Yes - I am a math PhD and I find many of the problems very challenging. These competitions can be coached effectively at the highest levels only by experienced coaches. It would not be a fair expectation of a standard high school math teacher.
Anyway, why keep picking on math competitions? What about water polo, fencing and other sports available only in elite high schools? What about writing contests , which are also academic in nature? Those too offer a hook. Or is it because the math contests are dominated by students belonging to non-white demographics (unlike water polo, fencing, writingâŠ) ?
I am to blame for much of the focus on math competitions, because I brought it up and it was a surprise to many about the advantage it provided, whereas I think most people know about the advantages that athletics provides. After all, athletics is one of the known âhooksâ.
Iâm on the extreme fringe here in that Iâd be OK with most sports going away. I hope that as colleges start paying players that those teams transition to developmental leagues for the pros. The rest of the sports can then become true amateur non-scholarship sports. Academics first!
To me, the benefit of MIT is the exposure to fabulous internships, peers with start-up goals and starting jobs. I attended a pedestrian state U and had some NMFs go onto Ivy+ grad schools and solid jobs but international internships, projects and outsized research funding wasnât there.
If national level competitions are used as âgate keepingâ, they certainly arenât doing a good job at that purpose, since the overwhelming majority of persons passing the gate donât participate. Itâs not required or expected. This is especially true for persons who come from backgrounds with less academic opportunities. Both in and out of claasroom activities are considered in the context of what opportunities are available, and how well the student takes advantage of those opportunities.
National competitions are one of countless possible ECs that a student could participate in. The vast majority of these possible ECs have nothing to do with competitions, yet many are still quite impressive and give a notable boost in chance of admission. Many (most?) Ivy+ type colleges also give a boost if the applicant displays good collaborative qualities, including things like supporting and assisting fellow students. These can be as influential or more influential than ECs for many students.
Continuing with the athletics to academics example, they wouldnât only be looking at lacrosse players. Thatâs one of countless possible areas for which top athletes could receive a boost. Theyâd also give a boost to top tennis players, top ping pong players, as well as kids who display other evidence of being excellent athletes without any type of competition.
The point is, like lacrosse, the academic competitions we are off topic about are available in limited locales. The closest lacrosse and the closest math and physics competitions that arenât high school team based are 5 hours away from us.
I might be misreading what you are implying though. IF youâre saying said competitions are but one of MANY options, then I agree.
That depends completely on the school and the student. My son went to a state school, had 4 internships, and was the first new grad hired at a startup that has been featured in Wired, Financial Times and Fast Company.
My point is thatâs not the only possible EC that can give a boost. If you canât do math/physics competitions, then choose a different out of classroom activity that you can do. Few admitted students do math/physics competitions at a high enough level to have a strong influence on admissions, even when limited to HSs that offer such competitions directly. Itâs not required or expected.
For some academic competitions, the student doesnât have to travel at all. As an example, USACO is all online until the contestent makes it to the national team training camp. It doesnât depend on what school the student attends or what club s/he belongs to. And itâs truly cost-free! The same canât be said about most other ECs.
Again, a student canât participate in a competition that they do not know exists.
This is coming from a guy who was all in on digging deep into enrichment activities. Although I tended to focus more on non-academic, life experience activities, I didnât eschew academic pursuits. We had zero clue such things existed.
There will always be some competition you do not know exists. That is ok, no one ever said any particular contest was mandatory, and I still donât know the elite contests in foil, for example. Or Latin. But I am sure there are contests in both,and applicants doing well in them may be more likely to be admitted. Most kids pursue what interests them,with the resources and initiative they have, and that is sufficient.
As @roycroftmom alluded to, interested kids often find out about these opportunities on their own. For example, I didnât know about the aforementioned USACO competition (which didnât exist in my days) until my S took part in it. He became interested in it one year (season) and did well (almost made it all the way that season) but he didnât pick it up again the following year/season because he had other things he was more interested in.
You would expect that more teachers will know about the local competitions than know about the most competitive ones being discussed here. But that is just the first step. Then you have to get kids interested in those local contests. Many wonât be. Having parents to support the process will be a big help. Without support at home, the chances of success decrease significantly even with teacher involvement.
School resources will help too. Years ago my son was in chemistry olympiad. Qualifed for the national test which was 2 hours away from home. Wife and I were figuring out which one of us would take him. Couple weeks before the test, school sends home a letter saying that the school arranged for transportation (driver and chem teacher went with him and 2 other kids who qualified). Without that, my son would still have gone because we took him. How many kids wouldnât have the ability to get there on their own? How many teachers understand that and thus donât push that type of exam/competition?
Seven years ago when my daughter was in 9th grade I used CC to get information about the holistic admission process. I learned about competitions, summer camps and other ECs, and what weight approximately these carry with the AOs. The information turned out to be useful and mostly accurate, and my daughter ended doing some very interesting activities. Nowadays, the same information is packaged by private college counselors and sold for thousands of dollars.
Currently, it seems the focus of CC has shifted from information-sharing to people endlessly debating the merits of this and that activity in what it seems to be an attempt to justify their own childâs approach to HS life and college admission. IMO, the discussion is useful when people share experiences from first account and not when they theoreticize about things they hear about for the first time.
Regarding competitions, I think that the whole admission process is one giant competition as there are more candidates than places. I think that, while AOs care about kidsâ moral character, very rarely people are admitted because they are kind, caring or thoughtful. Kids are admitted because they are better than other kids in something, and the easiest way to prove this is via contests and competitions. DECA competitions, MUN competitions, Scholastic art and writing competitions, selective processes for TASP and various summer camps, popularity contests about who would be student body president or EIC, and countless more where people are ranked and/or given awards. In other countries, kids are ranked based on the results of national standardized college entrance exams. In this country, K-12 quality is too uneven to do that so the flood gates are open to all sorts of other competitions. Anybody who does not want to participate will be at a disadvantage.
And CC still has that, neatly presented, on the list I pointed to earlier in this thread. But it doesnât get much attention, and many people have dismissed the usefulness of that list, certain that it couldnât be right.
I think itâs more that people tend to overrestimate the importance of admission criteria that they can easily quantify and measure, and underestimate the importance of admission criteria that they cannot easily quantify or compare how well they stack up against other applicants. For example, people tend to overrestimate the influence of test scores and underrestimate the influence of LORs. A similar idea seems to occur with types of ECs, it sounds like many in this thread overresimate the importance of participating in contest/competition ECs compared to other types of ECs without a test/competition score.
For example, the Harvard lawsuit mentioned 4 core ratings categories â academics, ECs, personal, and athletics. Iâve seen on this forum that people tend to assume that academics is most influential and personal is least influential. However, the lawsuit regression analysis didnât show this at all. It suggested a similar weight between academics, ECs, and personal; with personal being the one that is most likely to influence decisions since higher 1-2 ratings in personal are less common than in academic and ECs. Personal includes the kind of character qualities you mention.
The influence of academic competitions on MIT admissions has been mentioned in this thread. However, MITâs CDS does not mark ECs as âvery importantâ, nor do they mark stats as very important. The only admission criteria that MIT marks as very important is âCharacter/personal qualities.â Consistent with this, MITâs website states the following on their âwhat we look forâ page. I suspect that like Harvard, MIT rates all applicants in a category related to these character/personal qualities type categories, and it is very influential in admission decisions
Ask any admissions officer at MIT, and they will tell you that while grades and scores are important, itâs really the match between applicant and the Institute that drives our selection process.
Here are the key components:
Alignment with MITâs mission
Remember that there are many ways to make the world betterâweâre not looking for applicants to have cured all infectious disease in the world by the time theyâre 15. Tutoring a single kid in math changes the world. Lobbying a senator to amend bad policy changes the world. There are thousands of examples.
Collaborative and cooperative spirit
The core of the MIT spirit is collaboration and cooperation; you can see it all over the Institute. Many of the problem sets (our affectionate term for homework) at MIT are designed to be worked on in groups, and cross-department labs are very common. MIT is known for its interdisciplinary research. If you enjoy working alone all the time, thatâs completely valid, but you might not be particularly happy at MIT.
Initiative
Opportunities are abundant at MIT, but they must be seized. Research projects, seed money, and interesting lectures arenât simply handed to students on silver platters here. For those students who take initiativeâwho take advantage of whatâs around themâMITâs resources are unparalleled.
Risk-taking
MIT wants to admit people who are not only planning to succeed but who are also not afraid to fail. When people take risks in life, they learn resilienceâbecause risk leads to failure as often as it leads to success. The most creative and successful peopleâand MIT is loaded with themâknow that failure is part of life and that if you stay focused and donât give up, goals are ultimately realized.
Hands-on creativity
MIT is an active, hands-on place. Innovation is risky and messy! Getting your hands dirty and trying something new is often the best way to achieve success. We apply theoretical knowledge to real-world problems here; our Latin motto means âMind and Hand.â In other words, you shouldnât just enjoy thinking, you should also enjoy doing.
Intensity, curiosity, and excitement
In a nutshell, you should be invested in the things that really mean something to you (weâre not particularly picky as to what). Explore! Choose quality over quantityâyou donât have to do a million things to get into college. Put your heart into a few things that you truly care about and that will be enough.
The character of the MIT community
Our community is comprised of people who take care of each other and lift each other up, who inspire each other to work and dream beyond their potential. Weâre looking to admit people who by nature will sustain the qualities of this community.
The ability to prioritize balance
Despite what you may have heard, this place is NOT all about work. To be successful here, you must prioritize some measure of downtime. Therefore, we like to see that youâve prioritized some downtime in high school as well. Question #1 (Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it.) is not a trick question. Answer it honestly.
