An academic Great Gatsby Curve – How much academic success is inherited?

It's the Mathew principle all the way down.

Actually it's a bit worse, in the sense that if you exhibit competence without the "appropriate pedigree" all you'll get is punishment.

Not my experience at all, as a first generation college student, now research faculty at a highly regarded University.

"Pedigree" assumes many forms.

The fact that you are a "first generation college student" is irrelevant and conclusively shows that you do not understand what's at stake.

I can assure you, you are wrong.

Yes, I misunderstood, and was just about to delete my comment, but you caught me.

I'll briefly expand. 1. Committed the sin of not reading the article, which as you may know is rampant in academia ;) 2. When I first came into grad school I got caught up into a conversation with several professors who were (lightheartedly) bragging about their academic pedigree, but in the familial sense, listing a prominent scientist or three with whom their was some relation, if not immediate, not entirely distant either..and it struck me then that professors are more likely to have relations that are professors, etc, leading to my misunderstanding. I, of course, know about the other type of academic lineage. My academic grandmother, my academic great grandfather, and so on, aka mentor's mentor's mentor. In this sense, I came into academia under a decent pedigree: Simona Ghetti (my advisor, prominent for her work on the development of episodic memory and meta cognition of memory), Gail Goodman (academic grandmother, widely credited with starting the modern scientific study of children's eyewitness memory and child victims as witnesses in legal contexts.)

> I came into academia under a decent pedigree

So you did get it.

Just another note.

If you had the wrong facial bone structure, or some kind of deformity (before starting, not after like Hawking before anyone makes the point), or you were ridiculously short, or your voice had the wrong pitch, or a myriad of other traits, then that starting academic "pedigree" wouldn't have happened.

If you, by any chance worked in a field where you can work on your own and actually achieve something alone (you don't), had you achieved some great result you would have at best been ignored, but usually ridiculed.

If you insisted, the punishment would just get more and more vicious, but usually ignoring is enough.

It's the Matthew principle:

> For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

This is ingrained in human psychology innately (like the just world fallacy and other delusions) and there is no way around it.

For a guy at least, you want to be handsome enough but not too handsome (don’t want to be a model, but the handsomest guy in the room), and tall enough that everybody has to look up to you, but not looming height. Then people just sort of assume you get whatever is going on if you nod and say “ok. Right. Good idea.” Which gives you enough time to look it up after the meeting is over.

The physical stats will give you a masters degree, looking it up after gets you the PhD.