<p>Had to reply quickly a while ago (#516), and then had to leave. I fear that in my absence, my viewpoint might have been caricatured to suggest that I think that URM’s are missing among those who are highly qualified for MIT, or that I think it would be ok if the students who failed freshman physics and/or math were all URM’s or women. I hold neither opinion.</p>
<p>Let me state what I do think:
First, I am certain that there are URM’s and women who are among the most highly qualified applicants to MIT, and I am certain that many decide to go there.
Second, I think that MIT ought to structure its curriculum so that everyone who is working and who has the capability to be at MIT will pass the introductory courses the first time through.</p>
<p>I believe that there are many students who are capable of meeting MIT’s level of expectations, but who are poorly served by their K-12 educations. Given the conditions in the schools, I believe that URM’s are disproportionately represented among those who go to inadequate schools, although economically disadvantaged students of all races are more likely than wealthier students to attend inadequate schools. There are a number of schools in the U.S. that do not offer high school physics at all.</p>
<p>It is important for the country to offer opportunities so that our scientists and engineers are broadly representative of America.</p>
<p>This is not accomplished well by throwing students into classes for which they are unprepared. As long as MIT admits students whose 11th or 12 grade SAT math scores are 80-100 points lower than the 7th grade SAT math scores of other students, it is unrealistic to think that both sets of students can be well served by the same general introductory physics class. Ditto for students who have not had any high school physics being grouped with students who had a good high-school physics course, and students who have already had some calculus-based physics. (Quite a few well-prepared students don’t skip introductory physics, I would presume.)</p>
<p>So there are likely to be promising students of all demographic groups who need some time to compensate for the level of their pre-college educations. I think it is better to give them the time to do that.</p>
<p>The military academies have post-high school prep schools to bring students to the level of the regular entering class, since the majority of students take similar curricula, once in the academies. Perhaps Bill Gates or another philanthropist could fund something similar for MIT. Perhaps Harvard could devote some of its endowment to providing advanced prep-school opportunities for promising students who need them; then they could send them down the road to MIT for college. Or perhaps MIT has enough money to fund this on its own. Perhaps a 2+3 arrangement could be worked out with a less-challenging institution, to provide preparatory work, with students who needed prep attending MIT for 3 years. (Caltech used to have such an arrangement with a few colleges; perhaps it still does.)</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone thinks that. We just think you perseverate on certain special snowflakes of your acquaintance that MIT “owes” an admission slot to :-)</p>
<p>Perhaps with summer classes, the standard MIT curriculum could be covered in four years, by underprepared students. Is a summer prep program offered? Is there a lower-level introductory physics class that could be taken before the general introductory physics class? And similarly for math–does MIT offer pre-calculus mathematics? It seems to me that putting students who need some prep into the introductory courses with everyone else, and then having them repeat the classes is the worst way of helping students acquire the preparation they need.</p>
<p>Thanks, Pizzagirl–I do appreciate your remark! I am almost done posting my long disquisition on what I do think. (Thought I would write it before looking at the thread.)</p>
<p>When it comes to students who have both the capability and the background to pass the introductory class, but are failing it because they are not working, or did not start working soon enough—well, I think those students could have been replaced by students whose interest in the subject and work ethic are strong enough that they <em>do</em> work.</p>
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<p>Sounds similar to the weedout year-long intro bio course my post-college roommate survived at the end of his freshman year at Tufts in the early '90s or a similar chem course an older cousin did well in at the end of his freshman year more than a decade before at the same college. </p>
<p>Both mentioned weedout rates of around 50-60% judging by the publicly available final grade reports posted outside the department office in which each student was IDed by social security/student ID number. </p>
<p>It’s also similar to what I observed in the two intro CS major courses I took though the weedout rates were much lower. Granted, the weedouts in those courses were a mix of students who weren’t willing to put in the necessary time and effort and those who flunked due to inadequate math/science preparation in HS. Moreover, unlike the Tufts cases*, my CS profs were much more proactive in trying to help all of us…but unfortunately it wasn’t enough for the ones who flunked. </p>
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<li>The roommate and cousin both said the attitude of their respective intro bio/chem profs was students were to “sink or swim” on their own merits.</li>
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<p>I really dislike weedout courses, and would never teach one. The students who are struggling because of poor background are disadvantaged for something that’s not their fault in any way. The students who are not doing well, but aren’t “struggling” because they aren’t working on the course–well, I’d rather they weren’t admitted to demanding schools to begin with, frankly. Obviously, I’d make an exception for students who have to work to put themselves through school and simply don’t have the time needed for the class, if they are taking a normal load–back to my 5-year suggestion.</p>
<p>UChicago has a preppish program called CAAP. It allows students to acclimate to UChicago courses over the summer for free and ensures students have strong mentorship and guidance during the school year (extra tutor hours, special seminars, 3 class courseload requirement).</p>
<p>Looks like Bov’s telepathy device works, after all.</p>
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Let’s bash the professors! Yea! Pizzagirl I was so with you before. 
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<p>One of my Ivy-educated colleagues showed me his Honors Electricity and Magnetism (Physics II) notebook from college. It was at pretty much an upperclass/graduate level. There was no way I could have survived such a class at that point. Part of the reason Snowflake picked this elite school is because they are somehow better/more challenging/more on his/her level than State U or other more moderately paced University. If the incoming student can’t handle it, he/she should be somewhere else.</p>
<p>I’m not bashing the professors, Sylvan. I’m just being a little tongue-in-cheek here.
I couldn’t have survived Physics 101 taught by anyone, even QM :-)</p>
<p>^Lol, I’d like to believe that anyone who puts in a sincere modicum of effort can survive my Physics 101 course. Some of my students would probably disagree…</p>
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<p>The vast majority of people I know that struggled with introductory physics and calculus to the point of failing would not have failed if they had just spent more time studying, or sought out help from all the tutoring services out there. This was mentioned before I think, but the first semester at MIT is Pass/No Record, so if you fail, your grade doesn’t even show up on your transcript. This encourages some people to not try as hard as they should.</p>
<p>Also, MIT offers many different options to fulfill the introductory physics requirement. Just among the first semester mechanics courses, there are three versions of physics ranging from less challenging to more challenging. A significant amount of people are able to skip out of this class, and start in classes like 8.02, 8.03, or 8.09 depending on their previous background in physics (you can see course descriptions here - [Spring</a> 2013 Course 8: Physics](<a href=“http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m8a.html]Spring”>IAP/Spring 2024 Course 8: Physics)). Others with enough physics in high school and aren’t intending on being pre-med or being in a physics related major might never take physics at MIT. Maybe this way of doing things is inferior to assigning each student a tutor so that they can learn physics at the optimal rate for them, but I think MIT is doing pretty well.</p>
<p>MIT also has a summer program called Interphase, which is intended to prepare those whose high school backgrounds are significantly lacking.</p>
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If I financed a my own private school 3ToGo U I would give my admissions office guidance that they are NOT to line applicants up purely by their academic credentials taking those most likely to do well at 3ToGo U. I would have other goals for some of 3ToGo U’s admissions slots … I believe there is more leverage of some slots by taking some risky admits … kids from tough backgrounds who maybe have less rigorous academic backgrounds but that have shown the potential to do fine at 3ToGo U. If this strategy was followed some non-trivial % of these applicants would not succeed at 3ToGo U … and if they all did succeed at my school we were not taking enough chances on these students.</p>
<p>Maybe MIT has a somewhat similar approach to admissions and would consider all admits succeeding as a failure of their admissions process as much as that sounds counter intuitive.</p>
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<p>Right. It would say they weren’t taking chances. Frankly isn’t that a life approach / style in general? You don’t get anywhere if all you do are the “guaranteed to work” things.</p>
<p>I just smile and say, “Who can explain it?” and then go on to talk about a topic of mutual interest, or at least one I think the speaker wants to talk about. It’s pretty irrelevant WHY one student is admitted and another is rejected. Also emphasize that Us are MUCH more competitive than ever and can be pretty inexplicable in their decisions. Dwelling about it serves no useful purpose.</p>