<p>Everything is in the title.</p>
<p>A mid 160’s can make it, given a strong work ethic.</p>
<p>(Post a silly thread, get a silly response.)</p>
<p>No. You’ll encounter students who have pursued specific interests over a period of years, and you’ll also encounter students who are very bright and hard-working. Over the past decade, researchers in the U.S. and Europe have concluded that high I.Q. alone does not explain high skill/ability in math and science:</p>
<p>“First and foremost, extensive experience of activities in a domain is necessary to reach very high levels of performance.” Source: K. A. Ericsson, The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (Cambridge U. Press, 2006), p.685.</p>
<p>“The strongest predictor of the attained expertise level, however, was the participants’ chess experience, which highlights the relevance of long-term engagement for the development of expertise.” R.H. Gradner, E. Stern, A.C. Neubauer, “Individual Differences in Chess Expertise: A Psychometric Investigation.” Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, 2006. </p>
<p>Sorry – I don’t usually quote from journal articles/reference books on cc, but I’ve just been reading about the subject. MIT students are very bright, and as a group, they’re motivated, but they don’t all have 170-plus I.Q. scores. Possession of a score at this level isn’t such a great predictor of achievement, in any case. But at MIT you will probably meet students who have been building robots for several years, or who have been solving problems on math teams for several years, or who have been making models, pursuing a sport, and so on.</p>
<p>Yeah but in my school, there are not very intelligent people and i’m the major but i’m afraid IF i work hard for three years and be accepted,I will be with people who had my notes without working…</p>
<p>Stodaire, if MIT accepts you, then you will be able to do the work.</p>
<p>^Wow! Really?!?! Mind explaining what happened to the 3+% of students that drop out (of which, some are due to academic incompetence)?</p>
<p>Lobzz, there is no need for your sarcastic comments (especially coming from someone not remotely qualified to speak on such a matter).</p>
<p>I feel terrible, eak325. I had absolutely no idea that I do not possess the requisite qualifications to discuss the percentage of students who drop out of MIT.</p>
<p>
The most common reason for people to drop out of college in general is financial trouble. I’m not sure if that’s true at MIT.</p>
<p>Of the people I know who had to take academic leave, some of whom ended up leaving MIT, there were a mix of reasons. Some had family emergencies like illness, while some were seriously ill themselves. Some were very homesick and decided they couldn’t live so far away from home. Some did have academic difficulties, but I wouldn’t say it was because of “incompetence” – poor study skills for some, maybe, or getting in over their heads a few semesters in a row.</p>
<p>Just because you can do the work doesn’t mean you will. Or that you want to, for that matter - it really just means that, if you want to put in the time, MIT thinks you’re capable of succeeding. The rest is up to you.</p>
<p>@Lobzz: You still have not provided any certain facts, you mention that 3% dropout, a percentage significantly lower than 99%+ of colleges in the U.S. You have no idea what the circumstances were behind each individual case, and therefore you do not have any right to say that it was due to academic incompetence.</p>
<p>Oh, also - MIT students tend to drop out to join / form start-ups more than the national rate. Perhaps this is where part of that 3% comes from.</p>
<p>I thought the 3% dropout rate refers to freshman year, not the percentage who don’t graduate. If so, it is unlikely to be accounted for by people founding startup companies. Transfers probably account for most, although I’m sure some people fail out. I knew a guy who failed out after one semester.</p>
<p>Percentage of Students Who Began Their
Studies in Fall 2008 and Returned in Fall 2009
97% - MIT
98% - Caltech</p>
<p>========</p>
<p>4 year graduation rate
83% - MIT
73% - Caltech</p>
<p>6 year graduation rate
91% - MIT
89% - Caltech</p>
<p>Actually, both of the people that I personally know (and several that I’ve heard stories about) who dropped out to join start-ups dropped out after their first year. They might be atypical, though, but I think a lot of people learn pretty quickly whether a formal college education is what they want.</p>
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</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of CAP kicking someone out who wasn’t put on warning first, and a first-term freshman can’t be on warning. Either things were different then, or it was his parents that pulled him out.</p>
<p>^He didn’t stick around to find out what was going to happen. He just took off basically.</p>
<p>^Lol. And I see I’ve incited a debate. My underlying point was that adcoms of America’s finest institutions sometimes make mistakes. Can they gauge a given class’s overall performance before they decide to admit it? For the most part, yes. But they’ll never be able to do so with 100% certainty. So, I’m just asking people to refrain from making claims such as the one I denounced. That’s all. :)</p>
<p>So? because it’s a debate but not for my question lol</p>
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</p>
<p>STOP THE PRESSES. STOP THE PRESSES. Adcoms are real people? I NEVER WOULD HAVE GUESSED!</p>
<p>MIT has gone on the record as saying that they will not admit anyone that they don’t believe will be able to handle the work. So again, if you’re admitted, MIT thinks you can do it. If you fail, who’s wrong - them for believing in you, or you for not stepping up to the challenge?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is not the same thing as being kicked out at all. If you’re going to tell sensationalist stories, please at least get your facts straight.</p>