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Originally Posted by chickentribs
I must admit that this caught me off guard. I would love to know the story behind why Kerry was chosen to speak to the senior class at Yale when he was obviously not much of a serious student, but I guess Harvard did have Ali G at their graduation so...
Let's just all commit that for the next election, GOP or Lefty, no candidates that are still on academic probation, fair?
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I don't agree with the assessment of the situation you are giving, nor the majority of posters in this thread.
What this indicates is that Kerry did poorly in his first year, then did well for the remainder of his term.
Whereas Bush did mediocre throughout his education career.
I don't see the two trajectories are similar.
For example, if I earn an F in my first class of Business management and an A in my second course of Business management, but my friend earns two C's, we will have the same average. However, if the course material became more difficult as the courses progresses over time (which they do, as one moves from intro material to advanced material) then one ought to surmise that my initial low marks were due to external factors, difficulty with the material or anything you want, but realizing that I overcame it and scored exceptionally well on the more difficult material. That indicates and ability to learn and improve, which to me are clear markers of intelligence. On the other hand, my friend, who consistently scored an average score, is just an average student or at least didn't demonstrate a willingness to overcome external factors that might explain his grades (such as partying a lot).
This would be even more clear if we compared whether one student had more difficult course work than another. In any case, we might do better to look at their mode or median scores rather than the mean.
Or indicate our own intelligence by ignoring "news" like this.