<p>I don’t think we can bring this discussion with QM to any tidy conclusion. </p>
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<p>It doesn’t matter how you got your screenname. It’s part of your brand now. Embrace it!</p>
<p>I have to agree with lookingforward, #580! </p>
<p>With regard to JHS’s post #578, it’s not a question of the students who were rejected by MIT and re-thought their career options being “discouraged by one setback.” It’s more like a decision to revise their career plans in light of feedback (the admissions decision) that they misinterpreted. I think collegealum314 might have talked them out of their mistaken views in “real time,” since he knew a bit more about how MIT admissions operated than was broadly known at the time.</p>
<p>For purposes of assessing the students’ reaction to this turn of events, it is not relevant that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Chicago, Northwestern . . . used holistic admissions, looking at many aspects of the applicant, and that any sensible person would have known that at the time (however many years ago). In the time frame that was mentioned, it would have been sensible for an applicant to assume that MIT judged on engineering/scientific potential alone, and that they had come up short–they seemed to have weaker potential than a very large number of people.</p>
<p>I don’t even know the students that collegealum314 mentioned, but I find it irritating that people make negative judgments about their resilience, character, and future prospects without actually assessing the specifics of the (unusual) circumstances they faced. Luckily, this problem is unlikely to arise in the future, because many more people understand how MIT admissions actually operates.</p>
<p>If a person wanted to play basketball in the NBA, was not recruited by any NCAA Division I team, and then decided to pursue a different career option, would you say that the person was “discouraged by one setback?” I would not. I would say the person was being realistic about his chances. </p>
<p>Not super-relevant to the discussion, but I just wanted to remark again how impressed I am that apprenticeprof was able to identify the quotation (from Middlemarch) that I was searching for, based on my half-baked representation of it. It is beautiful and meaningful. #550.</p>
<p>a "person wanted to play basketball in the NBA, was not recruited by any NCAA Division I team, and then decided to pursue a different career option, would you say that the person was “discouraged by one setback?” "</p>
<p>The analogy doesn’t work because the NCAA is essentially the only “farm team” for the NBA. MIT isn’t even remotely the only school that serves as a “farm team” for either a career in academia, or the ability to use one’s STEM talents successfully. Can you all stop idolizing? It’s just a very good university. Really. Just like Harvard and Yale and blah blah blah. No bolt of lightning cones down from the heavens when you walk on campus, and angels don’t sing from the heavens either. </p>
<p>I thought MIT sent similar number of people to wall street and consulting compared to other schools. Where is this umbilical cord tieing MIT to academia that no one else seems to know about?</p>
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I think they already are. What is the average family income of a Harvard student again? </p>
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So you think they are intellectual, creative but provincial? Manzi did say that consulting firms such as BCG and Bain screen on SAT scores, something like a minimum of 750 math and a M plus V combine well over 1500 (they prefer 800 and 1550). So you are saying that Pinker and Kuncel are right after all?
For perspective, we have to remember Harvard’s 25%tile range for M+V was only 1390, as posted here on CC.</p>
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I suspect both Rivera and Manzi are right. Some focus on school prestige and some focus on analytical ability. The advantage of an elite degree, as I see it, is that it confers advantages to graduates because employers assume that they must have all done so on merit.
Enjoyed your well-reasoned response, as usual.</p>
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Interesting you choose mental health problems…you do know that they are still not sure if psychotherapy really works?
<a href=“http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media-spotlight/201305/does-psychotherapy-work”>http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media-spotlight/201305/does-psychotherapy-work</a></p>
<p>If the machine can win in Jeopardy, I can not see why it can not beat doctors in diagnosis. When one in 20 cases is misdiagnosed, it is not as though they are infallible. Furthermore, to keep up with all current advances, I have heard estimates of having to devote 160 hours a week to the task. Think about the odds of someone doing that.</p>
<p>“So you think they are intellectual, creative but provincial? Manzi did say that consulting firms such as BCG and Bain screen on SAT scores, something like a minimum of 750 math and a M plus V combine well over 1500 (they prefer 800 and 1550).”</p>
<p>I never said people who go to work at BCG, Bain, McKinsey et al are provincial. For the most part these are exceptionally bright, talented and hardworking people and I wish nothing but success. (Disclosure- I had a job offer from BCG coming out of school, but turned it down.)</p>
<p>I’ve said that people who THINK THAT THE ONLY GOOD JOBS out there are I-banking / mgt consulting are provincial. Just like people who overfocus on a select handful of schools and think that if you don’t get into those schools you might as well flip burgers. </p>
<p>“Some focus on school prestige and some focus on analytical ability. The advantage of an elite degree, as I see it, is that it confers advantages to graduates because employers assume that they must have all done so on merit.”</p>
<p>Yes. This is also known as common sense - my chances of getting a Really Smart person are higher if I recruit at Peinceton vs Tailgate State. This is not a new revelation, I hope. </p>
<p>PG, #584: I think the analogy (NBA vs. STEM academic positions) works based on the odds for continuing with the intended career, and the number of interested and talented people. The analogy has nothing to do with idolizing MIT. It’s purely an issue of numbers.</p>
<p>The students were using their MIT admissions outcomes as a proxy for perceived potential in engineering/science, and trying to figure out where they stood, numerically. If they imagined that MIT admissions ran as it had in the past (back when I was admitted there), then they had a lower bound on the number of people who (they thought) looked more promising than they did. People who had no interest in MIT, and so didn’t apply, or people who went elsewhere, just increased the estimated number of people who would seem more promising, and made their apparent odds of a STEM academic career worse. You don’t have to imagine that there is any linear ranking of people who want to go into STEM academics for their analysis to make sense. The people that MIT admitted could be all over the map on multiple orthogonal axes of qualifications, and there are still too many of them–plus the future STEM academics with no interest in MIT–to make it any more (apparently) rational to pursue a STEM academic career, than it would be for an athlete who would be a walk-on at best to continue planning on an NBA career. I imagine that a few people have succeeded at that, but the odds are poor.</p>
<p>In all likelihood, collegealum314 informed them about the difference between the MIT admissions policy they expected and the one they encountered, and this issue was resolved for them years ago–most likely before they even headed off to college.</p>
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<p>Of course people don’t read their links before posting I suppose. Headline suffices right? </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/ai-system-diagnoses-illnesses-better-than-doctors/”>http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/ai-system-diagnoses-illnesses-better-than-doctors/</a></p>
<p>May be this helps.</p>
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<p>Oh, is this going back to “the poor dears?” They didn’t get into MIT and they are doomed? Can’t we put that one to bed, regardless of whether there is an anecdote or some hair tickling, somewhere? Or some well of empathy waiting to let forth. Be rational. These math-sci geniuses should be able to identify the situation and the numbers. You alternately paint them as oh-so-special and just unable to cope with the realities- and with some complex phrasing tossed in. Or named names. Bottom line: not all great kids can find a spot at a few fierce competition schools. They should be good enough to soldier on. Why so much space devoted to kids using “their MIT admissions outcomes as a proxy for perceived potential in engineering/science?” I expect the best of them to be much better than that. This line of thinking becomes pretty indulgent.</p>
<p>MIT produces many many many great engineers. Very very very very very few go onto become academicians and stay there. It is highly irrational to tie MIT = academia life with zero statistics to show for it.</p>
<p>I had a classmate who did go onto become a faculty member at Kelloggs out of all places (I guess Operations research belongs in b school) and left within one year to work for an airline instead.</p>
<p>The best engineers are not necessarily in academia. Randy Pausch of “The Last Lecture” fame was rejected like 3 times by Disney Imagineering. In his subfield, it was easier to become a computer science prof at Carnegie Mellon than to secure that position.</p>
<p>However, this really has nothing to do with the point. </p>
<p>And the point is no one should be rejected from MIT?</p>
<p>Do you think anyone really outstanding should apply early to his/her first choice? Often the complaints seem to be from parents or acquaintances of students who didn’t get into the college she “should” have gotten into, but I’m never sure if it’s the early or regular round. </p>
<p>For example, the chances of being admitted to Harvard last year were much greater in the early round than the regular round. (leave aside the whole early chances debate.) If you’re an outstanding student in STEM, will other colleges assume you already have a berth at your first choice when they look at your regular round application?</p>
<p>ED is a game that is mostly available to the well-to-do. <em>Knowledge</em> of it is also not very high outside the CC bubble.It It is not a crime or a sin not to have had an ED choice and just to apply to colleges under RD.</p>
<p>And if a college looks at your RD application and second-guesses that “the only reason you’re interested in me is that you clearly ED’d elsewhere and failed,” then they aren’t worth the time of day. They don’t have time for these kinds of stupid games when they are evaluating 30,000 applicants for 2,000 spots. They have to take it at face value – here you are, presenting your best game face, do we want you or not.</p>
<p>It would be as nonsensical as being a hiring manager and assuming that if someone shows up for the job interview that you offer, that the only reason that they are there is because they were too pathetic to get hired elsewhere. </p>
<p>(Except when the RD paperwork comes through with, say, Stanford mentioned in those LoRs and/or an October date. Or the applicant mentions another college by name. Just saying.) </p>
<p>I will probably keep defending the rationality of collegealum314’s friends as long as PG keeps throwing (metaphorical) rocks at them and lookingforward keeps misrepresenting my view as “Oh, the poor dears.”</p>