<p>My child was recruited by a sports program last fall and then deferred in EA. They have contacted him every two weeks looking for his commitment to wait for 3/14, reminding him to file his mid-year update, encouraging him, confirming their interest and just this Monday an email making sure that my child remembered that they supported the application. Rejected. I understand that they call cant get in and had mixed feeling all along about him going to MIT at all, but this was a cruel game they played.</p>
<p>I think it sucks and is very unbecoming an institution of this stature</p>
<p>The athletics program and admission office is separate. MIT is a meritocracy - if your academics is not up to par with MIT standards, you’re not going to get accepted even if you’re the best in the sport. This is a lot different than say Ivy League recruiting where each sport has a quota that they can allocate to recruits. But that’s the beauty of MIT - everyone here knows that they got in on their academic merit. </p>
<p>From what you have said, I think the sports program should have made this clearer that a recommendation is by no means a guaranteed acceptance. But ultimately, you come to MIT to study, and you’re not going to be admitted unless you have consistently shown that you can compete with the best math and science students in the country.</p>
<p>MIT can only take less than 10% of all the applicants, even if more than 10% is qualified. You have to realize than many other people are in the same situation as you. College admissions is a crapshoot. That’s why you apply to many schools and move on when you get a rejection. Don’t take it personally.</p>
<p>This happened to me last year at MIT. Pursued, waitlisted, rejected with constant contact and reassurance. That being said, it also happened at my current school, but I was accepted, went to preseason, and cut without a word from the coach. It’s not fair, and it pretty much ruins the experience, but that’s life.</p>
<p>Yes but MIT is also clear that “Deferred” in EA is an indication of meeting the standards for acceptance. Having the coaches play it out as they did does not reflect the reality of the process - ******** Meritocracy. You can believe that all day long if it makes you feel better, but it simply is not true. Take a look at the scores and grades from the “underrepresented minorities” and women. A meritocracy is built on color and gender blind assessment of MERIT.</p>
<p>At worst this reflects badly on some sports coach at MIT. Given that the stature of MIT is entirely unrelated from its sports program I don’t see how this reflects badly on the institute as a whole. Also, I’m not sure why anyone would think the athletic department can speak for the admissions department. Athletics may have some influence in the process but decisions are primarily made by the admissions office about other factors.</p>
<p>You should post this in the recruited athlete section. It’s important for the recruited athletes to know which coaches really can make promises and which can’t, since they are generally in the position of having to turn down other opportunities they might be better off taking.</p>
<p>I find this post extremely ironic. You bash MIT for its supposed lack of merit. And yet you rely on sport coaches to base your child’s chances of admission?</p>
<p>Don’t bother trying to play the race/gender card. MIT is as close to a meritocracy as a college will ever get.</p>
<p>…and MIT does help recruited athletes some in their admissions. It’s too bad for your son, but that’s how it is. MIT is pretty clear that they make no guarantees.</p>
<p>waspeaceforall:
Please read the recruited athlete section on this forum. There are endless stories there of parents and their S/D who fell for the promises made by the coaches recruiting them, only to end up being disappointed.</p>
<p>As others have noted, this has nothing to do with the MIT admissions process.</p>
<p>The athletics recruitment at schools like MIT and Caltech (they recruited & rejected me) are separate from admission. The athletics department was encouraging you to apply and put in your fullest effort because they <em>wanted</em> you to get in, but athletic recruitment has no bearing on MIT’s admissions. They have explicitly said this many times.</p>
<p>Honestly, you will look back on this two years from now and be happy you did not get an acceptance from MIT. If you were not brought in through academics, then you would probably have been the one in the class struggling to survive to just graduate with a deflated GPA and, eventually, ego. </p>
<p>Better to get into a school where you fit academically, and feel charged and confident, than to feel like the person in the classroom who is one of the non-academic-genius’ in the class. Most college profs curve grades. Athletes have to travel and miss class and rely on others taking notes for them. So athletes already have a harder time keeping up. </p>
<p>I’m assuming that your SAT math was a minimum of 700 or MIT would not have even considered you, even as an athlete. So you obviously have the numbers. It’s better to to a good school, not so high on the radar where you can be an athlete and the confident student with a strong gpa.</p>
<p>I don’t know. PiperXP has talked about struggling in classes, and started back in 2007 and is just now finishing as an undergrad, but she seems happy. Excelling academically isn’t the be-all and end-all for everyone. The kid might have had a great time being a student athlete at MIT. Since he passed EA, he was academically qualified.</p>
<p>@geomom: Everyone admitted to MIT is capable of doing the work; however, not everyone capable of doing the work is admitted. There are too many strong students for too few spots. So from the ~15,000 “qualified” applicants, MIT must choose ~1500 to offer admission.</p>
<p>The way they do that is something we can only guess at, based on what they’ve said and what we’ve seen. My belief is that they try to choose the best, most capable, most diverse group of students who bring the most to the table with them. It is painful to not be admitted and see others with lower stats being admitted, but often those people with “low” stats (a 2100 SAT really isn’t low) are in a very different context than you and made the most of their opportunities.</p>
<p>Not being admitted does not mean you wouldn’t have made it in the long run. It only means that when it came down to it, there was someone else better suited for the school and the incoming class.</p>
<p>@waspeaceforall: If absolute merit was the only factor considered and MIT ignored gender/race/income/home life, etc., MIT would quickly return to being 85% male because girls are often discouraged from participating in math/science from a young age and thus wouldn’t have the same scores and achievements as boys. Additionally, MIT would become filled with students whose parents could afford the best private schools/application tutors/SAT prep courses available, and students with limited resources would have very little chance. And then we’d live in a world where almost everyone getting an MIT education would be rich, male, and likely white…which then leads to even greater gender disparities in the hard sciences. And we fall back into the 1950s.</p>
<p>Exaggerations aside, there are absolutely reasons to consider things other than “merit” (by which I assume you mean hard grades, scores, and medals, not achievements given their opportunities).</p>