<p>Did she sent her own children to a top 20? Until people are willing to practice what they preach, it is all hot air to me.</p>
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<p>Actually this idea has been bandied around here for a long time, much to my chagrin. I was not even thinking of you when I made the comment.</p>
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<p>New Money. I can see where the drive and the stridency come from. I can also see where the motivation to maintain the status quo comes from. I can not see anything close to “wins the lottery” though.</p>
<p>Hi
It was explained, I think. Applying from non east coast but not asking for financial aide dollars ED (s?) are hooks.
Or are you asking about other students with no hook?</p>
<p>I am not saying that is the same thing as new money. Because new money does not make them upper middle class (WASP?) in this particular discussion, or does it?</p>
<p>I have to say that lookingforward is right, that I do not know how admissions works. I understand that they have a difficult job.</p>
<p>Looking around on the MIT Admissions site (the current one), I found this remark:
I cannot imagine any human process, no matter the size of the committee, that would “ensure that every decision is correct.” If I made that claim about my own department, people would still be howling with laughter (or fighting) an hour later.</p>
<p>There are also links on that page to posts by Ben Jones, the former Director of Communications for the admissions office at MIT. He is no relation to Marilee Jones. I regret that the name “Jones” comes up again. However, I think that his posts bear close reading to understand what MIT valued in those days. </p>
<p>Just speaking of my experience, but I believe that shifts in institutional culture tend to take quite a while, especially when the people who have contributed to the culture are still there, as in some cases they are, at MIT.</p>
<p>I think the people who support holistic admissions and socioeconomic and racial preferences do so because they think these practices are better for society. People who advocate a narrower approach to admissions and oppose socioeconomic and racial preferences also think those practices are better for society, but sometimes they are accused of being obsessed with getting their offspring into a top school or of being part of a conspiracy to suppress the poor.</p>
<p>Rather than retreating into the “correct <em>in its context</em>” part of the statement (shades of “inoperative”), MIT would gain a great deal more credibility with me if they just wrote, “Hey, occasionally we make mistakes. We do the best we can, and we do a pretty good job overall.” I am happy to believe that.</p>
<p>If I said, oh the top 20 schools are no big deal, it’s all the same, whatever, and my kids themselves had been rejected from that “level,” then yeah, that would come across as sour grapes. Look, I think elite schools are great. But they don’t “place” tomorrow’s leaders; they want to identify those kids they think are leaders, but they don’t claim to be infallible, they don’t have magical links to elite government or CEO jobs. And anyone applying to such schools should treat it as a lottery and not feel entitled to anything. The continued whininess and entitlement on CC gets tiresome. Who has time to resent rich kids, legacies, athletes, URMs and the like?</p>
<p>QM, this is where you get literal again. What makes you think MIT claims that they are infallible? Of course they do the best job they can and do a good job overall.</p>
<p>“New Money. I can see where the drive and the stridency come from. I can also see where the motivation to maintain the status quo comes from. I can not see anything close to “wins the lottery” though.”</p>
<p>I thought it was the Richie McCoddleton Wallingford Huddlesworth IVs who were the ones desperately trying to maintain the status quo and resenting that handshakes from the headmaster don’t cut it anymore.</p>
<p>QM! There is not one “Platonic form” of MIT’s entering class. You’ve got 25K applicants and 2K spots; there are multiple “correct” choices. You seem to imply that there are only a true deserving specific 2K and MIT ought to find just them.</p>
<p>MIT has up on its official Admissions web page that they “ensure that every decision is correct in the context of the overall applicant pool.” I distrust claims of infallibility. This reads to me like one. The rest of the description does not seem like a literary work.</p>
<p>Yes, Pizzagirl, #910, I see your point–had temporarily forgotten that aspect of your views. Can’t think how I could have forgotten it. Normally, my memory is infallible.</p>
<p>I am planning a brief set of connected posts, relating to one of the statements by Ben Jones that is linked on MIT’s Admissions web site, “Many Ways to Define ‘The Best’”</p>
<p>Here is the excerpt:
I think that if you reflect on this, particularly considering the use of the word “frequently” and “often” to say nothing of the rhetorical tone of “gazillion,” you may reach the same conclusion that I reached: An applicant with these qualities is running up against a stereotype (or at least the applicant was, although the page is still officially linked). The applicant “frequently” may need to do something extra to persuade admissions that he/she is not a grind–something that the fortunate student with a 2310 SAT, 3.91 GPA and only half a gazillion AP classes does not need to do.</p>
<p>If I were a student applying to MIT now, with 2400/2400, 4.0 UW, and quite a few AP’s, I would be concerned about this indicator of bias. I would also be concerned if I belonged to a group that could be stereotyped as “grinds.” That seemed to be a term in common use in MIT Admissions. Not in a good way.</p>
<p>Oh yes, texaspg, as I said, I don’t quarrel with the admission of specific students. Clearly molliebatmit brought a lot of talent to MIT, and found a good match.</p>
<p>I have to say that quite a lot of my professional life has involved quite a lot of grinding. I think it’s inescapable in most scientific fields. The grinding was punctuated with weeks of ecstatic happiness about a discovery.</p>
<p>One of the MIT faculty members I know well remarked to me once that he liked to spend all of his time in the lab, because he could not think of anything he would rather be doing. Another colleague of his commented to me that he saw my friend in the lab at all hours of the day, all days of the week, except for Sunday mornings. I think the only reason that he did not see my friend there on Sunday mornings was that the person making the remark was not there then–not that my friend was not there then.</p>