<p>Re #200: Yes, but . . . there’s less urgency about my work and the work of (say) a biochemist who is trying to develop an anti-coagulant or an antibiotic. No one’s life hinges on my results, nor on completing a problem set.</p>
<p>Just wanted to add:</p>
<p>I think that virtually all volunteer work tends to be valuable, both to the persons served and to the person doing it. I don’t object to WoW, though I don’t play it.</p>
<p>My understanding from the psychological research I’ve read is that the most effective way to encourage a breakthrough is to bear down very hard for quite a while, and then get away from your work.</p>
<p>The person I mentioned, who was working on anti-coagulants, also had a very “he-man” type of hobby. It is extremely likely that it helped him clear his mind for his work. And good for him!</p>
<p>If I worked in a field where lives really did hang in the balance, depending on whether I solved a problem or not, I would have to give more careful consideration to my time allocation than I do now–and honestly, I find it hard enough to balance, as it is.</p>
<p>Sorry, I should add some more clarification to post #195: My intent in paragraphs 3-5 was really to refer to people who had graduated from MIT, and not to current students; yet I don’t want to underestimate what a student can accomplish, either.</p>
<p>The last thing I want to do is to lay a guilt trip on anyone about relaxing! (More !) And <em>particularly</em> for anyone who is an MIT student or young academic! People need to relax! I have been a few of those guilt trips in my life, the worst when I was an Assistant Professor, and I’m probably still discarding some of the baggage from them.</p>
<p>My intent was really to say that I don’t think anyone needs to feel obligated to relax in a stunning or impressive form (e.g. by working as a guide on Mount Everest). Nor actually do I think anyone should be advantaged by relaxing impressively, beyond the direct benefit of the relaxation itself–but that part is just my opinion. </p>
<p>Also, I think it’s great for scientists and engineers to contribute to their communities. Sincerely. And I do some of that. But I also don’t think that people deserve any guilt trips if they don’t volunteer, if their work itself is of societal benefit.</p>
<p>With regard to why I am not doing biomedical research myself: Well, I originally started out in that direction (not pre-med, but rather with research plans). During college, I learned that what talents I have do not really lie in that direction. I suspect that I would be more of a hindrance than a help as a colleague in that field. Really. I think that what I am doing is of value; but luckily a 3- or 4-month delay in my figuring something out (due to personal stupidity, more than time spent on CC) will not matter at all, as far as I can tell.</p>
<h1>still falling well short of awesome</h1>
<p>It might still sound as if I think that biomedical researchers should work all the time–of course not! That wouldn’t even be efficient.</p>
<p>Background on my viewpoint: At one time a few years ago, my university was really pushing community involvement for faculty members (my forays to the Food Bank were not connected with that). I had the strong feeling that a lot of my colleagues were doing more for the community with their actual research than they would be by volunteering. If they wanted to volunteer, great! But I thought they shouldn’t be obligated to do so. </p>
<p>Eventually I will close in on a more accurate statement of my thinking . . . Let me try this: Many of my colleagues had already balanced out work and time away from work, in a form that was effective for them. The time to meet new demands would have to come from somewhere. Personally, I don’t think it would be advisable for them to cut down either on work (research and teaching) or on relaxation, if they were not already volunteering, and wouldn’t find it enjoyable (as some would not, I think).</p>
<p>I would apply that same line of thought if the faculty member is a Professor of Literature, or a Professor of Art History, or in any other area of the university.</p>
<p>Maybe this is a bit closer?</p>
<p>So, one more related thought, since a reader might be wondering what possible relation my recent posts have to college admissions:</p>
<p>It is my observation that a number of students at high-intensity high schools (for want of a better term) are short-changing themselves on sleep, in the attempt to bring “more” to the table than they otherwise might.</p>
<p>The number of AP’s that many students take has ratcheted up since the days that I was in high school. The intensity of EC’s has also increased in a lot of places. </p>
<p>For example, my spouse constituted the entire cello section of his high-school orchestra. And he had never had outside cello lessons. And he played everything on the two strings he knew. Now, locally, all the good cellists have started with Suzuki by age 6 at least. The Gifted and Talented instructor advised me that “fourth grade was almost too late to start learning a string instrument.” </p>
<p>For another example, one of the older debaters at my high school had a single “evidence” card on which he had just written “Smile.” Admitted, the coach would only let him debate at Junior Varsity level, but he and his partner won a lot of debates based on sheer strength of analysis. These days, file cabinets on wheels and summer debate camps are par for the course.</p>
<p>I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if academic qualifications suddenly did become enough–maybe not for everyone, but for some number of people in the entering class. On other threads, I’ve been proposing that MIT might take 10 to 15 people who wouldn’t already be admitted.</p>
<p>When it comes to volunteer service, I think it is lovely when it comes from the heart, as I know that it does for several posters on the MIT forum. </p>
<p>My niece, an engineer from a large public research university, put in 500+ hours working with Habitat for Humanity while she was in high school, absolutely loved it, and learned a few things that were relevant for her later work. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I hope that I can be forgiven for regarding some volunteer work by high school students with a bit of skepticism. If the “volunteering” is compulsory (e.g., for graduation) or if a student anticipates gaining an admissions advantage by volunteering, to me that’s not really volunteering–that’s just unpaid work.</p>
<p>I would second the proposal to admit many (most?) students on the basis of purely academic qualifications instead of also having a quasi-requirement of considerable extracurricular and community service involvement. Although some students are undoubtedly passionate about these pursuits for many students they are simply another hurdle on already busy schedules. I doubt most clubs would mind less involvement from students who simply participated because of the current quasi-requirement. I also imagine it’s extremely difficult to ascertain whether involvement is mostly out of passion or out of a sense of necessity. Even at MIT while some students do indeed make significant contributions through volunteering I don’t think it has to be something that involves most of the student body.</p>
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<p>Extracurriculars are tricky. I think that it is actually pretty easy to ascertain whether a person has truly participated in an activity or merely put their name on a list somewhere: first, leadership – if they were in the group all 4 years and didn’t get any type of leadership, they probably were not very involved in the group beyond just being a member; secondly, in the interview, it’s easy to tell if someone is passionate about something or if they just put it on their laundry list.</p>
<p>But aside from that, I would say that one reason MIT looks for such extracurricular/volunteer involvement rather than just schoolwork is passion. They want to see that you’re passionate about something, committed to a group, and good at interpersonal work.</p>
<p>On another note, I know a girl who performs very well academically, but is only in one extracurricular group because she literally spends all her time studying and doing homework just to stay afloat. For her, the AP load is tough, and she has to struggle to succeed in her classes, and she doesn’t have time or energy for ECs. Now, she’s pretty smart, but she would absolutely drown at a school like MIT because the classes would be so much harder there, and she’s already functioning at her max potential.</p>
<p>Do you see what I mean? It’s not necessarily about the ECs themselves; it’s about your potential. I have always had the most rigorous courseload I could, but on top of that, I spent 5-15 hours a week in extracurricular groups because a) I loved the groups and wanted to contribute, and b) my workload was still easy and didn’t fulfill or overload me.</p>
<p>If a student takes the most rigorous high school classes and succeeds, but has to focus on their coursework to do so, they may still fail at MIT simply because the classes at MIT will undoubtedly be much harder. Whereas a student who has lots of ECs could simply drop down to about 1 or 2 groups and then use that new extra time to study more.</p>
<p>I agree with the thought that a challenging school would generally not want to admit someone who had to spend all of the time studying “to stay afloat.” That’s totally reasonable if the student is taking typical high school classes even at AP level.</p>
<p>I think the judgment call about EC’s should be different if the student is (say) taking Math 55 at Harvard as a high school junior, getting A’s, and not spending a lot of time on EC’s. A person like that is unlikely to wind up over his/her head in college. Now, the data points in this area are pretty limited! MIT admitted the one person I do know of who did that–so no quarrel there.</p>
<p>Current college admissions practices sometimes lead to the situation posted recently by the mother of one of this year’s group of graduating high school seniors. The post is on the College Admissions forum, in the section called “Admissions Hindsight and Lessons Learned,” on the thread called “As Rejections keep rolling in, what do you tell your Honor student?” post #164.</p>
<p>I should say from the get-go that there is no indication that the student applied to MIT; so my remarks are not critical of MIT per se, but of the admissions process overall.</p>
<p>The poster (user name “collegecrap”) remarks that her daughter had devoted herself to
</p>
<p>The poster adds:
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<p>I plan to split up my posts on this, because there is really quite a lot to say about it, but my principal comment is this: Even though I know that one can get into a top-ranked medical school coming from many different universities (and the poster “collegecrap” acknowledged this later in the post), and even though I am confident that the young woman will thrive and excel where she goes, my heart really goes out to that family.</p>
<p>In aggregate, current admissions processes at “top” colleges pretty much guarantee that this scenario will be repeated many times. Most phenomenally qualified students will be admitted to at least one “top” college. But some won’t. It seems to me that there should be a better way.</p>
<p>My guess is that the most likely possibility is that any of the “top” schools that rejected this student presumed that she would be admitted elsewhere in the same category, so that no one felt that they really needed to look out for her.</p>
<p>A second guess is that there was some lapse in cross-cultural communications. It probably struck many readers as odd that the parent said her daughter was “a teacher’s pet” as if that were a good thing. Among people who went to elementary school in the U.S., the phrase doesn’t tend to be used that way.</p>
<p>So, I think rather than assuming that the student was a stereotypical “teacher’s pet” as I might understand the phrase, it would be better to render it as “Her teachers really like her.”</p>
<p>My first graduate student was an international student. I recall once that he received an evaluation for his work as a teaching assistant (from another faculty member), who rated his work as “Very Good” rather than “Excellent.” The comment from the rater was that he didn’t seem very enthusiastic about the work. My student was incensed, because he felt that a) the rater did not know his state of mind, and shouldn’t comment on it, and b) he <em>was</em> enthusiastic.</p>
<p>This makes me think that “passion” might be conveyed in rather different ways in different cultures. I imagine that MIT reviewers have a lot of experience with different cultures, but I wonder if some enthusiasm doesn’t go undetected.</p>
<p>I have read some applications material, and have encountered some essays that I would regard as bordering on boastful. I imagine that where this is the norm, the understated approach of the Mechs might be regarded as “not putting yourself out there enough” or something similar.</p>
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<p>I really don’t know much about this, although I know it’s a popular theory. In this case, I wish I had an idea as to why this girl wasn’t admitted to where she applied. I do think that in this day and age, we are seeing LOTS more of these hyper-qualified applicants due to the sudden increased interest among high schoolers in (1) higher education and (2) absolute top-ranked schools. So we produce lots of incredible students. The problem there is that these top-ranked schools (I’m guessing she applied to schools like Harvard) are a reach for everyone, regardless of your stats and qualifications…they’re looking to put together a balanced class and sometimes that means a seemingly perfect candidate isn’t a match.</p>
<p>I’m not saying it’s right or fair – it certainly is not. I’ve seen my EXCELLENT friends get waitlisted at their top-choice schools when I thought they deserved acceptance, and it’s frustrating.</p>
<p>That said, I don’t know what we could do to change it. Force HYPSM to accept more people? It wouldn’t work – they don’t have the campus space; besides, upping their admittance rates to accept all students who “should” get in would make them much less competitive (which matters, as much as that sounds bad).</p>
<p>We have more overachievers than ever before, but the number of seats at HYPSM isn’t changing. It sucks.</p>
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<p>If you’re referring to international admissions specifically, I doubt that anyone was rejected due to a lack of passion. It’s unfortunate that MIT must reject hundreds of highly qualified internationals each year, but they can only make up 8% of the student body, so admissions are incredibly competitive.</p>
<p>Hi, luisarose, I appreciate your post #213. In terms of where the student applied
</p>
<p>In cases like this, I think that some people on CC are likely to play “blame the applicant.” It is certainly true that I have not seen the essays nor the letters of recommendation, but since one of the personal essays was being saved as a model for others at the high school, I have to assume that at least the teachers thought they were excellent essays. I seriously doubt that the applicant was at fault.</p>
<p>I am not sure about the 2nd and 3rd tier schools to which the student applied, but there has been a lot of discussion of “Tufts syndrome” [which Tufts denies exists, I should add], where a less selective school will not accept a well-qualified student when they suspect that the student will be admitted and go elsewhere. It is possible that the student could not be specific enough about interest in the other schools due to sheer lack of time. I sympathize.</p>
<p>In terms of the cross-cultural issues, I really had in mind first-generation Americans (i.e., students born here, whose parents were immigrants). I think they may have a lot of cultural expectations that don’t jibe with those of people who have been here for multiple generations. They may also have ways of expressing themselves that are a bit different. For example, the parent mentions “prestige” a couple of times. I’d think that is not helpful in terms of admission. But I also would not at all criticize someone for reflecting her/his own background in that way.</p>
<p>I think that the people in question are taking as positive an attitude as can be taken in the circumstances. Again from collegecrap’s post:
</p>
<p>So there is a lot that is positive there.</p>
<p>I am a strong supporter of Affirmative Action, and I don’t read the post as critical of Affirmative Action–rather as raising the possibility that belonging to an over-represented minority group is a disadvantage compared to those of European ancestry (my own). While I don’t think this “killed her chances,” I think it might be harder for people of some national origins to gain admission to “top” schools, compared with those whose ancestors came from Europe. (I emphatically do <em>not</em> want to encourage anyone to flame AA. On this forum or elsewhere, molliebatmit remarked that AA is an issue of social justice, I think–and I agree.)</p>
<p>Finally, while I think that the accomplishments of college applicants are rising all the time (going back to my spouse’s experience as a cellist and my friend’s as a debater), I don’t really think that there are so many people with this young woman’s level of qualifications that she should have experienced such a shut-out.</p>
<p>If I were designing the admissions process from scratch, I would probably put in an extra round in the spring as a “safety net” for students like this. That is, have “top” schools hold a few places in reserve for students of exceptional caliber who had bad luck–and perhaps run this round at the same time that wait-listed students are being taken (and plan to take a few from the waitlist each year, rather than 0).</p>
<p>There is a young man named “andison” whose mother posted on CC. He was shut out of all of his choices (not including MIT) his senior year in high school, and then re-applied and applied to new places after a gap year. I am happy to say that MIT took him then. This worked out for him, but it would be nice if it didn’t have to entail a gap year.</p>
<p>I fully agree with everything you’ve said in the last two posts. I’m very surprised at the schools that rejected collegecrap’s daughter - the Ivies are one thing, but for the others I would have fully expected her to be admitted.</p>
<p>^^not all ivy’s are created equal. I would surmise most of the intellectual elite would agree there are other schools like Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Caltech that are similar caliber as the top ivys.</p>
<p>@ohmmho of course. I was including Stanford/MIT/UChicago/Caltech in my idea of “top tier” (Ivy + other top schools). I was more expressing surprise that the girl in question was rejected from 2nd or 3rd tier schools, although I’d need to know the specific schools to fully understand, of course.</p>
<p>I am 'wow’ed by the defense against the notion of preferential admission to girls. Looks like the argument is based on two different approach 1) Justification of AA (the problem with AA , or even the just perception of that, is unfortunately it makes you doubt even the most qualified one) and 2) Everyone in MIT is “equally” qualified. (as per Mollie the evidence is not public). But I see the admission policy as a pure practical business practice to survive in the college market. Unfortunately, MIT needs to maintain a decent girls to boys ratio to attract talented boys and girls. (Otherwise, you know, both boys and girls will shun away for different reasons). This problem will persist until MIT transforms into a ‘regular’ university, losing its emphasis on technology. I would say the ratio of boys to girls enrolled in engineering in ‘regular’ universities is the ‘natural’ norm whatever the driving force is (I am sure everyone has his/her own explanation for that). In my opinion, MIT adcom is doing what it needs to do. Please remember they are answerable if certain goals are not met. They can’t be simply be objective and select the very best irrespective of nationality, race, gender etc.,. I wish it is as simple as that but it is not going to happen until well into the future when people are judged for what they are capable of. (Let’s all fast forward to Star Trek era!)
Disclosure: I am not affiliated to MIT in any way 
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