"How did HE Get In?"

Parents Forum
1081

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<p>This is plausible, but I’d like to see a study which correlates the personal ratings given by admissions officers with some measure of how much students contribute to campus life.
Some gifted students may have difficulty relating to classmates who are not intellectual peers but flourish socially in an environment where such intellectual peers exist. Maybe the impressions of teachers and fellow students at the Ross Mathematics Program (for applicants who went to this summer math camp) matter more than those of the teachers and classmates at the local high school.</p>

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<p>This is the essence of what I am reading on this thread, how some of us not among the super-duper-exceptionally-brilliant view some of <em>them</em> with suspicion, apprehension and perhaps as “other.” How we stereotype the “other” in the case of the very bright and sometimes members of other minorities who differ from members of one’s own group</p>

1083

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How exactly do you know who on this thread (or any other thread) is among the super-duper-exceptionally brilliant and who isn’t? Unless you are speaking only for yourself. Or about those posters QM referenced.</p>

<p>Actually, I’m not sure what you are talking about.</p>

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If you believe this, I’m assuming you believe the school treats actual students significantly better than applicants, otherwise I would think you would be grateful your son dodged that bullet. </p>

<p>Just in my opinion, but if I felt the admissions process was unfair, that they purposefully did not accept the top applicants because of some sort of prejudice, and that they treated applicants horribly I don’t think I’d want my kid attending there. I know some people can’t see the logic in this, and think the real university is somehow wholly apart from the admissions office and the students it selects, but that would be my gut reaction.</p>

1084

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<p>Not filtered out, but they will need to have slightly better ECs than students with straight A’s to get in. Mathematically, if the merit function is</p>

<p>c1<em>GPA + c2</em>SAT + c3*EC</p>

<p>you seem to be saying that GPA should be replaced by a truncated variable </p>

<p>GPA’ = min(3.95,GPA)</p>

<p>where GPAs of 3.95 (or some high threshold) are treated exactly the same as 4.0. I don’t see why that should be done unless the model with the truncated GPA better predicts some measure of student success in college.</p>

<p>It may be possible to distinguish even among straight A students. In my high school, report cards showed percentage grades as well as letter grades, with 94 being the lowest A. I’d prefer a student with all 99s versus one with all 94s, other things being equal.</p>

<p>If you say that looking at such fine-grained measures puts too much pressure on students, I respond that the real source of the pressure is the small ratio of MIT spots to qualified applicants, however determined, not how accepted students are chosen.</p>

1085

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What about between a student with all 99s except two 89s, verses a student with all 90s? Assuming 80-89 = B and 90 -100 = A?</p>

1086

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I think this is plausible as well–and I have some observations from my kids’ experiences at CTY to back it up. This suggests to me that gifted kids in this situation should be proactive in looking for opportunities to interact with peers–and to get recommendations to reflect how they did. On the other hand, MIT may also want smart people who are nevertheless able to interact effectively with people who aren’t as gifted.</p>

1087

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<p>This seems reasonable, but whether someone is socialized is highly subjective. My observation is that people who are comfortable with aggressive self-promotion are advantaged in this process. I think this also extends to some activities which supposedly prove socialization and the ability to work with people, such as founding organizations and the like.</p>

<p>With one notable exception (who I won’t name since he’s still a kid,) the people who I knew who were super-geniuses may have been a bit quiet and may not have been good at mixing at a dinner party, but were generally humble, nice people and didn’t have a problem engaging with others on a one-to-one basis or when working on a project in a work environment. In fact, the least arrogant guys I’ve met at Harvard were those who were on the Putnam team or who had made IMO in high school. Even the people I knew who were both socially polished (e.g., would mix well at a dinner party) and really really smart (say top one-hundredth of a percent on the MCAT) didn’t seem to do as well in the interview stage as people who were considered obvious self-promoters and BS artists. In terms of what I mean about being a BS artist, one prominent example is founding an organization and making a big deal about how great it was when it was actually pointless. This is one of the reasons I am suspicious of soft factors.</p>

1088

<p>“whining” and “nursing a grudge” on my part are pretty much poetic exaggerations made in an attempt to advance what I imagined to be QM’s point. BIG FAIL. (Especially if I totally misinterpreted that point.) And perhaps provide some degree of comfort and sense of solidarity for recently disappointed students or parents lurking around here. Since it has instead completely side-tracked a whole part of the discussion, let me confess that I am not, IRL, either whining, nursing a grudge, or even thinking about MIT. Not everything we read on the internet is “true”</p>

<p>I am always, however, thinking about stereotypes. That is really and truly true ;)</p>

<p>And I am extremely interested in the role of the university in society.</p>

1089

<p>I had a Westinghouse kid in my hs, a brilliant- and nice- kid who went off to MIT. One of the things that characterized him, beyond being an Ace, was his accessibility. DH was family friends with another uber-brilliant kid. In both cases, we’re talking that old military phrase, “1%-ers.” In the latter case, the kid couldn’t speak with anyone, didn’t socialize, was characterized by working out math problems during social events, by himself, in a corner. He, too, went off to MIT, then Microsoft, found his type, got married, wouldn’t leave the area if it meant an overnight, retired early, mega-wealthy.</p>

<p>First off, these are old examples. But, today, when we think of “college,” we tend to think in tiers, we tend to think of kids we know who want some particular school, we project the results of that fine education- and we also visualize colleges. Whether it’s ivy-covered, has a big quad, is located in a city, whatever. Or has one big white board full of scribbling, as in Good Will Hunting. In a sense, we stereotype.</p>

<p>These images (all of the above) are surface. Some forget these schools are entities, communities, institutions that exist on their own, separate from our views, desires, assumptions, demands, opinions and needs. The best of them, with the highest academic bars in classrooms, tend to want the best applicants. But as entities, they need more than sheer brilliance or hs academic accomplishment, scores or national test ranking. They need kids who can get along with each other, join clubs, sometimes lead, sometimes follow, be great roommates, grow, mind some sort of acceptable social conventions, interact with profs, seek out relevant opportunities, give some/get some, etc. There’s your funnel.</p>

<p>That means, today, our 1%-er needs more than that intellectual standing. It’s “college,” not some room hidden away somewhere where they can calculate to their hearts’ desires.</p>

<p>Subjective, yes. But you give a kid a multi-page app and let him present himself. That’s subjective, too. And, just as some posters reveal a lot in their choices of words, approaches, when to lash out, when to play coy, so do applicants.</p>

1090

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<p>I think people of substance can easily see through who are the self-promoting BS artists and who are kids who are genuinely engaging and interesting (which doesn’t mean that one has to be loud, aggressive, pushy, etc. - in fact, it has very little to do with being introverted or extroverted).</p>

<p>The ability to push outside one’s comfort zone in general is an important skill to master, and requires a certain level of self-awareness and self-knowledge that can be just as important as math / science / academic skills.</p>

1091

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It’s my observation that selective colleges may want a sizable number of people like this.</p>

1092

<p>Ime, “aggressive self-promo” is detected and flagged.</p>

1093

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<p>A recent counterexample is described in the book
“Conning Harvard: Adam Wheeler, the Con Artist Who Faked His Way into the Ivy League” (2012)
by Julie Zauzmer and Xi Yu .</p>

1094

<p>^ How did I know PG’s comment would lead to this sort of response? I thought someone would chew on “people of substance.”</p>

1095

<p>I’ve been reading this thread with interest.</p>

<p>My husband worked with a lot of MIT grads doing the original modeling on what we call options and exotics in the trading world. he oversaw their work and put it into practice, very successfully. (These were the earlier hedging models, pre-Credit default swaps, fwiw).</p>

<p>One of the things he had to do was to help “translate” what these guys were doing into language that the other guys and gals could use to make it work. From equations to applications, etc…</p>

<p>When they hired these quants, they looked for the ones who could both do the rocket science and at least vaguely explain what it was they were doing, at least to someone fluent in the language like H. I’m sure this need to communicate what it is the math or science is used for is not limited to trading applications.</p>

<p>So, I’m sure that it is valuable to be “better” with people. Now, when we are talking “better” with people, and I’ve known over the years many of the physicists and math geniuses from this realm who were considered “better” with people, we are not even talking good with people, or great people skills. We are talking eye contact and the ability to stay focused on the conversation.</p>

<p>I’m sure there are many areas where these skill sets, and they are very minimal at this level, are not necessary and where it is useful to be lost inside the equation during a party, but MIT might find them to be less dynamic and making less of a large scale contribution than others who say, “I’m fine, thank you,” and actually remember to add, “How are you?”</p>

<p>It sounds rudimentary, but I am happy to note that MIT is now offering an etiquette class.</p>

<p>Also, I would just like to say: Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Melon, just to name a bare minimum few. </p>

<p>Carry on.</p>

1096

<p>I am sorry about the side-tracking on the issue of MIT’s admitting students with a few B’s in science/math. I was responding to the comment that it was an urban myth that MIT admitted students with B’s in math or science (not talking IMSA nor TJ as high schools). The statement that MIT does admit students with B’s came from the MIT forum and people who presumably do know about it.</p>

<p>I don’t want to dump on students who have trouble with a final in high school. I don’t argue that they should be filtered out. In terms of this particular point, I was merely observing that it does appear to be the case that MIT admits students with a few B’s in science and math. Not “boatloads” of students (unless the boats are very small).</p>

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<p>To go back to Hunt’s question in #1069: I think that “poorly socialized” is a much better term than “only vaguely human.” It does somewhat beg the question: poorly socialized to what society?</p>

<p>It seems to me that if there are “quite a few” “brilliant student[s]” who have made no friends in school, then something is problematic about the society in which the student has been reared, from an American point of view. (Some of the descriptions of Japanese cram schools and Korean schooling make me deeply grateful to have been born in the U.S.) </p>

<p>Here in the U.S., I do not know anyone who does not have any “friends per se,” not even quite shy or introverted people, or those bordering on what used to be classified as Asperger’s syndrome. So I really don’t know what to make of that aspect of the statement.</p>

<p>Perhaps the students have friends, but they come from the neighborhood and not the school. Or perhaps they have a large extended family, and their social networks are family-based. If the question is posed about school friends only, a very literal applicant might not mention either of these groups.</p>

<p>I am also not sure about the statement that an applicant would be happiest when he did not have to interact with another human being. Surely that depends on the character of the other human being and his/her ability to relate to the “brilliant student.” </p>

<p>J. D. Salinger and Howard Hughes in his later years might be exceptions, and perhaps Stylite monks.</p>

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<p>Q, at its worst, some kids actually make anti-social statements in their apps. “I don’t get along with my classmates.” Or, “I find most kids my age trivial.” “I’m afraid to talk to new people.” We had one GC tell, flat out, that the other kids didn’t like this one’s personality (though adults did.) You can sometimes tell from the activities, as well. </p>

<p>For the record, there is a whole lot of forgiving, when reading. A lot of trying to piece together what is good and great. Just as when you look at your kids’ friends, one may have an obnoxious trait, but you can still find reasons to welcome him or her.</p>

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<p>The fact that MIT is adding the etiquette says that they view part of their mission as producing scientists who are able to interact with others and get things done, not just sit in a lab all day and ponder the mysteries of life.</p>

1100

<p>I’ll misspell his name, I think but…</p>

<p>Did Harvard make the right decision in admitting Ted Kazinsky? Might he have been better off going to another college…or even taking a year or two more to mature before starting? There have been articles about how his freshman year roommates reacted to him…and his reaction which was to further isolate himself. He’s probably exactly the kind of person who should be screened out. </p>

<p>A long time ago now, a young man in my neighborhood went to Harvard. He got a suitemate who was 15 years old, from a small town, and a math genius. The first weekend, my neighbor got a phone call. For some reason, my neighbor had called the 15 year old and so the kid had his number in his cell phone. The 15 year old had gone into Boston to buy something. The 15 year old had gotten lost and couldn’t find the T. It was now getting dark. He was sobbing. He had never been in a city by himself before and he was scared out of his mind. He didn’t have enough cash left to get a cab back to Harvard. He begged my young neighbor to help him. He was so frightened that my neighbor instructed him to go into the nearest store and call him back with the name of the store. He would come get him. The kid called him back, but was even more upset because the store was closing in less than an hour. My neighbor told him that if the store closed, he should walk outside, act like he knew what he was doing, and walk around the block and just keep walking around the block until my neighbor arrived. </p>

<p>So, my neighbor–who came from NYC, not Boston, and knew nothing about how to get around Boston–it was pre-google maps–dropped everything and headed into Boston to get the kid. He found him and escorted him back to the T and to Harvard.</p>

<p>He also FIRMLY told the kid never to call him in such a situation again. </p>

<p>Apparently, it was more than a year before the kid ventured beyond Harvard Square again.</p>