<p>Tpg, how many classes in the IB program get the maximum score multiplier that help boost the GPA beyond 4.0? Isn’t the answer … all of them in your district?</p>
<p>It could have changed --and should have-- but that was the case in my ancient days.</p>
<p>In our school IB and AP are weighted exactly the same. IB points are totally separate and have a totally separate transcript, and do not impact the GPA.</p>
<p>Right, I am talking high school, too. I believe that I have a reasonably good basis for assessing the scientific potential of a very unusual high school student, based on my knowledge of very strong students further along in the pipeline, and of strong scientists in the early career stage.</p>
<p>It takes quite a lot to amaze me.</p>
<p>I understand. (And I know some of this is thinking it out.) But, you see through one end of the lens. You said before you don’t see the larger pool of appplicants. And, other than qmp’s friends, I’m assuming the kids you see are mostly now in college, right? You see their brainpower, learning speed, ideas, and more. That’s also specific to your specialty. What if 100 kids from one city or sub-area were similarly qualified? And, do you have a sense that the kids MIT (this example) does take are less than the kids you know?</p>
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If I understand what QuantMech is saying, finding a hundred kids similarly qualified in one area would bring down a cadre of researchers to find out what was in the water ;). The ones who are “way out there” are much sparser than that.</p>
<p>Oh yeah! You get what I am saying, sylvan8798!</p>
<p>The hs students that I knew moderately well have all graduated from college by now. My estimation of the one student in particular continues to be supported by later successes.</p>
<p>Haha, I actually get it, too. But the point is there are tons of highly qualified kids with straight A’s, research, enrichment, DE, Ap 5’s in tough subjects, even tough ones taken in 10th- and LoRs reporting how rare and special they are. Not all can fit. Even if QM finds a lot in Hilbertia or beyond, they are not always exactly what the college wants.<br>
Remember the volume of competition. And, how MITChris says they need kids who will be great roommates and friends, engaged on campus, etc, as well as brilliant in the classroom and lab.</p>
<p>I’m just offering the perspective. Some kids miss out becuase of the institutional factors, some because something in their app (theirs or an LoR or interview) suggests [whatever] that drops their competiveness, maybe there are too many other super kids from that area, maybe this kid is lopsided- whatever. At some point, we have to say, it is what it is. Especially for private colleges.</p>
<p>My D1 s a college senior and I still say that Ivy’s profs would have loved working with her. But, they took others, plenty from our area.</p>
<p>I am willing to grant that there are “tons of highly qualified kids.” There are not tons of brilliant kids, however, as long as “brilliant” keeps its meaning.</p>
<p>The thing is that X was eventually admitted to MIT from the waitlist, and went there. So there’s no speculation about how MIT would have gone. There is also no speculation about X’s engagement on campus, as well as performance in the classroom, undergraduate research, internships, and now beyond that. It’s a matter of record.</p>
<p>There’s a line in “Good Will Hunting” where the professor, a Fields medalist, says that he is one of a handful of people who can tell the difference between himself and Matt Damon’s character (who was light years ahead of the Fields Medalist.)</p>
<p>The more talent and experience you have in a given area, the easier it is for you to see who is . I went to school with people who had national awards in math and science. It was quite clear to me who had the ability to move the field forward and who didn’t. And I expect that it is relatively easy for QM to have an eye for talent; same way a basketball scout can look at a kid in a gym and see him do some stuff that is special. Every year there are college bball players who has impressive scoring averages; a scout can easily evaluate who’s legit and who isn’t. It takes a trained eye. And even when adcoms attempt to evaluate for intellectual ability, it seems like they don’t really do a good job. Let’s not quibble on this last point; it is my opinion. However, it should tell you something when a tenured professor in physical chemistry sees it the same way I do.</p>
<p>Another problem is that people don’t understand the significance of this difference. Who cares? It’s like the difference between having a glass of water 15/16 full and 99/100 full to them. It appears obsessive compulsive to say there is a difference. However, in reality, this difference is more about demonstrating potential for imagination and creativity; the potential to do exciting things rather than just be good enough to understand prior work and be competent in the field. That is what is exciting. And this is what is frustrating when people characterize those who are trying to prepare themselves for creative work in the future as grinds. It is exactly the opposite. The other problem is that people mistake personal flamboyance for creativity.</p>
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<p>But a freshman class of those trying to prepare themselves for creative work in the future might make for an unbalanced freshman class.</p>
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<p>This really only comes into play if (1) the student is not in a school with talented peers, (2) does not have people experienced in the field to evaluate them for future professional promise, or (3) who has not distinguished themselves nationally either through some competition or some other feat.</p>
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<p>Oh it is undeniable that there are many different paths for schools to adopt. My example, or better stated, my query was for TPG who has a very recent and very vivid memory of the various ways in which Texans navigate and … shall we say maximize the curriculum, starting in middle school. Even students who find attending one of the Texas flagships beneath their academic level find themselves immersed in the GPA/Class rank game that is rewarded by an auto-admission. </p>
<p>Just as it undeniable that the IB salespeople found a fertile terrain in Texas (and a couple of other states that have a paint-by-the-numbers admission system and did EXPLOIT the willingness if not gullibility of the administrators, only to be followed by hordes of families who found the combination of separating the chiff from the chaff and getting that most helpful GPA crutch that dwarfed the Honors and AP course … absolutely irresistible. Not to mention that an across the board boost could be avaliable for classes that were hardly part of the IB Diploma Program. The best recruiting tool was none other than offer full GPA boost to the entire program regardless if the class was one of the light offering masquerading as pre-IB or IB SL.</p>
<p>And, of course, most teachers offered their support to a program that would allow them to focus on the “good and dedicated heads” and depending on the largesse of their districts reap the small financial rewards associated to becoming a prized IB fanboy. </p>
<p>And it worked. Unfortunately.</p>
<p>Now, really, where is all this going? Quant knows 1-2-27 kids she thinks should have been recognized earlier or by better colleges and c.alum agrees specialists should have a hand. And I’m one voice (one of the few voices) saying, what you see is not the be all and end all and then you go back and say but… Of course I agree the best should have the opps that will foster them. Of course we have specialists look at the ones who have the stats, rigor, experiences, seeming promise and all. But we are not on a search for outliers. We are not looking for the Good Will Hunting kid. Should MIT and Caltech? Another thread, perhaps. Maybe you can get MITChris to argue his persepctive. I only quote him.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that CC users frequently definitively state that admissions is a lottery, that an adcom will dismiss a kid at will or after a sleepless night. Bear in mind, the rare sorts we may be discussing here may not have appeared so hot in December of their senior hs year, aside from signs of brilliance. Life skills, sociability, maturity, judgment skills, interest in others, how one works on a team, and, and…where do you put those qualities? They are equally important in determining how a kid will fit in the context of the whole.
I don’t want to go back to the MIT should admit based on stats/testing argument. </p>
<p>You’re talking “brilliance” and I’m coming from the holistic side, which also values a string of personal qualities. Aside from the issue of many, many highly qualified kids applying is the fact that many of these 17 year olds, even when pre-professionally brilliant, struggle with their apps. By all means, get a look at the apps, vol to be the dept rep. Go for it.</p>
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<p>We’ve had this discussion before, however. TOp colleges are not looking solely to enroll brilliant people. If they wanted to do that, they’d have much higher acceptance rates among 2400’s, valedictorians, and so forth. But they don’t. They want to build an interesting class of really smart people, not a class of the-mostest-brilliant-out-there. What is so difficult to understand?</p>
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<p>But it doesn’t matter what you think MIT <em>should</em> do. It only matters what MIT thinks it <em>should</em> do.</p>
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<p>One gets the sense that for some, raw brains are all that counts, even if those raw brains come in a package that is juvenile, alienating, rude, coarse, can’t get along with others, arrogant, etc.</p>
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To this I would add that we value more in the “product” of this fabulous education than just the student who goes on to work in some brainiac position. The people who become the movers and shakers and just plain workers are as important to keeping the world running as is some brainiac in an ivory tower somewhere. Even collecting the garbage is important to keeping life sane for the rest of us. </p>
<p>The most brilliant student I have come across in my years in academia is now an Ivy professor studying cosmology and string theory. Nothing wrong with that, but arguably not leading to world peace anytime soon.</p>
<p>QM -
I know you’ve spoken about this one student many times but I don’t believe you’ve ever given any specifics about what was in her (I think it was a young lady) application that you believe should have made her stand out as so strikingly superior to the appicants accepted in the first round. If you can tell us. You’ve spoken so often and so vehemently about this person, I’m really curious.</p>
<p>It’s possible I just missed it.</p>
<p>I know you’ve spoken about a student winning USAMO or something, but I thought that was just hypothetical.</p>
<p>Qm- your pov makes no sense in a country like America. MIT is NOT the national university for science, engineering and technology. If it were, then clearly they screwed up by not admitting the prodigy you know and cite. Since it’s not, they get to fill their seats anyway they want. </p>
<p>MIT has its own institutional priorities. Some years, it looks similar in some ways to that of Caltech, and there will be a lot of overlap in cross-admits. Some years though it looks more like Stanford or Harvard or Princeton in its cross-admits. Some years kids get into MIT but get rejected from Harvard and vice versa.</p>
<p>If the faculty gets disgusted by the low quality of students who get admitted, they will answer the phone the next time they get courted by Harvard or industry or a university in Dubai or Korea looking to bolster its faculty in their discipline. Top faculty at a place like MIT don’t have to stick if they think the students are stupid and underqualified- and most of the time, their research grants would follow them.</p>
<p>So for every 3 or 5 or 10 kids that MIT misses in one particular year- JHU or CMU or Caltech or UIUC or U Michigan catches a star. Sounds to me like the system works pretty great. There is zero evidence that the star kids that MIT is rejecting are ending up majoring in leisure studies at Southern CT State college instead of doing ground-breaking intellectual work at MIT. Zero evidence. So a kid gets rejected from MIT and flexes his or her muscle at a peer institution. I fail to see the problem or why this is a big deal.</p>
<p>I would save my ire for the kid who COULD be at MIT or UIUC or Michigan who is trapped in a failing HS where the last physics teacher retired five years ago and has never been replaced and where the highest math taught is Trig and most kids graduate reading at an 8th grade level. That’s where your irritation should be- the wasted minds of a generation who never even get access to the tools that would allow them to contribute to science. But a kid who has to “settle” for Berkeley or Georgia Tech because they were denied at MIT? Yawn.</p>
<p>" It takes a trained eye. And even when adcoms attempt to evaluate for intellectual ability, it seems like they don’t really do a good job. Let’s not quibble on this last point; it is my opinion. However, it should tell you something when a tenured professor in physical chemistry sees it the same way I do."</p>
<p>If MIT professors are unhappy with the caliber of what they receive, let them storm the adcom doors and insist on different criteria. Til then, I’m going to assume that MIT’s adcoms reflect the institutional needs and desires of MIT. If they didn’t they be fired.</p>