<p>Very simple questions to those claiming that I am “immature” or “racist” why is it nearly impossible to be admitted to MIT these days as a white, male from the northeast? Add, from a public HS, and the odds be very close to zero. </p>
<p>Ever notice how those who benefit under skewed definitions of a MERITOCRACY as some of the few who defend it. Take a look at some of the low scores and resumes of the kids in the accepted threads here and check out the correlation to URM. There was a time I supported affirmative action, but it is now 2013, 30- 40 years into it. If we leveled the playing field and still end up with URMs what would that data point indicate?</p>
<p>The statement that this poor behavior does not reflect on the character of MIT is silly. Are you suggesting the coaching staff is rogue, come on. They are as much a part of the institution as the admission office staff.</p>
<p>Then why is it that in the MIT Class of '17 group of Facebook, there are plenty of white males from the northeast?</p>
<p>Do you ever think anyone, not just URMs, post their WHOLE resume on CC? Maybe they don’t want to be identified on the internet?</p>
<p>There’s no need to get into affirmative action because you don’t understand that there’s not much a boost in the admissions game due to skin color.</p>
<p>You haven’t proven to anyone here that you’re not immature or racist.</p>
<p>Alright, I try not to take flame bait whenever possible, but this is too frustrating.</p>
<p>waspeaceforall, you need to think before you insult something like 50% of MIT’s admitted students. Women and URMs at MIT are NOT underqualified to attend. If they were, they wouldn’t be admitted. I’m a girl admitted to MIT, and I have a perfect ACT score, took math through multivariable calculus by the time I was 16, hold down 2 jobs, have taken 7 AP classes and 4 college classes, and participate in/lead 5 major extracurricular activities. But apparently I was only admitted because I’m a girl?</p>
<p>Your ignorance is embarrassing for yourself and your child. All MIT accepted students are qualified. So are many non-accepted students, but that’s just the way it is. MIT picks a diverse team of students, yes, but they pick them from one of the strongest applicant pools in the country. I’m sorry your son didn’t get accepted, but please stop taking your anger out on the students who DID get in.</p>
<p>Because honestly, we don’t care whether or not <em>you</em> find us worthy of MIT. What matters is that MIT considered us worthy and a good fit for the Class of 2017.</p>
<p>Edit: Also,</p>
<p>“If we leveled the playing field and still end up with URMs what would that data point indicate?”</p>
<p>Are you seriously suggesting that 40 years of half-hearted affirmative action (which is counteracted, of course, by socioeconomic barriers and prejudice) should have completely made up for about 250 years of slavery in American and HUNDREDS of years of prejudice/domination?</p>
<p>I have a hard time believing that the coach did not provide a lot of caveats along the way.
He knows he is not a coach at a Pac10 school who would have a lot of say with the admissions department.</p>
<p>We had this type of experience at a different school in which we were told 10 variations of “I can put in a good word, but…”. We heard that and paid a lot of attention to the “but…” and understood it for what it was: “a good word”.</p>
<p>I’ll state what I already said on the thread. The question isn’t “Did you achieve the most?” It’s “Given what you had, what did you do with it?”</p>
<p>^ That is better phrasing! I guess what I’m getting at is that, since they don’t have a crystal ball, they’ll look at past instances of you doing the thing they want.</p>
<p>Maybe but only if you are trying to count specific discrete stats that favor that individual. Those “accomplished” students are not necessarily more “qualified.”</p>
<p>Let me tell you about some of the students with the mile long “laundry list of accomplishments” I’ve encountered in interviews:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>disdainful of their classmates. In one case the applicant made fun of his girlfriend and the fact that she had to work and had more “B’s”. Three weeks later I met the girlfriend. Didn’t figure it out until close to the end of the interview. That “weak” student had started two substantial clubs, worked an outside job because of family economics, took care of the siblings (cooked, helped with homework) , and she studied until late at night to keep up. Had a clear vision of her goals for science, contacted professionals in her spare time to shadow. The straight “A” boyfriend bragged about being so smart he could open a book the day before a test and ace it. Couldn’t articulate any real reason why he was a fit other than he was smart and it was a forgone conclusion. Want to guess which one was accepted? (and for the record, neither were URMs or urban in case someone wants to apply that label erroneously).</p></li>
<li><p>Or how about the kid who leaned over a table and told me he had many offers from state colleges and insisted I sell him on MIT?</p></li>
<li><p>Or how about the kids who have traveled abroad but can’t tell me a single thing about the cultures, the nuances in language, the contrasts to our own culture? </p></li>
<li><p>How about the students who have been prepped for years, have perfect grades and perfect stats but only do whatever a teacher or adult told them to do. And can’t articulate anything that lead them to be passionate about engineering?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I have a thousand ways to figure out if a student has been coached or prepped (been doing this for thirty years). I know who is full of BS or just read some basic stats to throw out at me. My husband, also an Adcom for another competitive program is fascinated by all the “accomplishments” and hobbies he hears about but when he asks detailed questions about them the student stammers upon finding out that my husband is also accomplished in several of those fields. </p>
<p>So yes - there are some students who are rejected who might be more “accomplished” than someone who is accepted. But the accepted student is often deemed more likely to flourish and contribute on campus. As opposed to the rejected student who showed up two hours late for an interview and then plays with his/her phone and answers text messages from friends because apparently the interview is just a “formality” (hint - it isn’t. ) Or had a laundry list of things just to pad a resume and couldn’t speak in depth on any one of the items.</p>
<p>I would rather recommend an imperfect but interesting, passionate applicant for admissions, then an arrogant, overly coached, or entitled one any day.</p>
<p>Perfect scores and grades don’t make a candidate qualified. A passionate pursuit of something they find interesting does. And even then, there isn’t enough room for them all. So apply to a wide variety of schools to maximize your chances of getting matched to one of them. IMHO.</p>
<p>^All this is true, but there is no denying that the process is imprecise, perhaps more due to factors on the applicants’ end than on the other (i.e. the admissions committee).
I do find that most everyone–applicants, parents, teachers–are dismissive of admissions officers’ abilities to, well, make the right choice. My mom has this book called A is for Admission lying around which has been as popular as it has been because, in my opinion, it denigrates the admissions officers as people unable to see the true brilliance of the applicants (yes, people love to have their egos fed–just look at the reviews for it on amazon). It really isn’t the case. Everyone I’ve interacted with during this process has been far more perceptive than I would have expected.
And if, next Thursday, I don’t get in somewhere, it’ll most likely be because I wasn’t deserving or because I didn’t give the admissions committees an accurate picture of myself (i.e. poorly written application). The reason people are most fond of (other than those stupid sayings about “being qualified” but… uh… not making the cut) is the harsh randomness inherent in the process. I really don’t think this is the case.</p>
<p>Piper and ExieMITAlum, I’m just saying that the admissions process is imperfect and pretty unfair in some cases. I’m not complaining about that I’m just saying that just because you got into MIT doesn’t mean you’re necessarily more likely to flourish there than someone who didn’t get into MIT. It’s random. It’s a 13 page application. </p>
<p>Also, if you’re telling me that I somehow am portraying an applicant who feels entitled, then you’re pretty far off the mark. I’m not going to invoke personal experiences of how cruelly unfair the admissions can seem at times but my entire point was that the admissions process IS random and no matter what MIT’s goal might be in selecting a class, they will not entirely achieve it. </p>
<p>Honestly, i’m just tired of myself and other rejectees being told that “we wouldn’t have flourished as well” at MIT, because I know kids who have been accepted there, I know kids who go there, and I know myself. It’s insulting and very demotivating to be told that.</p>
<p>llazar,
I agree with you that MIT’s admissions are not strictly meritocratic anymore. Caltech seems to be more meritocratic. I know a number of kids from my town who were either accepted or rejected by MIT. I know enough of their background to conclude that girls have a higher probability to be admitted, given the same achievements. If you look at their common data set, you can easily calculate that in 2016 30% of the applicant pool were girls and close to 50% of those who were admitted were girls. I doubt girls in the pool were that much stronger to more than double their chances, given that those girls who I know were admitted over some really bright, accomplished, personable, high potential boys. </p>
<p>However, I’m not saying all girls are weaker candidates. I know a girl who is as good as LuisaRose seems, and this girl’s life is a testament to her high potential. Both are definitely top candidates. What I’m saying is that it seems to me some of the admitted girls are not as good as some of the rejected boys, and the likelihood is better for girls. And I’m not just talking about grades, ECs, and test scores. I know who these kids are and what they have achieved. </p>
<p>If an EC can claim that he or she can figure out a candidate after one hour conversation, then I believe I can make a more informed judgement knowing the kids I’m taking about since early childhood.</p>
<p>I’m a mother and have been interested in STEM since early childhood, and my occupation is a STEM area. So I’m very supportive of girls in STEM and advocate for starting early and creating opportunities. If MIT has decided to give more opportunities to girls for whatever reason (e.g., 50-50 class ratio) that’s totally their business, but they can’t claim anymore that they select the best of the best.</p>
<p>I got this line from someone else so I can’t take credit.</p>
<p>“The process is fair but it is not deterministic.”</p>
<p>Everyone gets a shot and the criteria is well established (see the blogs). But that does not mean that if you have SAT Score of X, GPA of Y, ECs of quality Z, and recommendations of quality W that you can do some math and determine with certainty whether or not someone will be admitted much less “should” be admitted.</p>
<p>“Honestly, i’m just tired of myself and other rejectees being told that “we wouldn’t have flourished as well” at MIT”</p>
<p>It would surprise me if anyone says or actually thinks this. I know that we feel that my S was very lucky – he won the lottery last year; yes, he worked hard too, but we knew it was such a small chance for anyone, no matter what you’ve accomplished, to be accepted. And I think that he and his MIT friends feel similarly. My S has some brilliant friends who are at wonderful universities all over the world. When admissions rates are so low, as they are at some other top schools as well, there are many, many equally qualified students, and many students who are turned away ONLY because there is not enough room. Not because you are not as qualified or will not succeed. If you are a candidate at MIT, there are some equally wonderful schools where you’ll be successful.</p>
<p>Reading this thread makes me a little uncomfortable. I’m a girl going into engineering with low stats compared to those who are typically admitted (2160 SAT I; 660 and 760 SAT II) but that doesn’t make me under qualified… I emailed my EC after I was admitted and thanked him, but I also mentioned I was shocked I got in. He then told me that it was no mistake that I was admitted, MIT really saw something in me. Yeah, I know MIT accepts a higher percentage of girls, but I doubt that’s the reason I got in over the two boys and one other girl that applied from my school. You can say some boys got rejected that are more qualified than me, but how can you make that judgement when you don’t know what the admissions are looking for? I particularly like MIT’s admission process and I’m not just saying that because I got in. I was saying that before I got in because MIT gives kids like me with lower stats a chance. Typically schools like ivies will automatically deny me because Alls they see is my lower stats and two essays. But what they don’t really see is my personality and passionate work ethic and more and I’m thankful MIT works hard to see the real person behind the application. I think that’s better than just accepting the top of the top ranked students.</p>
<p>Yes, there are kids that are rejected that deserved to get admitted to MIT, but all schools have to make a cut off at some point. But don’t say the boys that got cut off are more qualified than the girls admitted. I feel like girls that have the passion to apply show that they are qualified just by being interested in a typically male-dominated field. So so what that more girls are admitted and “given a chance,” over boys that got cut off, those boys are the wait listed ones. MIT girls deserve their acceptances over the quote “more qualified” boys, they have the confidence and determination to prove themselves in the STEM field especially when people are still sexist and believe boys are automatically smarter at STEM subjects than girls are.</p>
<p>Well…I wont comment much on this…I was rejected:)(yes with a smile)…and what I felt is that yes…as an Asian and esp. as an Indian I did fall into a very very competitive pool…but I still knew that I had a shot because as all you guys said I did everything I could in my context…
But here’s the catch…from India(only India) actually every year MIT selects only International Olympiad winners or ISEF/GSF winners and 1 seat is given off as a sort of lottery ticket to the next qualified…Now I never knew of ISEF/GSF till I joined CC in November…and also I never had anybody to teach me or to look up to in terms of understanding complex mathematical situations which is essential to solving/making it to international olympiads…And this is not only for me but for everyone in South India…People near IIT’s often get that sort of help…which gives them an edge.</p>
<p>Now Im not saying that the process is cruel(I don’t think I was the best candidate around either)…but its not based on context as is always said to be so. I did a lot of interesting stuff in my school days and wanted to extend that work into college without there being a break…That’s why I applied…I know there are many other such schools.but there was something special about MIT:)…you can say that there isn’t but that’s not going to change my opinion.</p>
<p>Alright, this forum has beaten this topic to death about a thousand times now so I’ll just briefly restate what has been said by the admissions staff:</p>
<p>MIT does not require International Olympiad medals for anyone, including internationals and Indians. However, when there are so many countries to represent, it isn’t possible to give more than a few spots to any single nation outside of America, so that’s why there are so few Indians/Nepalese/Taiwanese/whatever admitted each year.</p>
<p>But there are lots of applicants from India. And many of them have medals. The ones with IO medals usually tend to be great in school, have high test scores, be driven & passionate, and generally have lots of success and potential – all unrelated to their medals.</p>
<p>An IO medal is not required, but in most cases, the best of the best from India and other international countries have IO medals. By coincidence. That’s why they get admitted – because they had the best applications overall, and NOT because of their medals.</p>