[lisper]

> If you don't learn Calculus, and get decent grades doing so, you're not going to be able to get a Masters in Math or CS because you won't get accepted into the program.

> Grad schools are not political. Graduate acceptance is based on merit, not popularity.

I'm sorry, but this is hopelessly naive.

I entered Virginia Tech with enough AP credit to enter as a sophomore, and within one quarter I was a Junior. I finished my B.S.E.E. in 8 quarters with a 3.9+ GPA (I don't remember exactly what it was, but my diploma says Summa Cum Laude.) It took three calendar years because I did two six-month co-op stints at IBM during that time (this was back in the early 80s when IBM was still a cool place to be.) All that was not enough to get me in to MIT or Stanford as a grad student despite the fact that both had accepted me as an undergrad.

Then, when I was a masters student (at Virginia Tech) I served as the student representative on the admissions committee. I went on to a 13-year-long research career at JPL in what was essentially an academic position without teaching responsibilities. I made my living publishing papers, and by the numbers I was very good at it. At one point I was the most referenced CS researcher in all of NASA, and I held that title for many years after I stopped publishing. I've seen first-hand how the sausage is made. So I can tell you from first hand experience it is intensely political. That is one of the reasons that I quit. I realized that I was getting a lot more leverage out of playing politics than I was out of actually doing good technical work. I got very, very good at gaming the system, and I hated it, so I quit.

I got very, very good grades in all my math classes. In my entire career I have never once had to do an integral or solve a differential equation. By way of very stark contrast, I use my social skills every single day. Those were a lot harder to develop because there wasn't a class I could take. But they have proven vastly more useful in day to day life than math.

The biggest mistake I have ever made in my life is taking much too long to realize that the aphorism that "who you know is more important than what you know" is actually true.

[Maursault]

> All that was not enough to get me in to MIT or Stanford as a grad student despite the fact that both had accepted me as an undergrad.

Maybe it was just that year you applied there was stiff competition. That's called a counter-example and it negates your anecdotally supported argument that, paraphrasing, "good scholastic performance is not sufficient to make graduate acceptance," because maybe that year, every acceptant had better grades.

> The biggest mistake I have ever made in my life is taking much too long to realize that the aphorism that "who you know is more important than what you know" is actually true.

I think your biggest mistake may be believing in false things when I can tell you know better. Paranoia may be symptomatic. Your career sounds pretty amazing, so if that just isn't enough for you, that would make two symptoms of something. The most difficult thing one can do is humbling oneself for professional evaluation. If this suggestion is offensive, that's three symptoms.

To avoid mincing words, who you know does not matter. What you say also does not matter. All that matters is what you do, the choices you make, the actions you take, the work you do. You can not know someone by who they know. You only know someone if you know what they have done.

[lisper]

> Maybe it was just that year you applied there was stiff competition.

Yes, that's possible. It's also possible that all of the other experiences that I have had during my decades-long career, all of which have supported my conclusion, have all been aberrations or part of an elaborate conspiracy.

But I'll give you long odds against.

> All that matters is what you do, the choices you make, the actions you take, the work you do.

OK, I'm not going to try to dissuade you from this. If that approach works for you, then more power to you.

[Maursault]

> If that approach works for you

I'll admit I'm speaking more broadly than graduate acceptance when I say what matters is what you do, not who you know, because in the grand scheme of things, who you know is incidental, but what you do is foundational and defines who you are. So it is not a matter or whether it works for me, this is instead just how it is. If we knew you murdered someone, we'd know you were a murderer. If we knew you built rockets, we'd know you were a rocket scientist. It all we knew about you was that you were a friend of a professor that got you into your graduate program, we could not possible think much at all of you. I choose to believe you are a rocket scientist.

[lisper]

But none of these things are true. You are wrong about all of it.

> If we knew you murdered someone, we'd know you were a murderer.

That's a tautology. Imagine if I were accused of murder. Do you not think that you would be more inclined to give me the benefit of the doubt that I might be innocent if you knew me than if I were a stranger?

> It all we knew about you was that you were a friend of a professor that got you into your graduate program, we could not possible think much at all of you.

What if the professor told you that I was worth admitting? Would you not lend credence to their assessment?

> I choose to believe you are a rocket scientist.

Why? Because I said I worked at NASA? How do you know I'm telling you the truth? Even if I am telling you the truth, how do you know that I got my position at NASA on my merits? For the record, I did not. I got it because I knew someone. And the person I knew got their position because they knew someone.

This is not to say that I was unqualified, or that my boss was unqualified, or that we got our jobs purely because of nepotism (though that does happen as well). The situation was that JPL was actively recruiting people, and one of the department heads recruited my boss because they were grad students together at Yale, i.e. they knew each other, and my boss was my Ph.D. advisor, and so he recruited me because he knew me.

Personal connections give you access to opportunities that you would not otherwise have had (might not have even been aware existed) and the benefit of the doubt if you screw up. It's not like you can just go have a beer with a professor and get in to Stanford without doing anything else. But personal connections tilt the scales very heavily in your favor, and vice versa.

[Maursault]

If you just want to skate through life on the coattails of doers, that's up to you. But I think the time is long overdue that you hunkered down and grew up. Hope you can appreciate inappropriate sarcasm.

You've reminded me of an anecdote told to me by a relative from a previous generation. He said a friend bragged to him he could get 250 people on the street just by making 10 phone calls. The relative told him he could do the same with just one call. His friend asked him how. He told him, "I'll call you."

We're not actually in the same argument. Who you are has very little to do with who you know. Who you are is what you have done. Hopefully in the distant future, your obituary will give a summary of what you have done, then list your surviving immediate relatives. It may detail an occasion of you meeting someone notable, like a President. But an obituary will rarely if ever list the people you know because who you know is incidental and an accident of fate. And chances are pretty good if these influential people you know have advanced your career, it is probably because of what you have already done and not because you incidentally are acquainted with them.

[lisper]

And what have you done?