Kerry releases Yale transcripts

. . . to show he's on an intellectual par with GWB. What a freakin attention whore. Can't the guy just fade into obscurity already?

Sen. John F. Kerry's academic performance at Yale University was virtually identical to President George W. Bush's academic record, despite repeated portrayals of Kerry as being more intellectual than his Republican rival, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday.
The Globe, which obtained Kerry's transcript from his U.S. Navy officer training school application after Kerry gave permission for its release, said Kerry had a cumulative grade average of 76 for his four years at Yale and received four Ds his freshman year.

In 1999, The New Yorker published a transcript showing Bush had a cumulative grade average of 77 his first three years at Yale, and a similar average under a non-numerical rating system his senior year.

 

I always wondered how they managed to portray Kerry as an intellectual...



But everything is relative & when you are running against W Bush it ain't that hard to do.

 

Wow. I think all he had to do to show this was to speak in complete sentences and use/annunciate words properly.

But grades are rarely a reflection of ones' intellectual capacity. Einstein had horrible grades in college.

 

Yeah, good call CC. I missphrased what I was trying to say. James Carville is one of my heroes and quite intellectual and he barely eeked through LSU.

 

I don't get it.
If you are intelligent you should be able to make good grades.

There's always the people that don't care, but if an intelligent person studies I don't see why they wouldn't make good grades.

 

Some people don't test well. Some very intelligent people don't focus because the pace/subjects of school are boring and non-challenging to them. Some are incredibly unmotivated. For example, a very good friend of mine just graduated college after being in for 12 years. And he's also probably the 2nd smartest person that I know. He was just so completely uninterested in the subject matter of school, and definitely the least motivated person I know. But he is unbelievably well-read, very articulate, and knows anything and everything about computers. Grades are more of a reflection of how hard you work, or how many people you know that took the same classes as you in previous semesters.

 

I'd hardly agree with that. I haven't worked hard and don't know anybody thats taken my classes previously.

The problem is that there is no real definition of intelligence or true way to measure it. (IQ tests attempt to but are flawed).

I think it's a matter of different types of intelligence. I may only know 50% of the information before going into a test, yet I'll get 90% of the answers right. I use logic to figure out what the answer probably is. Some people can't do this because their intelligence isn't based around logic like mine is.

Then there's also people who are extremely intelligent about one subject, but not good at all in others. These students are more like prodigies than truley intelligent people.

And then there's the unmotivated. That's enough to bring anybody's grades down, although I think a truley intelligent person's grades would still be decent. But I don't think Kerry can fall under this category. He is a US senator, went to the Vietnam War & almost won the US Presidency - he isn't exactly unmotivated.

 

I would lump the intelligent bad testers in with the unfocused and unmotivated. The truly intelligent do not have to put a lot of time in their studies, as understanding complex ideas comes very easily to them. The problem is when laziness and lack of motivation takes over and they start skipping class. You cannot learn a subject that has not even been introduced to you.

It's one thing to be "uninterested in the subject matter of school", but when you are a computer genius it is easy to find a major that appeals to your desired profession. For example, I know many ISDS majors that claim to be interested and well-versed in computers, but are too lazy to take a real major that would actually prepare them for working in the real world such as computer science or engineering.

The same applies for people that I talk to who can't decide what they want to do when they "grow up" (lol). I ask them what they enjoy in life the most, then when I suggest a college major and profession, they don't want to do the work which it entails.

Are you saying that hard work is useless? Employers look at grades and say "Man, that guy is a hard worker. I'd like to hire him."

 

Einstein had a learning disability and frequently forgot how to tie his shoes and find his way home. The term "idiot savant" comes to mind.

 

LSU isn't exactly the most difficult of institutions. Also, if you have a good work ethic, you don't consider yourself working hard. But compared to others in your classes, you might be committing a hell of a lot more effort. It also depends on what kind of classes/tests you take. For example, Rob, the fella I spoke about, was a Mechanical Engineering major. I don't know if you've ever seen an engineering test, but it ain't exactly multiple choice. They give you a question, and you have a page or two to fill with methods, calculations, and eqautions. There's no way to B.S. your way through them, or to use process of elimination. I've taken lower-level Psych classes and those tests are a joke.

The first few years I was in school, I made average grades. I worked too much and didn't have the proper motivation. One summer, I found my motivation, worked less, and didn't make anything less than a 3.7 from then on. That was taking junior and senior level classes, which are obviously more difficult than underclassmen courses. So I had the intellectual capacity to make stellar grades the entire time...I just didnt apply it until the last 2 or so years.

See above thoughts on test differences.

Well right here, you are attempting to somewhat define intelligence. You stated yourself that intelligence is difficult to gage. Thus, it must be equally hard to define. I've met incredibly smart professors who couldn't operate everyday machinery (i.e. washing machines), or who couldn't communicate worth a crap. But given their research/dissertations/scientific contributions, you'll not find anyone accusing them of not being intelligent.