I was a B/B- student from a foreign top 100 university. I don't know how I got accepted to a top 5 engineering school in the US. I accepted and ended my PhD with a 3.3. Im not very bright or hardworking.

What did I see at the university? Very hard working people. Very interesting research. Very shallow knowledge outside a narrow domain expertise.

These are the folks McKinsey hires... but these shallow thinkers are sent on 6 week projects for companies in industry they hadn't even heard before.

Once, no one in the team knew what product CompanyX sold... CompanyX is a a top tier multinational consumer product brand that routinely sponsors sports events, including TV ads.

"US produce... mostly not very bright people?"

The top universities are not setup to mold intellectually rigorous and curious people. It's setup to make hard working, and increasingly sycophant men.

My lab mate is a former drug addict with two years of art school. Easily more intellectually curious than anyone I met at McKinsey.

99.9% of the world doesn't live in the US with a 4.0 GPA from a top ten university.

They're not very bright, most of them. But they're very hard workers and high achievers. They stay for the resume candy or the health care.

Not really when you normalize by hours you are expected to work. You're also surrounded by spineless sycophantic keeners without an original thought in their heads who would throw you off the building for a good review.

It reminds me of Lewis' "National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments"

The health care is amazing, though. $30/mo for a family $900 deductible? Something like that. If you have a sick family member it's a no brainer.