<p>The Mikalye remark was “only vaguely human,” in post #77 on the MIT thread “Why was he rejected?” The date is 3-27-2010. Here is an excerpt:
If you would like the full context, it’s in the thread. Still up.</p>
<p>Less important, but in the same thread on the MIT forum, Mikalye’s words were “have never encountered soap.” You can see back then I was having trouble with literal vs. metaphorical comments. 
But that one was apparently meant literally.</p>
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<p>The STEM kid may never need French, but both B’s raise questions, because grades are a (noisy) indicator of intelligence. Even at a science school, given two applicants with the same math and science grades, I’d want the applicant with the higher non-STEM grades, other things being equal.</p>
<p>QM’s comments about admissions did make me wonder if mathson had been at a disadvantage first because his MIT interview was his first, and second because his interviewer (alum) was a lawyer not scientist. They seemed to be fine though when I picked him up. He did fine at the Harvard interview, where he also got a lawyer. (That of course is the interview where he told H, it was not his first choice and the interviewer spent much of the time trying to sell H as being just as good as MIT.)</p>
<p>Beliavsky, my son got a B in English his freshman year - he refused to write a poem and got a zero. We had a little talk about the stupidity of it. A really, really bad poem would have factored in a lot better than a zero. He didn’t do it again, but it probably cost him a place or two in rank, that’s how close the top ten were. So was he stupid at 14? Emotionally stupid yes. Intellectually not really.</p>
<p>As for language study. If you don’t have an ear - immersion may be the only way to get it. I got B’s in languages all through high school. Spent a gap year in France and now speak it fluently. (Or did, a bit rusty now.) Got A’s in French at Harvard (reading Balzac), then took German, (got A’s in that, but only after supplementing by spending a month in Germany), speak that fluently now too having lived there.</p>
<p>Canuckguy, don’t be coy. Spit it out. What affinity group do you think I belong to that “wins the lottery” and offends you so?</p>
<p>I want to go back to the Mikalye comment about interviewing students who were “only vaguely human,” and apparently quite a few of them.</p>
<p>He pricked them, and they did not bleed?</p>
<p>I understand that this was an exaggeration! Very likely it was intended as a joke. In my opinion, it crosses the boundaries of acceptable joking by someone who serves in an official role for a university, however.</p>
<p>So much suffering in human history has been occasioned by people who regarded members of another group as “only vaguely human,” that I think it’s not at all funny, and strong objections ought to be raised whenever it crops up.</p>
<p>I think that an important attribute in an interviewer is the ability to put him/herself into the other person’s position. International applicants to MIT face staggeringly low odds. The transformative effects of an MIT education are probably greatest for many of them. Also, many of them will have put in efforts that make moderately hard-working American students look like slackers.</p>
<p>The applicant feels that a lot is riding on the interview. Everything else in the application is strong–International Mathematical Olympiad medal and everything that leads up to that. The applicant is probably unaware that this counts as a “solitary pursuit.” Actually, from the way that the teams work, I don’t think it is a solitary pursuit. The applicant is probably very nervous. Perhaps the applicant has had to make a multi-hour trip to the interview. Who knows how much sleep the applicant has had the night before? Or the nights before that? </p>
<p>I am not saying that MIT necessarily needs to admit all of the IMO gold medalists, internationally. But I think that every applicant deserves better than to be regarded as “only vaguely human.”</p>
<p>Although it cannot be put to an empirical test, I suspect that I would regard a member of Homo habilis as more than “only vaguely human.”</p>
<p>Top Schools are Handmaidens to Power? Oy vey.</p>
<p>Last year’s study that more CEO’s graduated from U Wisconsin than any other undergrad? The study from a few years ago that Notre Dame was considered one of the most prestigious undergrads in the country (which I think was correlated to some sports victory). I don’t have time and don’t care to cite my sources but you all know what I’m talking about.</p>
<p>Yes- if you want to become a Supreme Court Justice go to Yale Law School. How this is relevant to which kid gets denied at which school defies logic. No single teenager can “gun” for a slot on the court (at least without being declared crazy or stupid) in the same way that no single teenager can decide that winning a Nobel prize is their career goal. If I had a kid with that sort of megalomania, I’d be worried about a lot more than where they got into college.</p>
<p>And the endless regurgitation of Marilee Jones is so tiresome. One of my kids was an MIT admit during the Jones years. The institution has managed to survive. Get over it.</p>
<p>The Mikalye comment that I cited in post #1041 comes from 3-27-2010, well post Jones. I do not think it has been repudiated by anyone connected with MIT, nor called into question by anyone other than I. Troubling.</p>
<p>Actually, if you want to be one of the Supremes, you should go to HLS. They don’t teach actual law at Yale. </p>
<p>As for the rest of this, I lost any ability or desire to contribute the conversation about 600 posts ago, although I hope Mollie isn’t feeling especially uncomfortable about being singled out like this.</p>
<p>And that bothers you more than someone who is officially interviewing for MIT referring to applicants as “only vaguely human,” SomeOldGuy?</p>
<p>(I have PM’d Mollie several times in the past, and had fruitful conversations. Apologies if she was made uncomfortable.)</p>
<p>Yes, it does. Weak attempts at humor directed at some generalized group may be in bad taste, but they’re less objectionable to me than dissecting a readily identifiable someone’s personal affairs in a public forum, even if she is gracious enough to claim not to mind.</p>
<p>"The applicant feels that a lot is riding on the interview. Everything else in the application is strong–International Mathematical Olympiad medal and everything that leads up to that. The applicant is probably unaware that this counts as a “solitary pursuit.” Actually, from the way that the teams work, I don’t think it is a solitary pursuit. The applicant is probably very nervous. Perhaps the applicant has had to make a multi-hour trip to the interview. Who knows how much sleep the applicant has had the night before? Or the nights before that? "</p>
<p>I’m not sure that I follow. We should feel sorry for applicants, esp those with hard luck stories, and consequently let them in? I do believe our dear friend Beliavsky would object. </p>
<p>MIT wishes to build a community. If they see evidence that someone is too solitary, won’t be a good roommate, etc they have every right to say “no, poor fit.”</p>
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<p>I don’t like the comment, but I doubt that even 1% of prospective MIT applicants are aware of it, and MIT publicly repudiating it would serve to <em>publicize</em> the comment and perhaps discourage some people from applying.</p>
<p>“And that bothers you more than someone who is officially interviewing for MIT referring to applicants as “only vaguely human,” SomeOldGuy?”</p>
<p>Actually what bothers me more than either of these was the poster QM referred to at one point, who upon getting into H but not MIT replied sadly, “Is there something wrong with me?” A sense of either over entitlement, or a sense that one’s meaning and purpose and value rises and falls on the contents of the admissions letter. And I’m also bothered by the holding-grudges-through-the-years. At one point, as blossom said, you finish your quart of consolatory ice cream and move on.</p>
<p>Well, I hope that someone will eventually join me in objecting to the characterization of applicants as “only vaguely human.” I am not saying that there should be an official announcement on the MIT web site that “We regard all of our applicants as 100% human,” Beliavsky. But on the specific thread where Mikalye posted that remark, it would cheer me if I found someone with an MIT connection (even someone who had just worked in admissions) who objected to it. </p>
<p>I remarked that everyone I have ever met was fully human.</p>
<p>Actually, I would be cheered if anyone else on this thread objected to the statement by Mikalye, back where it was made:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/888978-why-he-rejected-6.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/888978-why-he-rejected-6.html</a></p>
<p>Pizzagirl, you would perhaps understand my viewpoint better if you thought about an applicant who is not merely garden-variety smart, but over-the-top brilliant, and whose record shows it, yet who is rejected. At the level that collegealum314 and I are talking about, there are not too many people for MIT to admit them all. If I were in that student’s shoes, I would conclude that they just didn’t like me, personally. This would in fact have made me wonder whether there was something wrong with me.</p>
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I’d like to ask what, exactly, is the objection to this statement. Is it that it is excessively candid?</p>
<p>Actually, my ice cream has “I told you so!” dribbled on it in chocolate syrup. Person X was admitted from the waitlist, and did just as well at MIT and subsequently (so far) as I had anticipated.</p>
<p>I was admitted to MIT long, long ago, despite having asked one of my recommenders if he would be willing to recommend me to “the Massatuchetts Institute of Technology.” I am a native English speaker. No one else in my family has applied to MIT, nor shown any interest in it. I am speaking from a different viewpoint.</p>