Do Half of Your Peers Seem Smarter Than You? That’s Great!
How to become encouraged, not deflated, by not being the smartest in the room.
Posted May 18, 2026 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
By the time you reached grad school, you have probably had the opportunity to be the most curious toddler, the most advanced first grader, the most gifted middle-schooler, the most self-driven high-schooler, and the most upwardly mobile college student. In other words, there was probably a reason why, of all things, you chose a path as academically demanding and intellectually challenging as graduate school.
The good news is that now that you are in grad school, you are probably surrounded by more like-minded people than ever before. At least this could be good news if you look at it the right way. But if you look at it the wrong way, this could be terrible news—veritable torture, in fact. Why? Because you have probably spent years building your self-esteem through comparing yourself to others and coming up on top. This means that once you can’t easily substantiate a conclusion that you are smarter than your peers, your self-esteem begins silently convulsing in horror.
The Sweet Spot for Learning
Here is a fact that may not be surprising but is often overlooked: The best place for learning is not the one where you are the smartest. Neither is it the place where you are way behind the rest. The sweet spot for learning is where you are in the middle, with some people who might be able to learn from you and some people who can teach you something and occasionally light a fire under you to try harder. In a perfect universe, all students would spend their formative years learning in environments where they are “in the middle,” and once they rise to the top, they would get a chance to move up to the next level, where they would be in the middle again.
However, we don’t live in a perfect world, and the reality for those who are the most academically curious and talented is that it is simply impossible to supply them with optimal learning environments for the duration of their post-secondary and undergraduate education . In fact, for many grad students, grad school becomes their first real experience with an optimal learning environment. Except that they don’t experience it that way.
Many grad students have elected to follow an academic path because their previous academic experiences have felt good or “right” to them. In other words, they believe that their previous academic experiences were “right,” even if they weren’t. For someone who was always at the top of the class, this means that being at the top of the class is experienced as right, and being in the middle is experienced as very wrong—a sign of real trouble and a personal failure.
Thinking Traps and "Software Updates"
If this kind of self-esteem injury has happened to you once you entered grad school, allow me to introduce a few errors in thinking that often land people in the “I must have suddenly become stupid” trap. I will follow each “trap” with a “software update” that may help you escape it.
Trap #1: A good place for a person to be is at the top of their class. If you are not able to be top of your class, that means that you haven’t worked hard enough or, even worse, that you are constitutionally stupid.
Update: This may reflect what you were told by parents and/or teachers in years past. However, if the objective is to maximize learning (and it doesn’t always have to be), one should actually strive to do well enough to be able to be counted among those who are very difficult to compete with. Simply put, if you were to find yourself in a program where you are hands down the best, and your objective was to maximize learning, this would have meant that you haven’t aimed high enough when choosing where to apply for school.
Trap #2: Intelligence can be directly compared between people.
Update: The only system where intelligence can even begin to be directly compared is one that is based on simple and straightforward numeric evaluations of performance. Of course, schools and undergraduate programs are just such systems, so we have to forgive people if they continue to think in this way after it has been drilled into them for years. However, as I wrote in a previous blog post, grad school is real life, and in real life, it is actually nearly impossible to evaluate intelligence, much less overall success. This is because intelligence includes, yes, cleverness, but also good values, flexibility in thinking, creativity , effective work ethic, ability to understand the needs of others, good understanding of oneself, humility, good time management , ability to collaborate, and the list continues. Who is more intelligent, the person who did better on their general exams or the person who was able to find a better mentor and a more promising project? I don’t know. Do you?
Trap #3: It is embarrassing to be less “smart” than those around you, and they will judge you harshly for it.
Update: No one can tell another person when they should or should not be embarrassed. Embarrassment is a feeling, and it comes when it comes. You should know, though, that when judgment does arise (and in another post I made the point that, even if it does—so what?), it is most often attached to active choices and attitudes rather than to states of being. In other words, if someone accurately perceives that you do not know a certain topic, but they also accurately perceive that you are humble, curious, willing to learn, and brave in your approach to acquiring new knowledge, they will probably have nothing but respect for you. It is only if they perceive you to be defensive, unwilling to learn, stubborn, or combative that they might have a negative judgment.
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Anna Braverman, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist based in Princeton, NJ.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.