<p>Oh, and to quote in a box, you use
</p>
<p>Ok, that attempt to be helpful did not work! You start out with open square brackets, the word quote, and close square brackets. Then copy and paste the material you want to quote. Then use open square brackets, the division symbol /, the word quote, and close square brackets.</p>
<p>@quantmech</p>
<p>I hear what you are saying about the “nothing”, but I think you are reading too much into it.</p>
<p>Of course everyone can bring something to the table based on their personality and experiences.</p>
<p>However, an app is all the evaluator has to go on and so if what they see is grades and APs and nothing else substantial, I could see them saying something like that. </p>
<p>I don’t think the word “nothing” should be taken literally - it is meant as “nothing unique” or something like that.</p>
<p>Ok, last attempt to make it super simple</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Current gender distribution of STEM interest and ability in high school as shown by STEM enrollment and participation = 30% girls vs 70% boys</p></li>
<li><p>From 1, for every 1 talented girl there are at least 2 talented boys
(definition of talented = demonstrated passion and ability for STEM)</p></li>
<li><p>Gender distribution in MIT applicant pool = 30% girls vs 70% boys. Interestingly, it is the same as in the general high school population.</p></li>
<li><p>From 2 and 3, for every 1 talented (see definition above) girl in MIT applicant pool there are 2 talented boys.</p></li>
<li><p>Therefore, if admission were gender blind, for every admitted girl there would be 2 admitted boys.</p></li>
<li><p>However, the admitted ratio is 1:1, not the expected 1:2.</p></li>
<li><p>Thus, MIT admission favors girls.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I hope it helps.</p>
<h2>Funnily enough, that is exactly what you had posted in #171, except you edited out the part that makes it obviously incorrect! However, step 4 still relies on the false assumption that girls and boys are equally likely to apply to MIT. So I refer you to my previous response, copy pasted below for your convenience.</h2>
<p><em>Sigh</em></p>
<p>I would greatly appreciate it if you would respond directly to this post instead of just reiterating your tired, flawed argument in your next post yolochka.</p>
<p>This:
<a href=“4”>quote</a> Assuming that girls and boys are equally likely to apply to MIT
[/quote]
is where your argument falls apart.</p>
<p>Girls are much less likely to apply to MIT. Period. You said it yourself, in that quote I have pasted of yours several times already. The average female applicant to MIT is simply stronger than the average male applicant to MIT.</p>
<p>UglyMom,
just for you. Please read the thread from start to see that my tone has developed gradually in response to arrogance and mockery by some particularly humble MIT students/admitted applicants. At this point, I don’t see any benefit in participating in this discussion, so I will stop. I wish all girls at MIT the best in their endeavors!</p>
<p>Aaaaaaand yolochka bows out, after declining to respond to every. single. one. of the posts I made rebutting her arguments. Nice. Good talk.</p>
<p>QuantMech, I hear you. Like I said, some people have been offended by his comment, also by the comments of at least one other MIT interviewer. I personally don’t get offended easily and am less sensitive to these types of remarks but obviously like I stated we all should be more careful with the words we choose because there are some people that do get offended more easily. Yolochka’s words are much more offensive to me because they have been directed towards particular individuals. I found it very ironic that she would be so condescending towards others in the same thread that she called out someone else for it.</p>
<p>ok,unicameral2013, just for you and this is my last post on this thread. I mean it!</p>
<p>this is what you said, “Girls are much less likely to apply to MIT.”</p>
<p>You are correct - the applicant ratio 30-70. </p>
<p>But then you say, "The average female applicant to MIT is simply stronger than the average male applicant to MIT. " </p>
<p>Where is the evidence?? </p>
<p>here is my exact quote:</p>
<p>" The data says that for each talented girl there should be at least 2 talented boys (to clarify, by talented I mean not an inborn talent, but as demonstrated by STEM participation). Tell me, why talented girls would be twice as likely to apply to MIT as talented boys? I see no reason for that. It actually should be reverse. Talented girls are probably more shy and less confident than talented boys, so they would be more afraid to apply."</p>
<p>What I’m saying is to have as many talented girls as boys in MIT applicant pool means that talented girls should be twice as likely to apply as talented boys, given the 1:2 ratio in the population. There is no reason to expect that. In the best scenario, if talented girls are not shy, there will be 1 talented female for 2 talented males in the applicant pool. However, if talented girls are more shy than boys to apply, then the pool should include more of mediocre girls. Mediocre people tend to estimate their abilities in general. Let’s not go there, however. </p>
<p>Let’s use a simple model. 1:2 in high school population, 1:2 in applicant pool, but 1:1 in admitted pool. Can’t you see the bias?</p>
<p>now you can post all you wish! Isn’t it nice to feel awesome and confident? :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s not that more girls apply. It’s that girls only apply if they are stronger candidates. In statistical terms, the tail on the distribution of talent for the boys is longer on the low side than the talent distribution for girls.</p>
<p>I don’t think it necessarily boils down to shyness, either. Tech schools are not as attractive as the equivalent ivy university, so people don’t apply unless they are good matches.</p>
<p>Yolochko, you still haven’t justified the extrapolation of AP test scores to the pool which is competitive for MIT. Maybe the average score on the AP chem test is 3.3 for girls and 3.6 for men. Does that mean <em>anything</em> in terms of the higher ranges relevant for MIT admission?</p>
<p>This is not just a hypothetical scenario that one region of a distribution might not match another. </p>
<p>Girls have higher mean SAT scores (and probably grades too) than boys. Does this mean that in the SAT ranges relevant for MIT (the tail of the distribution on the high end), that the girls have higher scores? No, it doesn.</p>
<p>yolochka,</p>
<p>I made a sketch of a graph that I think conveys the situation that is being described. It is here: <a href=“http://sciencecow.mit.edu/me/graph.tiff[/url]”>http://sciencecow.mit.edu/me/graph.tiff</a></p>
<p>Boys and girls grow up with different perceptions fed to them about what they should and shouldn’t do. Engineer, scientist, mathematician–these are things that are advertised to boys more than they are advertised to girls. Boys get Legos and cars. Girls get dolls. A result is that a girl is less likely to go into STEM if she has an interest but no demonstrated extraordinary talent, while a boy might pursue it anyway. The girls that do pursue STEM extracurriculars and competitions and apply to MIT tend to be the top girls in STEM. Few girls apply to MIT, but they are all very good. Meanwhile, some boys apply to MIT who are not very good. That’s why MIT can select a larger percentage of girls and a smaller percentage of boys and still get the same quality of boys and girls.</p>
<p>//////</p>
<p>lidusha, as usual, is correct. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yep, that’s me. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, there have been more than one in the last few years, and I’m reasonably sure that the one I was speaking about could not be identified from my post alone. You’re correct, of course, that even erroneous inferences may still be made. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This, I think, is an interesting point. We tell applicants to be awesome and honest in their essays. One valid - by which I mean legible, not correct - interpretation of a denial is “I guess I wasn’t awesome or honest enough.” However, I feel like those sorts of dialectical inversions are inescapable (see: Zizek on the stupidity of all proverbs). </p>
<p>In the future, however, I will make an effort to more clearly articulate that a denial does not mean you are not awesome, it means we just did not admit you into the class. This is something we have tried to make clear with our talk of cultivation and cohorts but something we can always improve. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I support this. </p>
<p>Thank you, QM. You have caused a shift in my perspective in how I see some of our statements. We may or may not change them (or some of them, or some parts of some of them, etc) but I truly appreciate your insight.</p>
<p>
This from someone who is accusing posters in this thread of being arrogant.</p>
<p>^I agree. The combination of poor mathematical reasoning and condescension is appalling.</p>
<p>Thank you very much, MITChris, for post #192. It is really extremely heartening to me, even though all of the current generation of my extended family are either in college or graduated (or in a case or two, dropped out, or not going), so I don’t have a personal interest.</p>
<p>If you will permit a few additional comments: I think that one hazard with emphasizing that MIT rejects “grinds” with excellent statistical qualifications, when they bring “nothing else to the table,” is that a student with excellent statistical qualifications who brings “quite a lot else to the table” might anticipate being admitted. (I realize that it is not a strictly logical deduction, but the impression might be given.) In fact, I don’t think that the person with quite a lot else to offer can count on MIT admission, unless the other elements are in the totally-knock-your-socks-off category.</p>
<p>My other remark has to do with embracing life. Thinking just as a member of the U.S. public, I’d like to see an MIT civil engineer embracing life by figuring out which interstate bridges are most likely to collapse catastrophically (or even a means to identify them), so that there’s not a repeat of the 2007 bridge collapse on I-35W in Minneapolis. I’d like to see an MIT biochemist/organic chemist embracing life by developing new antibiotics, which we are likely to need very sorely in the future.</p>
<p>If the MIT grads are “embracing life” by doing those things, it is not actually significant to me as a member of the public that they serve, whether they spend their “downtime” playing World of Warcraft or working as a guide on Mount Everest. </p>
<p>It is really good for scientists and engineers to be involved in charitable work in their communities, but I wouldn’t consider it a “sine qua non.” One of my friends spent an extremely high fraction of his time working to develop an anti-coagulant that would be better than heparin. I have volunteered at a food bank on a few occasions, and felt that my work there was needed–but on the whole, I’d rather that my friend spent his time in the laboratory.</p>
<p>@yolochka Like you asked, I read this thread from the start. I did not see any mockery or arrogance by any MIT student or alum before you patronizingly said this to MollyB.: </p>
<p>“molliebatmit, with your MIT education I would expect you to be able to interpret data, and make conclusions about patterns, not a single fact at a time. If you look carefully at the table in the paper I quoted, there is an obvious pattern. Can you summarize it for us?” </p>
<p>And I find it infuriating when people are accused of being insecure or worse just because they chose to defend themselves or their views. What do you propose they do? Keep quiet? Post#104</p>
<p>Plenty of my friends at MIT play WoW in their downtime. People at MIT do a wide variety of things in their downtime. Some of us actually do like to do community service or educational outreach, and it’s a huge part of who we are and what defines us at MIT, and will probably continue to be a huge part of what we do after we leave MIT. Have you heard of ESP? It’s not a waste of time.</p>
<p>Science doesn’t always work. Most of the time it doesn’t. Sometimes you spend years of your life for what ends up being nothing. MIT magnifies this: the vast majority of us can’t even reach our own expectations in our science <em>classes</em>. If I were to embrace life only by doing science I would not be okay at MIT unless I reached my own expectations, which I usually don’t. When I write or do art I am consistently producing a product. I can look back at it and feel I am making a positive impact on the world, that I have done something that matters, even when my science cannot make me feel that way because it is not working. Volunteering produces similar positive feelings. If I only did science I would be miserable. If I came to MIT without my art or my writing, if I did not have friends who also like to write and paint on walls, and if I did not have friends to volunteer with, I would not be happy here.</p>
<p>@unicamera</p>
<p>actually the Yolochka’s argument falls apart at step 2.</p>
<p>Just because people participate in STEM activities does not mean they are necessarily talented in STEM.</p>
<p>If “talent” just means that they participate in something, then my DS is a talented piano player and should be seriously considered for Julliard ;)</p>
<p>Oh, yes! To lidusha’s #197: Science doesn’t always work. I hear you loud and clear! In fact, I am probably spending more time posting than I should, because I am really, really stuck on a problem I’m trying to solve (and hoping that inspiration will strike my subconscious if I let the problem revolve there a bit).</p>
<p>Yes, and do you see how it relates to this:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>and this:</p>
<p>
</p>