Harvard Admissions Needs ‘Moneyball for Life’
Specifically, our new model has helped us discover a strong positive correlation among three personality traits in children, and the creation of large fortunes, especially Wall Street fortunes. In brief:
1) Self-importance. From his public comments we have learned that Mr. Schwarzman, at age 17 or 18, was so certain Harvard had made a mistake in refusing him admission that he called the dean directly, to tell him.
.. The odds that a child will make outlandish sums of money when he grows up turns out to be strongly correlated with his willingness to challenge adult authority when that authority does not give him exactly what he wants. At bottom, he does not accept any authority higher than himself.
.. 2) An extreme need for external validation. We of course have screened for this in the past, but indirectly, by weighing heavily a child’s school grades. The trouble is that, while success in the classroom may indeed reveal a strong need for public approval, it can also result from sheer brilliance, or, worse, deep interest in the subject material.
.. The very qualities in children most likely to lead them to great financial fortune also render them predisposed, as adults, to giving those fortunes to rich universities, instead of, say, charitable organizations that actually need the money.