To borrow from a US Supreme Court Justice's famous phrase regarding obscenity, I know smart when I see it.
I too went to a reputedly top tier universtity (because I didn't want to go college and applied only there, but my father had the last laugh when I was accepted) and there were plenty of students born rich with the best educations from pre-school on, but there were also plenty who qualified on merit; that is, they proved to be especially smart/successful in some field or generally/measurably smart enough to meet admissions standards.
But I found the same old curve fell into place: some folks could cut it, some couldn't.
But here's how I came to measure 'smart' as in WICKED smart: the guy who majored in physics, published short stories in national magazines, taught himself guitar for kicks while getting stoned, learned Italian in a month to qualify for a semester abroad, could dunk a basketball and play a pretty fair game of tennis, was at once personable but didn't suffer fools, yet still wanted to do more. (Not to offend, but after geting through machine language he confessed that computer courses seemed to be 'technical training' and something he could pick up later if need be.)
Oh, and he got laid. A lot.
So, while numerous comments here have objected to the subjective, narrow idea of smartness, I must disagree that it is only in the eye beholder, and only a self-comparison.
I too went to a reputedly top tier universtity (because I didn't want to go college and applied only there, but my father had the last laugh when I was accepted) and there were plenty of students born rich with the best educations from pre-school on, but there were also plenty who qualified on merit; that is, they proved to be especially smart/successful in some field or generally/measurably smart enough to meet admissions standards.
But I found the same old curve fell into place: some folks could cut it, some couldn't.
But here's how I came to measure 'smart' as in WICKED smart: the guy who majored in physics, published short stories in national magazines, taught himself guitar for kicks while getting stoned, learned Italian in a month to qualify for a semester abroad, could dunk a basketball and play a pretty fair game of tennis, was at once personable but didn't suffer fools, yet still wanted to do more. (Not to offend, but after geting through machine language he confessed that computer courses seemed to be 'technical training' and something he could pick up later if need be.)
Oh, and he got laid. A lot.
So, while numerous comments here have objected to the subjective, narrow idea of smartness, I must disagree that it is only in the eye beholder, and only a self-comparison.