Barbara is certainly praise-worthy insofar as her demonstrated determination and skill at overcoming obstacles are certainly commendable. Does this mean she is a better student, or a more "responsible" person overall? I don't really think so. She is definitely better in certain respects, but similarly Alice is better in other respects. It does seem like Alice sort of got lucky in a sense, but should we really be compensating for apparent unfairness of the distribution of that kind of "luck" by modulating how responsible we take people to be? I still don't think these examples tell us all that much about the two individuals "as a person," just that they've had different opportunities to display the talents they have -- i.e. Barbara's constitution has given her more opportunities to display "overcomes obstacles," whereas Alice's might allow her to spend that overcoming-obstacles-energy elsewhere. It's entirely possible in this situation that Alice is also, say, a war veteran with an amputated leg who is nonetheless a spectacular gymnast when she isn't writing papers -- would that piece of information make a difference w/r/t your original question?
I'm not sure if that amended detail would change the original question. If we were evaluating Alice in totality - Alice-as-an-entire-person - then it makes a difference. But when we're just talking about Alice as a student... it might just be that Alice is simply lucky qua-student.
I guess I meant the "original question" that pertains to general qualities -- that is, whether to hire her or not (for some as yet unspecified job). It seems to me that other commenters have taken Barbara's ability to "hack" her own difficulties as a sign that she is generally able to overcome adversity (which I agree with), and it seems like at least some people take it to show that she is more able to overcome adversity than Alice, since she has to do it whenever she writes a paper. I'm just pointing out that, if we're talking about general personal qualities like "ability to overcome adversity," we don't know enough information to make a judgment here.
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