<p>In MIT admissions, this means you qualify. A 2400 and a 2200 are not really that different to MIT adcoms – they both mean you’re good enough, and that 200 point difference doesn’t mean the 2400 is smarter.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Middle school and below truly doesn’t matter, so you’re saying they had a 4.0 unweighted. Which is VERY common among MIT applicants. I was probably one of the lowest with a 3.8 unweighted.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I lead 4 clubs at school. None are varsity sports, but all are important to me and have a large time commitment. Varsity sports are not really a huge plus over other activities with similar time commitments – I really respect varsity athletes and captains, but that alone doesn’t make one a standout MIT candidate. And volunteer of the year candidate doesn’t mean much, the context of the town and the hours/type of service/leadership is crucial to “evaluating” their volunteering.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>An entirely different school.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not at all. It’s entirely possible for the candidate you described to be rejected – in fact, it happens all the time.</p>
<p>Moving on:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think what Piper meant (I think it was Piper, anyway) was that a USAMO achiever is not necessarily better than someone who hasn’t participated in USAMO because of their life context (i.e. poor, inner-city school, unavailable in their area…). She’s not saying USAMO isn’t impressive; she’s just saying that looking at scores/awards/accomplishments without the backdrop of their opportunities can be misleading.</p>
<p>To add to my posts, MIT is currently undecided on the value of the writing SAT portion; they don’t really consider it. It is controversial whether the cookie-cutter essays that the writing SAT requires say anything about one’s writing ability. So basically, in the case the OP cites, the guy effectively has a 1600 SAT score for the purposes of admissions.</p>
<p>My position is that, while being mistake-free is somewhat important and is a slight plus, getting no SAT questions wrong vs. one or two off on each section isn’t that telling in terms of potential. So in my mind, 1500+ is roughly equivalent to the 1600, especially if there are other indicators that someone has the ability. For example, you can get 800 on the math SAT without being good enough to get half of the qualifying score on the AMC. So if you got over 100 on the AMC (the qualifying score), this is far more impressive than getting an 800 on the SAT I math, and therefore making one dumb mistake on the math SAT could be forgiven.
Even Caltech, whose admissions are based on academics more than any other university, treats the SAT the same way. And since there are quite of people who are 1500+ on the SAT.</p>
<p>The Duke merit money is nice, and does tell me the recommendations were strong. But Mollie is absolutely right that there are plenty of people who get full merit money from Duke or other schools like that but have the Harvard/MIT decisions the opposite of the case; that is, acceptance to MIT but rejection from Harvard. Plus, if this kid was recruited for an athletic team at Harvard, then Harvard admission means almost nothing in terms of being an indicator for academic ability. The criteria for admission at Harvard is pretty low for recruited athletes.</p>
<p>There are plenty of ways to show that you are better than the low ceiling required for the SAT and for getting A’s in a good high school (something which generally means that you are in the top 30%-50% of these classes.) Academic competitions and summer college classes are also ways to distinguish yourself. If you don’t care to do this, then there is no way to know really how strong an applicant you are relative to the copious people with perfect grades and near-perfect SATs. Also, if you don’t do anything academic outside of class, this is an indication that you may not have a lot of affinity for academic things, let alone science.</p>
<p>Well, the question that I ask myself when presented with an award is, if everyone in the country had the max resources, what would the number of people X that could achieve this award. Then I ask whether X is less than the number of people accepted to MIT per year, Y. Even though studying for these things is a bit more systematic these days, I think X < Y, so it makes sense to admit the USAMO people. Of course, this also depends on the relevance of the skills the award tests. I would say math aptitude is the area with the most predictive part of ability in scientific fields, so the USAMO is certainly relevant.</p>
<p>I think I’ve hosted or helped host ~6 over my time here. </p>
<p>You realize that my statement was that I knew some of them through hosting, right? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There is no one academic axis that is deemed best. Admitting all the USAMO’s would mean neglecting a lot of other fields or types of awesome students. Nor is the USAMO an indicator that someone is a good fit for MIT in other ways.</p>
<p>Re PiperXP’s post #279: I have heard of “helicopter moms” and would probably have to admit to acting as one on an occasion or two. But it seems to me that if a student is doing exactly as directed, there would be no need for helicopter parents to rush to the “rescue.” And in any case, for my family, t(sub h) << t(sub i), where t(sub h) is the time I spent helicoptering, and t(sub i) is the time family members spent acting independent-mindedly.</p>
<p>I’m sure she was being nonliteral and referring to applicants who have high stats/strong ECs/all other “good on paper” traits…not literally a 2400/varsity/volunteering applicant.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>While I don’t necessarily agree that math aptitude is the best predictor of all science potential, I do think the USAMO is relevant. I’m simply saying that a USAMO qualifier is not necessarily better than a student who hasn’t had that type of opportunity; thus we must consider context.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>QM, I’m pretty sure you’re not a helicopter parent They do exist, though – probably in higher rates in competitive areas (around privates/magnets, or wealthy regions, etc.). I know a few people (mostly, but not exclusively, of Asian or Eastern European descent) who are pushed to their limits and beyond by their parents, who are convinced that their child must excel by any and all measures to have a chance at a successful life. While excellence is wonderful and important for admittance to schools like MIT, it’s better (and looks better) for the child to select that path and push themselves, instead of having a parent do the selecting and pushing.</p>
<p>I’ll never forget when a good friend of mine broke down crying during an AP Bio test because she didn’t know an answer and was afraid of how her parents would react.</p>
<p>“Are you a helicopter parent?
Helicopter parents can be identified by their tendency to hover close to their child, ready to come to the rescue at the first sign of difficulty or disappointment.”</p>
<p>I would need to know what this means in practice to evaluate this statement. That is, what level of achievement at a regular or good high school would be equivalent to USAMO qualification from an elite magnet high school? </p>
<p>Also, there is something to be said for seeking out opportunities. In the age of the internet, it’s much harder to say that you didn’t know what is out there.</p>
<p>I’m not saying anything is equivalent. I’m saying we can’t assume one is better than the other without fuller knowledge of both. Edit: To clarify, I’m saying that if a student didn’t know of USAMO and thus didn’t participate, we can’t hold that against them.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I disagree. Take me, for instance. I am a middle-class, white girl attending a public school in small-town CT (the high school just got off probation a few years ago). Both my parents are in academia – my father as a math professor, my mother as a librarian at a state college. I was talented in math at a young age and started helping my dad plan his classes around age 12. I ended up skipping 2 grades in math, taking Calc BC as a sophomore, Multivariable Calc and Statistics as a junior, and helping teach Multivariable Calc at my high school as a senior. So naturally, it would seem I’ve had every opportunity to try a math competition…except that I hadn’t heard of USAMO/AMC/AIME until this year.</p>
<p>Whose fault is that? My school’s? They’ve probably never heard of them either; we’ve certainly never sent anyone there. My parents’? They may have heard of them in passing, but literally nobody I know even tangentially has ever even taken a placement test. Is it my fault? Because I didn’t get into the college search/prep game as a middle schooler, or because I didn’t Google “math competitions in America”?</p>
<p>I did seek out opportunities. I led my school’s math team; I took a train an hour each way to study multivariable at a community college before my school offered it; I took a college statistics course online because AP stats seemed way too easy. But nobody told me about USAMO. I’m not saying I would have succeeded in it; I probably would have sucked. But I don’t know that. And my non-participation in USAMO is not due to a lack of interest by any means…</p>
<p>I don’t think you understand how hard it is to come by information about something when you literally have no idea that it exists. If I had known one person who even mentioned USAMO or some other competition in my presence at any point in the last ~8 years, I can guarantee I would have at least tried.</p>
<p>Well, I actually agree with this. However, it’s tangential to my point.
Let me try to rephrase it.</p>
<p>For this argument, let {A} = some set of qualifications.</p>
<p>If I decide that I think a candidate with {A} should be admitted, it doesn’t mean that I think the candidate with {A} is necessarily “better” than another candidate without {A}. All I need to know is whether it is likely there are 1500 people in the applicant pool better than the guy with {A}. If not, then it makes sense to admit them.</p>
<p>The judgement of whether a candidate is not in the top 1500 people in the applicant pool, of course, is subjective. In this judgement, one can subconsciously normalize for opportunities.</p>
<p>I see your point. I think it’s still close to what I’m saying, though, which is that someone with {A} can’t be directly compared to someone who doesn’t have {A}, but also didn’t have the chance to have {A} because of their upbringing – for instance, I wouldn’t expect most poor, inner-city schools to offer a rigorous AP or IB program, so a student from there couldn’t fulfill {A} – but might still be a good fit for MIT, perhaps even better than someone with {A}.</p>
<p>MIT admissions are very subjective, so it’s difficult to try to analyze the results. I do agree that USAMO participants are all exceedingly talented and probably excellent in many ways, but that doesn’t necessarily make them an optimal MIT candidate overall. It certainly helps, of course.</p>
<p>Yeah, but you could also look at your situation two ways. I was about as advanced as you were in high school, but my parents weren’t in academia. Now, if I’m in the same classes as you, do I get to have lower grades than you do? There are a lot of people that would say, “Yes.” I don’t agree.</p>
<p>Also, colleges see that your dad has a PhD in math, and seeing the application “in context” could lead them to conclude that you are aware of every opportunity, that your dad is tutoring you in your classes, etc. Or that people with less educated parents wouldn’t know they were supposed to study. I’ve seen these arguments on CC, too.</p>
<p>That’s actually what I meant – if I had so much luck in my upbringing and still didn’t know about USAMO, then it must be extremely difficult for people with less of an education support system than me to discover it on their own.</p>
<p>My dad doesn’t have a PhD, not that it’s relevant anyway. I was basically pointing out that on paper I do have every advantage. Of course, it’s not so simple – my parents never pushed me academically and everything I’ve done has been of my own volition – but I would never expect someone to guess that given my parents’ careers.</p>
<p>Edit: I personally do feel that I have been very lucky and privileged, so I don’t at all object to the numerical standards being different for someone who hasn’t been as privileged as me. I did push myself, but I wouldn’t be able to take free classes at the community/state colleges that I have if my parents weren’t affiliated. I might still have done it, but paying would have been a bit more troublesome.</p>
<p>Well, despite Indiana University, the definition of helicopter parent I’ve most commonly seen is the type that will try to control every aspect of a child’s life, in an awfully perfectionist way.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is something that, in the general case, people with more privilege have a really hard time grasping.</p>
<p>This is going back quite a while, but I think that the metaphor of “helicopter mom” originated to describe mothers of toddlers, who hovered around them constantly to prevent them from falling over. Then it was generalized to psychological hovering. (Thanks for the reference, geomom.) However, I hadn’t heard it described as being controlling.</p>
<p>Admittedly, my experience is limited–but I have a hard time imagining a student who really will just do as directed.</p>
<p>I am supportive of the idea of trying to identify talented and committed students, whatever their circumstances. Generally speaking, a talented student who grows up with a less “enriched” background will probably not have the list of accomplishments that a student who grows up in more advantageous circumstances has. (Clearly, there can be exception.) So I think that the idea of universities trying to gauge how students might have performed on a more level playing field is a legitimate one.</p>
<p>I think that people of good will can disagree about how much various forms of privilege are really worth, in terms of accomplishment. This is not an easy problem to solve. People of good will can also disagree about exactly how hard it is to attain a particular level of accomplishment, even with the best possible background. </p>
<p>For example, students at Phillips Exeter have a huge advantage when it comes to making the US team for the International Mathematical Olympiad. (The video about the US IMO team sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America and up on YouTube makes this clear.) And yet, only a few students at Phillips Exeter actually manage to make the team; and the team doesn’t come entirely from Phillips Exeter + Harker.</p>
<p>I also think that there is an important issue that MIT is addressing only in part: That is, once one has identified a talented group of students from all backgrounds, to try to make the experience at MIT as good as possible for each of the students.</p>
<p>I think that MIT has multiple “entry points” in physics, for example. This is good, and it does address the issue of differential qualifications on entry.</p>
<p>However, in my personal opinion, some mechanism ought to be developed to enable MIT to do more to improve the educational experience for students who have less developed skills on entry.</p>
<p>I don’t think that all MIT students need to reach the same point by graduation. There is no reason to regard a 22-year-old as a “finished product” with regard to learning. So some differences at the point of graduation are perfectly ok–everyone will continue to learn and hone skills afterwards.</p>
<p>Yet I think that some additional care is needed with regard to opportunities to learn from the courses taken while at MIT. For example, one of the MIT student bloggers (whom I like) referred to some difficulties with an exam in Quantum Physics II. Then, at the conclusion of the blog, the student mentioned going off to work on Linear Algebra. (QuantMech claps palm to forehead.) The linear algebra course is probably a co-requisite of Quantum Physics II. However, it would be a tremendous advantage to a student to have taken linear algebra beforehand, and had a semester for the material to sink in, before needing it for the matrix formulation of quantum mechanics. It would also be advantageous to take a course in partial differential equations and boundary value problems before quantum mechanics, rather than as a co-requisite, or trailing course. Some students will enter ready to take linear algebra in the first year. Some students will already have had linear algebra in high school. I think that MIT really ought to be more concerned about the “levelness” of the playing field that it is offering to students who have been working at a disadvantage beforehand.</p>
<p>Actually, I am planning this summer to look for foundations that might accept proposals to fund an additional year at MIT or other “top” schools, to permit the undergrad playing field to be more level, without imposing undue costs on students who were disadvantaged by their K-12 backgrounds.</p>
<p>And back to the OP’s original point–sorry for diverting the discussion. Yes, I think it is really inappropriate for the coaches to “lead a student on” in the way that was described. If the admissions decision has been communicated to a coach, and the coach wants the student to wait for MIT’s announcement before deciding on a university, then I think the coach’s actions are reasonable. But clearly, if the coach does not actually know that MIT will admit the student (as happened in this case), it is really just wrong to give the student the impression that he/she will be admitted.</p>
<p>“Get to?” The question is, what will you do with an MIT education. It’s possible that someone with the combination of lower scores and less opportunity will do a lot more than an at-first-glance-“better” applicant. That’s what the entire application is trying to determine - who’s going to make the most out of this.</p>
They do exist, though – probably in higher rates in competitive areas (around privates/magnets, or wealthy regions, etc.). I know a few people (mostly, but not exclusively, of Asian or Eastern European descent) who are pushed to their limits and beyond by their parents, who are convinced that their child must excel by any and all measures to have a chance at a successful life. While excellence is wonderful and important for admittance to schools like MIT, it’s better (and looks better) for the child to select that path and push themselves, instead of having a parent do the selecting and pushing.</p>