# Is being 1rst so much better than being last? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 18, 2014, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047 "2014-06-18T11:57:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/21 "2014-06-18T15:20:42Z")
People who are feeling insecure or disappointed over being at the bottom should remember these two things: Ranks don’t matter as much as where a data point falls on the distribution. Is it within two standard deviations of the mean? If it is, no worries. But concern may be warranted if you’re a true outlier. A simple rank doesn’t tell you this, though. Also, while a single instance of being at the “bottom” shouldn’t throw up any red flags, a consistent pattern of being at the bottom does indicate something. That something could mean incompetence, or it could suggest a person who eschews competition and operates on their own rules. The former is bad, but the latter is a positive trait. That said, I think it’s crazy to say being at the bottom never matters, or that it shouldn’t matter. You don’t have to be a competitive person to not want to come in last. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/22080_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/22 "2014-06-18T15:32:34Z")
Let’s fill a room with people who graduated first in their class. In fact, let’s take them all from the same school and the same discipline, but they were first in different years. By whatever means of ranking you develop, one of those people will be last. So, what does that mean? On the other hand, eons ago when I got my first engineering job, one of my coworkers told me he struggled to graduate with his mechanical engineering degree. I don’t recall which university, but it was fairly well-known. No matter - he was one of the best engineers I’d ever worked with. He was a natural problem-solver and meticulous in his work. His rough sketches were better than some finished drawings by other engineers. That certainly showed me that class rank doesn’t necessarily mean anything. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/23 "2014-06-18T15:37:34Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Depends on where he went. > The DeVry Institute Of Cutting Things Open-probably not. I was thinking about getting an e-certificate from University of Phoenix in Open Heart Surgery and Refrigeration Repair. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/24 "2014-06-18T18:59:58Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > “1rst”?? > > I do not believe I have ever seen that particular variation before. Well I deliberately wrote it as “1rst” instead of “first” because I thought having numbers would have a better visual impact. It’s probably more commonly written as “1st”. though. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/25 "2014-06-18T19:06:59Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > Wellllllll…I would posit that for certain fields (Medical, Law, Engineering?) the rigors of completing the program ensures that even the person who is last in ranking is at least very competent. One would have to be somewhat superior to be accepted into the programs in the first place. From a personal side, humans are by nature competitive and like to rank themselves against their peers. But I would be skeptical of assuming Ms. #1 is statistically significantly “better” than Mr. #27. > > It’s like the Olympics, if you made the team, you are already better than 99.99% of everyone else. > > That said, it is probably more important which school one attends than where one ends in their class ranking (Last at Harvard is assumed to be better than First at Podunk U). Something similar - years ago I was asked to judge high school debate. Now some of the debates it was quite obvious that team #1 beat out team #2 by say a 90%-50% score. But others who were in the upper levels, oh man. They were so darn close! If I was giving them a grade it would be a difference between a 98% and a 99%. Which was frustrating because one of those teams had to win. I dropped out of judging after this because I didnt feel competent judging such high caliber debaters at those close levels. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/26 "2014-06-18T19:20:44Z")
The issue of getting a high rank compared to others versus meeting some standard is a big one. In the world of academic evaluation there’s a difference between the [Norm-referenced test](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm-referenced_test) where you are being compared with others (e.g. average, far below average, just above average, etc.), and a [Criterion-based one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion-referenced_assessment) where you are being evaluated as to what level of achievement or knowledge you have demonstrated. Many of these are so-called “mastery” assessments where one either passes or fails. Either you have mastered enough material and are qualified to be a doctor, or else you have not mastered enough of the material and have to go back and study more. It doesn’t matter in that case how much better you are than the cutoff level - what matters is that you _met the requirement_. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/27 "2014-06-18T19:30:45Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > Wellllllll…I would posit that for certain fields (Medical, Law, Engineering?) the rigors of completing the program ensures that even the person who is last in ranking is at least very competent… > > It’s like the Olympics, if you made the team, you are already better than 99.99% of everyone else… > [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > …But if you need a heart-lung transplant, will you really feel OK if your surgeon graduated last in his class? I think that sometimes when people raise the idea of “last in their class” or similar thoughts, there is an implication that they _really_ mean “incompetent”. But as previously mentioned and as virtually everyone reading this knows through experience, there are basic requirements that _everyone_ has to meet to get through. If you try to seat-surf your way through college, not studying and not turning in any papers, _you don’t graduate last in your class_. You _fail_. The guy who graduated dead last in his class with an almost-failing 2.001 GPA? He _demonstrated that he met the requirements for a degree_. If your standard of competency is a 3.8 GPA or above, fine, make 3.8 the requirement for graduation. Otherwise, give people a break and acknowledge their accomplishments. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/28 "2014-06-18T19:31:58Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > The issue of getting a high rank compared to others versus meeting some standard is a big one. In the world of academic evaluation there’s a difference between the [Norm-referenced test](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm-referenced_test) where you are being compared with others (e.g. average, far below average, just above average, etc.), and a [Criterion-based one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion-referenced_assessment) where you are being evaluated as to what level of achievement or knowledge you have demonstrated. Many of these are so-called “mastery” assessments where one either passes or fails. Either you have mastered enough material and are qualified to be a doctor, or else you have not mastered enough of the material and have to go back and study more. It doesn’t matter in that case how much better you are than the cutoff level - what matters is that you _met the requirement_. That’s not so far off from what one doctor at a medical school told me when I asked him the above question. He told me that they graduate the doctors and all of them have to pass a certain criteria. So every person who graduates from the University of Kansas medical school is a qualified physician. But, he said that after them passing they go do their residencies and their is when they truly get tested and where the good and bad doctors are weeded out. Or many of them find they are not suited for certain types of medicine like say ER and might go to a less stressful area like say research. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/29 "2014-06-18T19:34:30Z")
I was one of three judging a chili cook off years ago. Thirty chilies entered. On our first tasting, we easily agreed on 20 that didn’t measure up. With ten left we all agreed on the top five, then the top three. But damn, it was tough ordering first, second, and third. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/30 "2014-06-18T20:05:13Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > … > But, he said that after them passing they go do their residencies and their is when they truly get tested and where the good and bad doctors are weeded out… Can one actually “fail” a medical residency in the same way as one might fail a course? I thought residencies were basically internships - do residents have regular exams and papers with a required minimum GPA to stay in the program? Do doctors get graded on the procedures they do and the decisions they make on the floor? E.g. “Resident Jones, you diagnosed Ms. Spickle with a chromodermal narcoticism. I agree that she does have a chromodermal narcoticism, but you should have run a transcranial stroop test to confirm the absence of a hemisphericalism before sending the patient to a hydrodynamic specialist. C-.” ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/31 "2014-06-18T20:09:49Z")
I don’t follow the OP. Yes, some people are better than others at certain things. Would you rather read Shakespeare or a fortune cookie? ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/32 "2014-06-18T20:47:00Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > That said, it is probably more important which school one attends than where one ends in their class ranking (Last at Harvard is assumed to be better than First at Podunk U). There is an element of regionality at play though. Harvard is Harvard, and is one of a handful of schools that carries that sort of cache…but in Podunk, Podunk U may be well respected, and first in your class there might be meaningful - and seen as far superior to South Podunk U. Show up in Boston with your law degree from Podunk U and it may not mean much, though. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/33 "2014-06-18T20:59:10Z")
Harvard pretty much gives out A’s for showing up to class; if you really screw up you get an A-. At least that’s what I’ve been told. Of course the hard part is getting in. Nuther fun fact; Wharton doesn’t release grade point average until 6 months after graduation - they want the students to not be too competitive with each other. (Or so I have been told) ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/34 "2014-06-18T21:00:07Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > I don’t follow the OP. Yes, some people are better than others at certain things. Would you rather read Shakespeare or a fortune cookie? If it means it comes in a much bigger cookie, Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/35 "2014-06-18T21:03:04Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > I don’t follow the OP. Yes, some people are better than others at certain things. Would you rather read Shakespeare or a fortune cookie? I think it is more a question of the utility of finishing first over the next best, or next few best alternatives. ---
**Author:** ![Frazzled](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frazzled/32/3368_2.png) [@Frazzled](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frazzled)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/36 "2014-06-18T21:13:50Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > If a mechanic who graduated last in his class is working on your car, you might not get too stressed out; it’s annoying if your engine dies during your next commute, but it’s not the end of the world. > > But if you need a heart-lung transplant, will you really feel OK if your surgeon graduated last in his class? To be honest, I’d have no problem with it. The difference between first and last in an undergraduate class will be huge. The difference between first and last in a Masters program will still be large, though significantly less so. By the time you get to the difference between first and last in a medical specialty such as Heart Lung Transplant surgeon, the difference will be insignificant. Anybody who has earned the right to that title is fully qualified. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/37 "2014-06-18T21:16:48Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > Harvard pretty much gives out A’s for showing up to class; if you really screw up you get an A-. At least that’s what I’ve been told. Of course the hard part is getting in. > > Nuther fun fact; Wharton doesn’t release grade point average until 6 months after graduation - they want the students to not be too competitive with each other. (Or so I have been told) Western Governors’ University does, or did the last time I checked, track students solely on whether they pass or fail each requirement. E.g. either you demonstrated sufficient essay writing skills to complete the Freshman Composition requirement or you did not demonstrate sufficient writing skills to pass it, try again later. They don’t bother _quantitatively_ evaluating how much better you were than the benchmark. If your writing skills are really that m4d 1337, you can go further in the program without having to try as hard, or you could go for further qualifications that are more at your level of competency. If your writing skills suck balls, you’d better be staying up late every night improving them. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/38 "2014-06-18T21:27:51Z")
> [@Frazzled](#): > > To be honest, I’d have no problem with it. > > The difference between first and last in an undergraduate class will be huge. The difference between first and last in a Masters program will still be large, though significantly less so. By the time you get to the difference between first and last in a medical specialty such as Heart Lung Transplant surgeon, the difference will be insignificant. Anybody who has earned the right to that title is fully qualified. Not to be contradictory but there is a **HUGE** difference in competency levels for many advanced medical procedures - I don’t even think it is a point worth debating. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/39 "2014-06-18T21:29:55Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Western Governors’ University does, or did the last time I checked, track students solely on whether they pass or fail each requirement. E.g. either you demonstrated sufficient essay writing skills to complete the Freshman Brown used to be all pass/fail too from what I’ve heard. I wonder if that’s still the casa. ---
**Author:** ![Shmendrik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2014, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047/40 "2014-06-18T21:45:15Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Can one actually “fail” a medical residency in the same way as one might fail a course? I thought residencies were basically internships - do residents have regular exams and papers with a required minimum GPA to stay in the program? Do doctors get graded on the procedures they do and the decisions they make on the floor? E.g. “Resident Jones, you diagnosed Ms. Spickle with a chromodermal narcoticism. I agree that she does have a chromodermal narcoticism, but you should have run a transcranial stroop test to confirm the absence of a hemisphericalism before sending the patient to a hydrodynamic specialist. C-.” Yes, absolutely. There are specialty specific exams every year or 6 months, as well as the requirement to pass the remaining parts of the US medical licensing exams not completed in medical school. Equally important are evaluations by supervising doctors where you are graded on a large range of criteria. You generally aren’t graded on individual clinical decisions as in your example, but they do contribute to the big picture. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-being-1rst-so-much-better-than-being-last/691047.md?page=3)