<p>You should know that I could crush you with my brain right now. I should be applauded for my restraint. </p>
<p>Seriously though, what grinds on me is that top universities use their reputation to re-define what intelligence is because of their superior branding, branding which largely depends on their graduate schools. Personally, I think that is arrogant. I think it’s arrogant when people think that whatever BS activity they did to get into college makes them as smart as an IMO winner, that their intelligence is equivalent in magnitude but just in a different direction. Harvard, for example, had a resident undergrad sex expert who detailed her sexcapades on a daily basis on her blog, wrote newspaper articles about sex toys, hosted debates with the head of the virgin club (or “abstinence club”, whatever.) This type of thing is what passes for “intellectual vitality.” Did they have any new thoughts? Not really. Did anyone realize they were supposed to come up with new insights? I don’t think so. Same thing goes for its pro-choice vs. pro-life debates, republican vs. democrat debates, religious vs. atheist debates, etc. ad nauseum.</p>
<p>By the way, Caltech has boatloads of virgins. I bet none of them thought it was a ticket to college. Honestly, half of these causes and organizations and clubs people found are contrived and/or just pointless. And then in four years everyone goes to Wall Street.</p>
<p>When I first started reading about MIT’s changes in admissions, I predicted that in a few years we would have our own undergrad sex blogger. And a few years later, I saw a picture in the paper of the new MIT sex blogger with her protoge’, the Harvard sexpert I spoke of. I felt like Murray Gell-Mann when he predicted the existence of a new kind of quark. To some, this shows that MIT is becoming a more diverse campus; to me, it just means we are admitting people with no internal BS detector.</p>
<p>Both also encourage students not to load up on extremely difficult classes. Indeed, they both offer courses which are less hard, and you balance your course load accordingly. Most Stanford undergrads in STEM fields are forced to take on a ton of units as well, something that was the focus of the overhauling of the undergraduate curriculum recently, eliminating GERs in order to give STEM students more leg room. Previously, they were required to start the curriculum early, often couldn’t study abroad, etc. just to get through all the school- and major-specific requirements as well as the university-wide ones.</p>
<p>As you know, much of the stress of the students at MIT is self-imposed. That’s the case in STEM fields at Stanford as well. The general requirements are one thing, but while they can still take classes outside of STEM fields, most don’t - they self-impose a heavy work load most of the time by not taking non-STEM classes outside of those required by the university (but still balancing their schedules). Those who do take more non-STEM courses are, as I said, the so-called ‘techie-fuzzy’ students.</p>
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<p>So your argument is based on anecdotes from the tiny view of your high school, and as further proof, you provide a quotation of one person’s viewpoint. I see.</p>
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<p>You decry the use of reputation and branding, but still use this as an argument. Sorry, but I don’t care what their reputations are. I care what the reality is. Stanford has an annoying reputation for strength only in STEM fields, which leads people to think that it’s weak in HASS fields; but I know what the reality is.</p>
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<p>What *proof *do you have of this? If you don’t have substantial proof, then you shouldn’t state it as fact. (At the very least, where proof is lacking, one should provide a disclaimer that it’s based merely on personal experience.)</p>
<p>As far as I’ve seen, the only ones who believe this are those who went to Caltech or MIT for undergrad. Indeed, those arrogant people I mentioned encountering IRL are grad students who were previously, surprise, MIT undergrads. Employers, those in academia, etc. overwhelmingly see a Stanford engineer or scientist as easily on par with those at the *ITs; this is of course *my experience<a href=“see%20the%20qualification?”>/I</a>. Regardless, this is a moot point, since there’s no data on it AFAIK and, more importantly, since it would ultimately end in a logical fallacy - the ad populum argument (just because lots of people think that the students of one are better than the students of another does not make it true).</p>
<p>Anyway, you’ve definitely taken it to a new level by going so far as to say *outright *that MIT/Caltech students are better than even the STEM students at Stanford. Egocentrism at its best ;)</p>
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<p>Well at least your brain is merciful. :p</p>
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<p>You don’t think it’s arrogant to denigrate the accomplishments/intelligence of those who aren’t the typical IMO winner or STEM student? The irony is almost too much.</p>
<p>I’m beginning to think that your view of intelligence is limited simply because it is confined mostly to the paradigm that your undergrad experience has ingrained in you - that only those who show proficiency and accomplishment in STEM fields are the intelligent ones. Frankly, I don’t understand how you couldn’t see the arrogance in that, and I’m also beginning to think you would have benefited hugely by going to a university with more diverse interests. I want to say that such a view is confined largely to the *ITs, but I only have experience with Caltech and MIT, and unfortunately, that general attitude isn’t uncommon among STEM students at Stanford. </p>
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<p>So you’re judging her as being unintelligent or unintellectual because of this activity? Perhaps she was actually one of the most brilliant people at Harvard, and just believed that candor and freedom on topics of sexuality is something the world needs more of (not to mention, many of the most brilliant people throughout history were extremely eccentric).</p>
<p>We can all point to specific examples of student activity at different schools that we consider “unsavory,” but that doesn’t give us license to judge the student body, or a portion of it, or even a specific student. I’m sure you’re well aware of the debauchery at MIT that would suggest to you, among other things, that students are not ‘intellectual,’ but I’m betting you would be more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I would hope that you would be more even-handed with other schools as well. </p>
<p>By continually writing other people’s intelligence off without consideration, you’re simply proving my case. Notice that I have never attempted to exalt Stanford undergrads, or a subpopulation of them, as ‘better’ than those at MIT or Caltech. It’s only the latter’s undergrads/alumni who kick and scream at the mere suggestion that the students of another university are on par with them.</p>
<p>Pray tell, which college - if any exists - do you believe has STEM students on par with those of MIT? We know you don’t think Stanford STEM students are. Caltech then? How about Harvey Mudd? Princeton? Berkeley (esp. engineering)? Harvard? Oxbridge? IIT?</p>
<p>I think the problem is a whole part of what I’m saying is getting missed. I feel Caltech gives the absolute best students there a chance to be challenged unlike what you find at most any other school. I feel that, really, the majority of students here would be better off at a different school since they’d probably come out better educated and more well adjusted. However, for the absolute top students, Caltech, from my experience and what I’ve heard from friends that attended other “elite” schools, is the best. Most all of us are really happy we didn’t go here for undergrad as we would have been overwhelmed and wound up with “Caltech Syndrome” where we wouldn’t want to touch science again.</p>
<p>Classes are taught to the people that break the curve, not the rest of the class.</p>
<p>And, for the record, I’ve TAed an junior/senior level undergrad class at Caltech that covers roughly the same material I had in freshman year. One of the things I’m constantly amazed by is how a Caltech education makes the students absolute beasts at doing derivations, complicated math problems, and those sorts of things. Yet when I ask conceptual questions they seem to struggle heavily. Caltech just prepares its students in a very different way than most schools do.</p>
<p>To RacinReaver,
sorry to post here, since it is not the place. Just want to get your attention. If time permits, could you please answer the following (please send an email - thanks a bunch!)</p>
<p>"Hi RacinReaver,
Thank you very much for your reply. I know someone in Caltech who might (not sure yet) attend CMU for graduate school. If I am not mistaken, you finished undergrads at CMU, and came to Caltech for grad studies (correct me if I am wrong). I was wondering whether you could give us any general information about CMU - I know it is a wide question. For example, anything you can say about academic and social life at CMU will be helpful. How is the strength of graduate engineering programs at CMU? How is the housing cost in Pittsburgh? How are the transportation facilities from Pittsburgh residential areas to CMU campus.
Any information that you can give will be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much for your time in advance!</p>
<p>There’s a bunch of threads on this stuff over on the CMU board, but I’ll do a quick rundown for a few of your questions.</p>
<p>Academics: Great, professors (at least in my department) were really vested in their students and very few elusive.
Social life: I know my department’s grad students had a social hour every month that was attended by just about every student in the program. About halfway through the hour professors would show up, and normal, casual discussions could be had with them. Pittsburgh’s also an incredibly inexpensive city, so there’s plenty of places to go and things to do on the fairly moderate grad student stipend.
Housing: It’s cheap. I pay $1200 a month here with my girlfriend for a one bedroom. In Pittsburgh I had a one bedroom for $450 a month.
Public Transit: It’s better in Pittsburgh than LA. I think there’s about eight different bus lines that run through the main thoroughfare in front of campus, and you can take them one way to get to all of the different residential areas you can choose from to live in (Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, Oakland, and a few others further out). The other direction takes you towards downtown Pittsburgh. Transit is free with your CMU ID. There’s also a city bus (28X, I think) that takes you from the airport to CMU’s front step in about 45 minutes.</p>
<p>I would have to ask us to define “difficulty” - Stanford has an amazing collection of graduate programs, and there is a possibility that they don’t turn their classes for graduate students into pressure-cookers. I do not think their mathematics program is lacking at all, for instance.</p>
<p>When talking of hard classes, what about the University of Chicago and its mathematics program? </p>
<p>I think the fundamental requirements at Caltech seem more difficult than most similarly regarded schools, but this isn’t to say it actually offers more.</p>
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<p>Indeed, these things have to be measured on a case-by-case basis. For one thing, being a good engineer does not seem to correlate even close to exactly with test scores.</p>
<p>Now, all said though, I think the Caltech process as I understand it makes a lot of sense to me, and I feel most comfortable with it personally. However, I believe strongly when a process gets exceptionally competitive, people have to start making decisions based on factors that they cannot really predict about a student, but attempt to anyway, and so invariably I find the better developed (as opposed to the more derogatory term “padded”) resume between two equally ambitious and intelligent students will probably be chosen.</p>
<p>So regarding this: in general, I have found collegealum suggests he is very interested in literature and other non-STEM areas, and it was even a complaint against sometimes being continually being surrounded by mathematics/science/engineering/etc students. </p>
<p>I also believe anecdotes do not prove everything, but they can definitely give interesting examples - even a few instances of something happening convey something.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that when nobody is really able to tell why someone’s accomplishments stand out far beyond the rest, it’s fine being happy for them, but any subsequent achievements, I will not necessarily attribute to their skills.</p>
<p>I do not believe intelligence to be rigidly defined in terms of any scoring criterion, but I also will probably consider it BS to attribute intelligence to someone without there being something clear (even if not obvious) to point to. </p>
<p>I am in general not happy to attribute almost any level of intelligence to someone at a good school (including any I attend/have attended) at all on that basis. It must always be on a case by case basis.</p>
<p>No doubt it is plain awesome! Keeping an admission process that is race and legacy blind needs guts. Denying legacy admission calls for ability to raise money through other means than fleecing alumna’s to lure them into legacy admission. And if they start legacy and race then to maintain the same quality they will have to increase the size of the school. I am in all praise for their admission process that picks talented, nerds devoid of their race and belief.</p>
<p>Keeping the admission talent based keeps it simple. It is tough to find a formula that can result in desired diversity without compromising the talent poll too much. Given that the size itself is too small (~230), I would say that it becomes next to impossible to do that. Stanford, Harvard are big school with lot of other departments besides just science and math that can absorb large number of kids. I also like the idea of not having super start sports and athletics programs so that anyone in the school can enjoy a sport and that is how it should be.</p>
<p>It’s amazing how much people care about racial diversity. I was born in India and moved here when I was 6, but I associate with being a human being more than I do with the american or Indian aspects of my personal “culture”. </p>
<p>I hope I don’t get attacked for expressing this opinion, but I don’t really understand why someone’s skin color matters.</p>
<p>Diversity is also seen as a cultural thing as well. The idea is having a group of people working together from a bunch of different cultures (be it different parts of the country or world) will allow for a different kind of learning than having a bunch of people with identical histories.</p>
<p>If true, that suggests that Caltech may not be good at turning out students who will advance the state of knowledge by coming up with new ideas.</p>
<p>It all depends on which part of knowledge you’re talking about. Lots of theory winds up having conceptual issues down at a fundamental level, so I feel lacking a strong physical intuition doesn’t matter quite as much there. For an experimentalist, yes, it can be more of a problem.</p>
<p>That said, it’s not so much these students are incapable of developing that sort of understanding. Really, I think it’s something that’ll come with more experience in “real world” types of problems. I just think it’s a shame Caltech doesn’t do more to teach it to undergrads and help them become less one dimensional at the start.</p>
<p>I actually felt most of my classmates had a very strong conceptual understanding of scientific principles. Of course, as just one person my personal experiences aren’t necessarily representative of the entire school.</p>
<p>There also tends to be a phenomenon of T.A.'s interacting primarily with weaker/less-interested students as the stronger/more-enthusiastic ones prefer to work on problems on their own or discuss them solely with other students in lieu of attending recitation sessions or office hours. Not sure how or if this bias applied to RacinReaver’s experience.</p>
<p>I’d agree that most of the really strong students tend to skip recitations (and lectures). There’s also a good chunk of really hard working students that are just trying to keep their head above the water. Then there’s the couple that come to class late, don’t do their homeworks on time, and get letters from the deans saying they can hand in their homeworks as late as they want that put a sour taste in a lot of TAs mouths.</p>
<p>I think most of you guys who are in favor of a meritocratic admission process needs to read Jon Rawls A Theory of Justice and gain a better understanding of how an individual’s effort or merits are greatly related to factors they cannot control nor can they take credit for them in a just society. In addition, if the base of one’s argument against affirmative action is that it is based on arbitrary immutable factors that allow minority students to gain admissions into universities over non-minority students, who grades and sats are better, one must be opposed to the favorable admissions given to lower-stat legacy applicants, who gain admissions based on arbitrary factors, in which that applicant did not have control over.</p>
<p>I understand the benefits of a “pure meritocracy” as Caltech has, but I prefer the admission policies of MIT. Although MIT does admit women and URMs at a higher rate than white males, those admitted students are just as qualified as any accepted applicant, and this causes MIT to have a more balanced, diverse community where students can share and learn from their vastly different backgrounds.</p>
<p>It truly comes down to your philosophical idea of what is important in college admissions. I can certainly understand that many of you favor a system where the highest achievers are rewarded. Personally, I prefer MIT’s attempt to even an unequal playing field in terms of race, gender, or any other “non-merit-based” factors.</p>