<p>I’ll bet you that few of the people who fail that intro Physics course end up flunking out of MIT. They may also be people who are good at something else that interests MIT admissions.</p>
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<p>Even if your parents are rich enough to own a home in a school district where lots of AP courses are offered, you have to be smart enough and hard-working enough to do well on the exams, so it’s not “solely” SES that is being rewarded. Caltech requires applicants to have taken calculus before entering. Is Caltech crass?</p>
<p>If you don’t think I am a person of substance, I must be ethereal. Thanks.</p>
<p>No opinions on Caltech. It’s a niche specialty school so I don’t consider it any more relevant to most students than Juilliard. They can require whatever they like as far as I’m concerned. They needn’t answer to me. I do enjoy Prof Sheldon Cooper though.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I totally agree! He’s brilliant, but there were plenty of reasons to reject him as well as plenty of reasons to accept him. He landed on his feet, he’s in his dream job. I have no reason at all to complain. He never looked back.</p>
<p>I love Caltech even though I’m no scientist. When we visited my then 8th grader said it would be perfect if only you didn’t have to want to be a scientist. I knew exactly what he meant! Caltech is so small though that it might be hard to even run a catch up class.</p>
<p>And I am totally fine with colleges taking risks on some kids whose backgrounds didn’t allow them to get as well prepared as the majority of students. I had a number of very bright friends at Harvard who had to take pre-calculus. (Not for credit, but in order to take calculus.) I believe they all graduated in time.</p>
<p>I believe Caltech core and MIT GIR requirements are quite similar and have the same level of difficulty. Both schools require Math, Physics, Chemistry and Biology that far exceed the basic requirements at any other college which means one can not treat them as a basic requirement to get out of and continue with something else, without some level of mastery in those subjects. If one can struggle through them, they can do subjects like Economics which are not so bad at MIT.</p>
<p>I met an alumnus and graduating student parent last year who said his kid who was admitted to a couple of medical schools by then had to go across the street to another not so hard school (tongue in cheek) to pass his org chemistry. His view essentially was why struggle through MIT if you want to be a premed.</p>
<p>If MIT felt it was a crisis / unacceptable that only x% pass that class, they could change things. Til they do, that’s their problem.</p>
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<p>Excellent point! Like Duke and Vanderbilt did, right? After Bloomberg’s recent mega gift to JHU, a friend speculated about the possibility a modern day robber baron might start a brand new university. It’s kind of a nice fantasy.
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<h1>863 Looking Forward: I want to respond to your post but will wait until QM’s current train of thought is concluded before interrupting. I am very interested QMs thoughts on this subject. It’s the main reason I’m hanging around.</h1>
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Why should proficiency in math and physics be the controlling factor? Why not proficiency in art? or music? or ability to act? MIT does have other majors. Why shouldn’t they take students who are strong in some areas and weak in others? Or do you think all the MIT admits are budding artists?</p>
<p>At the risk of exposing just how hopelessly naive and ignorant I am, </p>
<p>I do believe the mission of MIT is to educate math/science types. </p>
<p>A friend used to teach there in one of the other majors. He said he didn’t think it made sense to major in his field at MIT. He left MIT for a very different type of school when the opportunity arose.</p>
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<p>I think Caltech is a bit tougher. For example, Caltech students are required to have already taken the equivalent of AP calculus, and their freshman math, first semester, is real analysis (rigorous calculus) using the book by Apostol.</p>
<p>^While it may not make sense to someone to major in something else there, they do have those other majors and, one assumes, wish to continue doing so and having students aspire to them. Otherwise, why bother? Why not just declare that your majors are physics, engineering, chemistry, etc. and be done with it? There are places which do just that…</p>
<p>Right. If MIT wanted to be Caltech, they’d be Caltech. </p>
<p>Adcoms REFLECT the mission of the university - they don’t drive it. There seems to be this assumption here that the universities would really rather have x and y types of students, but the adcoms keep throwing types p and q at them.</p>
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<p>That’s what they started out as and to some extent continue to be when seeing how much prioritization and autonomy they provide non-STEM departments. With the exceptions of fields like Linguistics, Philosophy, Economics, and Poli-sci…most every other non-STEM field is grouped under the “Humanities” department. Someone I knew who did a double major in a natural science and literature at MIT in the '80s was officially a [Natural Science]/Humanities double-major…not [Natural Science]/Literature. </p>
<p>She also mentioned that there were few who only majored in a humanities/social science field like literature and history and figured one reason was the far stiffer than mainstream core distribution requirements…including taking math well-beyond first year calculus and many science lab courses with majors. </p>
<p>She also admitted that while the literature department had many great Profs, the department may have been too narrow in its offerings to attract many students passionate about studying literature…especially given those stiffer than standard core distribution requirements. </p>
<p>No rocks for jocks for this crowd.</p>
<p>What’s impressive to friends and family is often not so special to the adcom team. What a teacher raves about can sometimes seem quite ordinary, in the context of so many bright kids.</p>
<p>Eg, in some states, a win or place at State Sci Fair is highly competitive. In others, it’s closer to “something for everybody.” Some hs carefully prep kids for, say, math competitions; others leave it up to the kid. Some make DE available. Others let the kid figure it out. Some have fixed course scheds, some have math past calc AB/BC, some require state history, finance, multiple religious classes, etc, that gum up the other academic opportunities or leftover time. Not only is it up to the reps to learn about their territories/schools/kids in general, it allows some better across the board eventual comparing of candidates, how they strived, what they accomplished, who they seem to be. </p>
<p>Since they also look for personal strengths (which are, after all, what carry one through and move him forward,) it’s not possible to claim much based on SES advantages. The kid either shows the combination of attributes they seek-or doesn’t. </p>
<p>And, in the end, you’re left with thousands of super kids- and only so many seats. And a need for geo diversity, local diversity, the right number of kids in a dept for seats available there, the kids who will join the theater club or play intramural sports or whatever it is that U wants to fulfill, as a community.</p>
<p>When MIT says, “correct” decisions, there is no absolute. There are many shades of grey. This is about ensuring you make the best decisions you can, considering many, many factors. </p>
<p>Btw, I wonder how close Mollie still is to the MIT admissions process. You can dig up the video of her from “The Secret Life of Scientists.” Utterly charming. I think it’s also linked on MITChris’s U blog.</p>
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<p>Which is why you can react to elite admissions with one of two reactions:
- I swung my bat, I did the best that I could, the mere fact that I was able to put forth a reasonably competitive application to a school at this level means that I have what it takes to be successful no matter where I go, yay me; or,
- It’s not FAIR. I blame (geo diversity, rich white kids, poor minority kids, legacies, athletes, adcoms who didn’t see my brilliance), and this is all just so terrible - I will never make anything of myself now, because there is magic dust that occurs at these top schools that can never, ever be replicated. I’ll probably be poor, too, and I’ll never share a classroom with anyone remotely smart or a professor worth listening to. Woe is me.</p>
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<p>Here’s some more choices:</p>
<p>3) Work hard at one’s academics, have some fun in college with ECs/part-time work, and upon graduation…gain admission to the elite grad schools in one’s field. Worked not only for HS classmates rejected by their first choice elite/Ivy colleges, but also for those admitted…but weren’t able to go due to financial or family reasons. </p>
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<li>Do all of the above except the last, graduate, work in a town/city full of elite colleges, and proceed to conspire with and successfully get your work friends and younger friendly insiders at said institutions to crash university and frat/sorority parties.<br></li>
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<p>Bonus points for dressing up like your classical Goths, Huns, Vandals, Vikings, or other Barbarian du jour, vexing the legitimate guests/university officials, and making off with all of the provisions and spirits. :D</p>
<p>PG: As I have written before, one of my special snowflakes wasn’t admitted to MIT, so very long ago that he now has a PhD. I am still whining. You may find that whining unseemly, but you do not have a child who wasn’t admitted to their top choice university. So I tend to think you telling me to quit whining is what is unseemly. I am sorry to be so very blunt.</p>
<p>You can speculate all you want that in your family everyone would have said 1) I swung my bat, I did the best that I could, the mere fact that I was able to put forth a reasonably competitive application to a school at this level means that I have what it takes to be successful no matter where I go, yay me but you weren’t really put to the test, were you? It’s all theoretical?</p>
<p>I absolutely agree with you about the ugliness of blaming not getting in on (geo diversity, rich white kids, poor minority kids, legacies, athletes, I am not so sure about * adcoms who didn’t see my brilliance.* </p>
<p>I am extremely interested in QMs take on admissions at MIT. Originally I assumed my special snowflake just didn’t have what MIT looks for when they choose future scientists - that he didn’t have what it took to excel in that field. In retrospect this was untrue. I hope someone comes to interview me when he wins the Noble Prize. I gonna say he wasn’t accepted at MIT. ;)</p>
<p>You can legitimately blame geo diversity.</p>
<p>My D1 would have been freaking brilliant at the Ivy- trust me, I know the school and dept. I just say, with all sincerity, they really missed their chance. Their loss. So she went to another fine school and none of us feel slighted. It’s life. She’s still brilliant, still deeply immersed in her work, and I am thrilled at how she evolved.</p>
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<p>But that’s so odd, alh. Why would you assume that a no from MIT meant that “he didn’t have what it takes” as opposed to “well, he might fully have what it takes, but there are more kids who have what it takes than there are beds”? Do you think that if there were 25,000 apps and 2,000 beds, that MIT is saying that there are only 2,000 kids who can be decreed to have what it takes?</p>
<p>And no, if my kids had been rejected at their first-choice colleges – I know that they put together applications that were reasonable shots for those colleges, and that the fact that they did so meant they had what it took to be successful. Even if they had gone to (gasp) our state university. Maybe some of you need the validation of a top school saying yes to believe that your kids have what it takes in general, but that’s not the top school’s responsibility to give them or you that validation.</p>
<p>MIT economics dept is considered a peer of Chicago and Harvard. They are more quant based.</p>
<p>The recommended AP text book for Government is authored by an MIT poli sci prof.</p>
<p>They do a lot of linguistic work but some of it ties into AI. I look at MIT as a regular university if you can survive their STEM requirements.</p>
<p>Most people who apply want to do engineering. MIT does want to fill their other departments too. So if you want to major in Economics and your math is good enough, does it matter that you dont do well in Physics, Chemistry, Biology or swimming?</p>