I think it’s typical. You can’t plan your way into MIT/Caltech. You really have to have the goods and it’s unlikely a tutor, AP, etc is going to get you there. Plus, the SAT & ACT measurements are too low for these schools which usually have near perfect scores as an average.
Most of the MIT kids/alumni I know don’t want to go into IB, work for McKinsey or even a major tech company. They want to change the world through tech. And the idea that someone can’t have soft skills and hard skills has always been false. Like the idea of the forgetful genius with his/her head in the clouds.
I thought the quality of the business and social science classes at MIT was very good (didn’t have a chance to take any humanities courses). Many students choose not to major in those fields, not because of the quality of instruction but because a) they lose some of the value of the MIT brand by doing so, or b) if they could get into MIT and want to study history, they could also proabably get into an Ivy to study history.
MIT is also more quantitatively focused than HYPS, in every possible way. It’s not a coincidence that MIT was the first highly selective college to reinstitute standardized testing requirements. If you want to major in Women’s and Gender Studies or English Lit, a school that’s more “holistic” in admissions probably feels like a better fit than one that weights traditional, objective metrics more heavily. Conversely, if you’re already inclined toward a numbers-driven major you probably also tend to gravitate toward a more numbers-driven school (note: I used words such as “more” and “weight” and “heavily” for a reason. No need to point out that all of these colleges claim their admissions is holistic or look at SAT scores).
MIT admissions is still very holistic. SAT/ACT scores really function only as a threshold below which the applicant is basically and auto-reject. But so many MIT applicants have top end SAT/ACT scores that they have to review applications subjectively and holistically.
Of course, holistic review does not necessarily mean that any particular criterion is used or not used. For example, holistic review at Harvard includes consideration of legacy status, while that is not considered at MIT. A US college focused on looking for the very top end of academic strength in its applicants may have to use holistic review to find what it is looking for, since typical US high school stats (GPA, rank, SAT/ACT scores) are insufficient for that purpose at the top end (Caltech admissions is probably pretty close to this).
At our school, the #1 reason kids choose to apply where they do is location and most often they want to be within 3-4 hours of home, max. Some don’t care, but most do (or their parents do).
I suspect that’s different at boarding schools and other elite privates, but I bet it’s similar at most average public high schools.
My S is single, and he has never wanted kids. He recently had a conversation with his boss, who has two kids. S was blown away by the amount of money his boss pays for childcare. He had never thought about it before. I definitely think childcare costs should be included in any financial literacy course.
And I know for a fact that many students overestimate their earnings, because I have worked with students doing federal loan exit counseling. When they would tell me their expected salary, I had to keep from saying, “Good luck with that.”
