.
This anecdote is so relevant because next these are decisions we as high school seniors are making right now. I think it is so interesting that so many people these days focus their entire lives to get accepted to the Harvards and Yales, and maybe they get accepted, but a very select few are accepted and graduate at the top of their classes and publish more papers than the student at lower schools. It really highlights the importance of individuality in the student and that there really isn’t anything wrong with a “lower caliber” school, if that is where YOU will succeed.
