David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

decrease in the university’s average
SAT score.^4 The smarter your peers, the
dumber you feel; the dumber you feel,
the more likely you are to drop out of
science. Since there is roughly a 150-
point gap between the average SAT
scores of students attending the
University of Maryland and Brown, the
“penalty” Sacks paid by choosing a great
school over a good school is that she
reduced her chances of graduating with a
science degree by 30 percent. Thirty
percent! At a time when students with
liberal arts degrees struggle to find jobs,
students with STEM degrees are almost
assured of good careers. Jobs for people
with science and engineering degrees