Identify bad students

Daniel and Bruce sent me a lot of their opinions about how to identify a bad student. They both tell me that there is no magic I can do to turn a bad student to a good one. Daniel said "forcefully organizing many meetings with the student often won’t help". I am happy to know that I do not need to be tough or strict to the students, because that would not help.

Here is Daniel’s metrics:
• cannot keep track of tasks assigned to him and be responsible for such tasks;
• lies to you about what has been done and what hasn’t been done;
• repeatedly ignores some of your phone calls or emails.

Here is Bruce’s metrics:

1. weak language skills (written and oral communication are weak with respect to technical topics -- even for many native speakers of English)
2. not open to research culture (student does not make an effort to talk to others about research and does not come to colloquia or group meetings)
3. unclear about objectives (supervisor does not portray the point of the research and how it fits in the big picture)
4. laziness, inability or unwillingness to focus (student does not come to work regularly, or dissipates research energy when there)
5. insufficient background (student does not have clear grasp of the essential elements of computer science and the required background for the research topic)
6. no research spark (student does not possess an innate ability to innovate, especially necessary for PhD.)