Cruel Process

Colleges & Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>I think that being passionate about math and science (and engineering, though I don’t have that interest) is a wonderful thing, and I have no qualms whatever, if MIT is selecting for that. I don’t have a sufficient information base to tell. By this, I mean that the number of MIT professors I know is roughly equal to the number of MIT applicants I know. It is difficult (for me at least) to discern from the information that MIT provides what the relative weights are, in terms of (1) showing passion for STEM subjects and (2) being an interesting person (dare I say “fun”?), generally speaking. </p>

<p>I can say that the judgment does sometimes seem to be erroneous (not about anyone in my family).</p>

<p>The person mentioned by 3togo seems to have a disability in terms of social interactions. Obviously one cannot diagnose at a distance, but I wonder if he might not appropriately be covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act.</p>

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<p>MIT can get enough students who have both a love of STEM and are interesting/compelling for the community. I’m not sure why you would need to weigh these against each other.</p>

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<p>I understand and support selecting for passion, but I don’t know that being a more interesting person would make someone more worthy of admission. Personally, I’d find Silicate Guy pretty boring–but I recognize that he might develop some very important ideas about materials in the future, because there are not that many people who are fascinated by silicates, and his fascination combined with a good education could get him there. (Of course, he’d also need to be a bit creative–but that might not spill over into fascinating conversation outside of the silicates.) </p>

<p>I imagine that MIT can also get plenty of people who are passionate about STEM subjects and have red hair.</p>

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<p>^ It is not useful to think of admissions in terms of being “worthy”. Admission is not an evaluation of your worth - there are plenty of worthwhile people who couldn’t get in to MIT.</p>

<p>They are trying to build a team. A team of talented, academically excellent people with a variety of interests who will solve some of the world’s problems, who will work with each other, fascinate each other, and motivate each other. People who will bring different perspectives to each other. This makes selecting for something beyond just academic excellence very important. </p>

<p>Academic excellence can help a lot with world issues and meaningful discoveries, but it’s not sufficient.</p>

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<p>Incidentally, I am completely making up Silicate Guy. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Truly.</p>

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<p>Honestly, it seems to me that in all cases, MIT tries to follow its holistic admissions policies – even when the applicant is an “academic star” as we are discussing here. It is interesting to me that not all those “academic stars” are admitted under the holistic policy, but I don’t think that we have enough information about each specific case (and the reasons some are not admitted) to determine that the policy is inherently flawed.</p>

<p>I think any black-and-white, auto-acceptance policy at MIT would a) go against their policy of “holistic” evaluation of applications, and b) take context at least partially out of the equation, and somewhat favor those of privileged backgrounds.</p>

<p>I know we’ve discussed that USAMO performance isn’t affected by high school (public/private/etc), but I would still argue that there is a large percentage of the population that has never heard of USAMO, regardless of their intelligence, and those people would be disadvantaged here.</p>

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<p>Just a couple of comments: I don’t use “worthy” as a stand-alone term, except perhaps in a theological context. In that context, there are plenty of very worthy people who could not solve a differential equation if their lives depended on it. I am using “worthy of admission to MIT” as a unified phrase, in a different sense.</p>

<p>If a person writes that “In my spare time, I enjoy going on the Internet and posing as the agent of a lottery that will give [you, the “winner,” aka the designated pigeon] millions of dollars, for a small administrative fee;” or “I enjoy pickpocketing elderly women while ‘helping’ them cross the street, and then ducking into the nearest Starbucks so that I can observe the looks of befuddlement on their faces when they realize that their dentures are missing,” or “I enjoy pushing toddlers into mud puddles, because who doesn’t?” then I am glad for any admissions office to say “Nope! Nope! and Nope!”</p>

<p>But say that we are exclusively discussing good-hearted people. I think that MIT does have a very interesting community of undergraduates. I am much less sure that MIT needs to include “being interesting” in its set of admissions considerations in order to accomplish that. I have been a member of several academic communities that were selected on purely academic grounds. The people in these communities were still very diverse in their areas of interest, and very accomplished outside of academics. </p>

<p>Since I have not yet met Silicate Guy, I can honestly say that I have never met a boring person.</p>

<p>Finally, in terms of luisarose’s comment, I am sincerely concerned about people who are disadvantaged by their backgrounds. However, it seems to me that the effect of “auto-admitting” less than 1% of the students would be minimal. I could potentially be persuaded otherwise.</p>

<p>The question came up on another thread–which students would I displace, in order to admit the 10-15 that I favor? I would think hard about the people who don’t put forth sufficient effort to pass courses in the first semester, on the grounds that the grades don’t go onto the transcript. I would have serious reservations about the intrinsic interest that math and science hold for those students. I don’t favor ejecting anyone once the student has been admitted–I am suggesting not admitting them to begin with.</p>

<p>Perhaps admissions is completely unable to guess who those students are in advance. If so, that’s ok; and then perhaps my 10-15 are just out of luck. But not being able to figure out which students will act that way doesn’t accord with a “sees all, knows all” view of admissions.</p>

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<p>Well, I think it’s important to keep in mind that we’re discussing a VERY small group of people here (non-admitted USAMO qualifiers/scorers). I believe I’ve seen MIT admissions people state that USAMO folks are admitted at a very high rate, but it’s not 100%; I think that’s fine. Everyone who participates in USAMO-level stuff has a definite leg up to begin with.</p>

<p>I really think there must be something we don’t know about those 10-15 who are USAMO-level but not admitted to MIT. With numbers so small, it’s entirely statistically possible that there are genuine reasons for each of them not being admitted, and the reason probably isn’t that they’re too boring…but we don’t know what the reason is, so I can’t say for sure.</p>

<p>I feel that the point is moot anyway, because MIT would never enact a policy that guarantees admission to anyone – it’s their process to make careful decisions about each applicant, and any auto-pathway would detract from that policy. Also,</p>

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<p>That’s almost definitely the case, or else they wouldn’t be admitted in the first place :slight_smile: It’d be hard to tell which of the high-achieving, driven, passionate high schoolers is going to slack off at college, especially since the track records of an admitted student must be extremely good.</p>

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<p>As somebody who fits the criteria QuantMech mentions (USAMO in 2011/2012, 3 points off MOP last year, yet deferred than rejected this year), I say: </p>

<p>[Princeton</a> University is racist against me, I mean, non-whites - The Daily Princetonian](<a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2007/01/17/17109/]Princeton”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2007/01/17/17109/)</p>

<p>you misunderstand the process mathnerd1-san let me show you the way</p>

<p>[The</a> Trouble with External Validation | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/the-trouble-with-external-validation]The”>The Trouble with External Validation | MIT Admissions)</p>

<p>but hey if another unnamed college which likes quirky essays admitted me, then what does that say about MIT? = personality is shoved upon the applicant by the committee, i don’t shove personality into the committee</p>

<p>never even mind the validation - the hours of practice into violin - which i started because i and my brother saw perlman on the tv, not because my mommy forced me into it - which culminated in bringing the macho spanish sexiness of Lalo into life with the local youth symphony, but hey why should we believe you when all asians force their kids into it - we can just call your counselor and ask for the truth, the Clark Scholars program, USAMO, a paper or 2, civil rights work, the grades and scores</p>

<p>i guess my epic study hall ■■■■■ sessions with the WHITE (cuz white people are important) underclassmen didn’t count; i guess those gazebo parties didn’t count either; those desires to eradicate sexism/racism/homophobia at my school and how it manifested debates with the school community at large/our zine; discussions with teachers on which strokes album was better; those large neighborhood games of oblivion where we enacted nuclear politics/warfare with bouncy balls and chalk and opened dialogue for politics; writing club, where i got to talk to people i didn’t think it was possible to talk to - how our belief systems affect our writing - what does it mean to be a christian in the 21st century?; how i got my dad to stop leaving my family by opening dialogue and crying my balls out/ how familial problems involving patriarchy in chinese american families should be solved at large; trying jazz and making it past the asian bubble and interacting with a bunch of new WHITE cohorts, those conversations on dry vs wet renditions on take the a train, -> how should our band improve etc; and even deep in the grind culture, we appreciate the elegance of probabilistic method and russian combo, the theories of learning which educators face themselves, the never ending debates = now, i’m not saying that anybody who does action X should be admitted, but the case in point, i think a lot of the grind is forced upon the grinder without great reason other than lasting prejudices towards the henry park’s of today</p>

<p>I told myself I wanted to attend MIT when I was 5. Like all fickle children, this desire would go on and off for a quite a while, even up to my rejection, but TO leave and breathe the hack, to do research with my favorite blogger homie Scott Aaronson and investigate the limits of quantum computing, to learn the ways of crafting the perfect immigrant novel with Diaz - to turn my writings, the hopes of 3-4 generations from Mr. Hunt’s weekly writings to something that would be what i wanted to communicate, to have these crazy midnight food binge sessions with friends on East Campus, those early morning runs by the charles river when the sun and its rise is so beautiful as i witnessed itself when i visited, the cantab lounge where we’d go and expound our feelings in the spoken word, mit you were so special, a bastion of dreams, the hogwarts of the post-war age</p>

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<p>What did I just read, exactly?</p>

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<p>I think that mathnerd1’s situation is inexplicable, and it would do no good for me to offer any speculation.</p>

<p>mathnerd1 not only has clear mathematical qualifications, but I have rarely seen so much content and emotion compressed into any post.</p>

<p>I am sorry about the situation, mathnerd1. I didn’t think that I needed a separate category for USAMO-qualified students who were also extremely interesting, but apparently I did need that category.</p>

<p>[Crossposted with luisarose–I spent a while composing this brief message.]</p>

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<p>mathnerd1,</p>

<p>Where will you be attending? Where did you get in? I’m sorry about MIT.
:-(</p>

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<p>I’m confused if mathnerd1 did things out of desire or out of trying to earn a spot somewhere - and frankly, if you did the second, that’s not MIT’s problem. If you did the first, that is the success.</p>

<p>The first article linked reeks of entitlement. If that came across in the application, that can easily explain a rejection.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure I understand PiperXP’s comment in #373. The first article seems to me to be a Princeton undergraduate newspaper article, intended as a parody–it is in exceedingly poor taste.</p>

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<p>What does this mean exactly? </p>

<p>I mean, I can see not wanting to admit people like 3togo interviewed in post #358, but honestly, I think people who would show up to an interview and say those things would be few and far between. At least this is true in the domestic pool, where people are smart enough not to say such things.</p>

<p>Sometimes in a high school, when you ask the kids who the smart kid is, everybody points to one person. There is one kid that is above and beyond everybody else in all subjects. For me, barring anything bizarre like in post #358, I would choose that kid over the other kids for MIT (if we’re choosing among the people from the same high school). Obviously, you have to choose between people from different high schools, but I think this situation of looking at applicants from one high school is a Litmus test of philosophy. For others on this thread, I think they would choose another kid who did pretty well and who emits a certain effervescence or something over the “genius”. </p>

<p>To Luisarose, it’s obvious you were an excellent match for MIT. Understand that people who nitpick about USAMO or MOSP qualifiers’ other interests are much less likely to admit someone with your profile, someone who is obviously very talented but who has no national awards.</p>

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<p>“i think a lot of the grind is forced upon the grinder without great reason other than lasting prejudices towards the henry park’s of today”</p>

<p>“I’m confused if mathnerd1 did things out of desire or out of trying to earn a spot somewhere - and frankly, if you did the second, that’s not MIT’s problem. If you did the first, that is the success.”</p>

<p>What I intended with this plus most of what I wrote was my nagging suspicion that negative stereotypes get hurled onto applicants of certain types despite their levels of “character.” You can make of my intention towards what I did in high school however you want, I’m not here to stop you if you think I’m solely “external validation” oriented. I’d like to say though that your argument could also hold for lurker31413’s story posted a while back, which tended to move everybody’s hearts a bit more.</p>

<p>“The first article linked reeks of entitlement. If that came across in the application, that can easily explain a rejection.”</p>

<p>Everybody I know who got in, even the people I dislike, totally deserve it. They are awesome people. And I’m sure of it for the entire class MIT admitted this year, they are all freaking awesome for a reason.</p>

<p>@sbjdorlo I’ll be attending UChicago, unless I get off Stanford’s waitlist. I was rejected at every other private I applied to (HPYM + Caltech).</p>

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<p>@mathnerd1 I think I see what you meant now. Sorry, I just didn’t parse your other post, and it came across sounding as if you thought that you had deserved MIT because of every tiny detail of your life, but I can see now that’s not what you meant.</p>

<p>I’m sorry that you didn’t get into MIT. I’d advise you not to take it as a rejection of your entire self – your life, experiences, passions, and whatnot – and instead see it as what it is: a highly selective school making a questionable choice about a great candidate. You’ll do great things at UChicago, so don’t worry about MIT.</p>

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<p>I agree … for me it was 1 out of 50 or so interviews. If this applicant met QM’s auto-admit criteria should he be admitted? I’d guess the answer to both of us is obvious … but different … IMO rejecting this applicant is a perfectly reasonable and preferable outcome. (If you have 20,000 applicants there likely will be hundreds of similar applicants)</p>

<p>To me it appears QM is being purposely cute arguing against “fun” and “personality” as a requirement. Another of the kids I interviewed was one of the shyest quietest people I have ever met … until our talk wandered to the subject of science (I believe it was physics) … then the applicant sat up, his eyes lit up, answers came quick and interesting. He wasn’t exactly a future Letterman guest but it was easy to understand what made him click and what he brought to the table … and yes he was admitted.</p>

<p>As an interviewer my goal was to make applicants comfortable and to find topics so we could have a conversation … this worked for almost everyone … however there was a very small sliver of applicants for whom I just could not find a path for them to open up. And frankly, I find it hard to believe that anyone who has interviewed a fair number of folks is having trouble understanding or believing that some small number of applicants fail to present a reason to pick them.</p>

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<p>I am not being “cute” by arguing against personality as a requirement for admission to MIT–at least, not intentionally so. The “fun” part is perhaps a slight exaggeration. But MIT is among the few colleges I have encountered where the application asks what the student does “for fun.”</p>

<p>Admittedly, I have relatively few data points to draw upon: 5 MIT applicants from the local high school that I actually know pretty well, within a 6-year interval + posts on CC about MIT admissions results, since the time I began lurking on CC, a few years before I joined. </p>

<p>However, from those data points, it appears to me that personality does factor into the selection at MIT. Some of the people who were not admitted to MIT were admitted to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. All of those universities have interviews for their applicants. Given the students’ other acceptances, it seems unlikely that they had the kind of interview mentioned by 3togo.</p>

<p>Some of the applicants who have poor interviews may have Asperger’s Syndrome, which may now be classed as high-functioning autism–I know there have been changes in the diagnostic manual, but haven’t paid close attention. No one in my extended family is affected by Asperger’s, but I have empathy for families that are. My viewpoint on admissions, discussed at some length in a thread on the Parents Forum is this: MIT should not artificially limit the per cent of accepted students with Asperger’s Syndrome below the per cent in the population (or not limit the per cent accepted below the per cent among high-school seniors who are qualified for MIT on academic grounds, which is probably higher).</p>

<p>collegealum314 raises an interesting point about one way to observe the “black box” that is MIT admissions, when there are multiple applicants in the same year from a single high school, and one of them does indeed stand out.</p>

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<p>Seriously? Interviewing the kids was pretty easy … ask a few questions until I found a few question that the applicant opened up about. What do you do for fun? What do you do that you find most rewarding? What do you do in your spare time? It’s not complicated. The physics kid did not respond to questions about fun … but he sure did about what he found rewarding and what he did in his spare time. The one I called out earlier did not respond to any question about his internal reason for doing anything.</p>

<p>In the Big Bang Theory thread some CCers mentioned they don’t like the series because they believe the portrayal of Sheldon reflects poorly on people on the spectrum. I don’t know if that is true or not. However I do know, however different Sheldon is from the mainstream, that interviewing him would be easy … it would be easy to find topics in which he has an interest and that he pursues on his own for his own reasons. He may be an odd guy but he certainly interesting in a lot of dimensions. </p>

<p>Frankly, as an interviewer, I found it impressive if someone, for their own internal reasons, pursued unusual passions, without a lot of external reinforcement from their school or society in general … in many ways the kid building robots can be a lot more interesting than the kid who plays soccer … in both cases those the story of why and how they do it can be the really the interesting part.</p>