Author Malcolm Gladwell is advising prospective STEM students to think twice before applying to Harvard University, arguing that elite institutions aren’t necessarily the best path to success in those fields. His warning, initially shared in a 2019 Google Zeitgeist talk and recently revisited on the Hasan Minhaj Doesn’t Know podcast, centers on the idea that students are better served by attending institutions where they can rank among the top performers in their class.
“If you’re interested in succeeding in an educational institution, you never want to be in the bottom half of your class. It’s too hard,” Gladwell told podcast host Hasan Minhaj. “So you should go to Harvard if you think you can be in the top quarter of your class at Harvard. That’s fine. But don’t go there if you’re going to be at the bottom of class. Doing STEM? You’re just gonna drop out.”
Gladwell’s argument isn’t a blanket condemnation of Harvard or other top-tier universities. Instead, he advocates for a “huge fish, little pond” approach to college selection, where students choose schools where their abilities place them at the top of the academic hierarchy. This concept, detailed in his 2013 book David and Goliath, is rooted in relative deprivation theory – the idea that individuals evaluate themselves based on comparisons to their peers, rather than absolute standards.
He pointed to data from Harvard and Hartwick College, a smaller liberal arts school in upstate Modern York, showing similar distributions in STEM degree attainment based on SAT scores. However, students with lower SAT scores were more likely to drop out of STEM programs at both institutions. Gladwell concluded that success in these fields isn’t solely determined by inherent aptitude, but by a student’s relative standing within their cohort. “Persistence in science and math is not simply a function of your cognitive ability,” he said in 2019. “It’s a function of your relative standing in your class. It’s a function of your class rank.”
The advice comes as Gen Z increasingly explores alternative career paths, including skilled trades, amid concerns about potential job displacement due to artificial intelligence. However, STEM degrees continue to be highly valued in the labor market. A July 2025 analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that degrees in animal and plant sciences, earth sciences, civil engineering, and aerospace engineering had some of the lowest unemployment rates among recent college graduates. Interestingly, the analysis also indicated relatively high unemployment rates for graduates with degrees in information systems and management, and computer science.
Gladwell also suggests that employers should shift their hiring practices, focusing less on the prestige of a candidate’s alma mater and more on their academic performance relative to their peers. “When you hear some institution, some fabulous Wall Street investment bank, some universities, say, ‘we only hire from the top schools,’ you should say: ‘You moron, hire from the top students from any school under the sun.’” He argues that a degree itself—regardless of the institution—is crucial for building confidence, motivation, and self-efficacy in young graduates.
Despite Gladwell’s critique, Ivy League institutions, including Harvard, consistently rank highly in U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings, based on factors like graduation rates and peer assessment.
