<p>WILL SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME 30% VS 17% </p>
<p>quickly, before I get combative again.</p>
<p>
To try to provide an additional perspective on your question, I thought it would be interesting to compare the transfer student statistics for Caltech and MIT.</p>
<p>For the past two years we have the following:</p>
<p>2005-2006 ( <a href="http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/2006/d.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/2006/d.html</a> )
MIT Male Students Applied: 185
MIT Male Students Accepted: 9
MIT Male Students Acceptance Rate: 4.9%</p>
<p>MIT Female Students Applied: 46
MIT Female Students Accepted: 2
MIT Female Students Acceptance Rate: 4.3%</p>
<p>2004-2005 ( <a href="http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/2005/d.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/2005/d.html</a> )
MIT Male Students Applied: 234
MIT Male Students Accepted: 5
MIT Male Students Acceptance Rate: 2.1%</p>
<p>MIT Female Students Applied: 68
MIT Female Students Accepted: 1
MIT Female Students Acceptance Rate: 1.5%</p>
<p>2004-2005 ( <a href="http://finance.caltech.edu/budget/cds2005.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://finance.caltech.edu/budget/cds2005.pdf</a> )
Caltech Male Students Applied: 149
Caltech Male Students Accepted: 11
Caltech Male Students Acceptance Rate: 7.4%</p>
<p>Caltech Female Students Applied: 39
Caltech Female Students Accepted: 4
Caltech Female Students Acceptance Rate: 10.2%</p>
<p>2003-2004 2004-2005 ( <a href="http://finance.caltech.edu/budget/cds2004.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://finance.caltech.edu/budget/cds2004.pdf</a> )
Caltech Male Students Applied: 153
Caltech Male Students Accepted: 16
Caltech Male Students Acceptance Rate: 10.5%</p>
<p>Caltech Female Students Applied: 34
Caltech Female Students Accepted: 10
Caltech Female Students Acceptance Rate: 29.4%</p>
<p>So, from over the past two years, MIT actually has had a higher transfer rate for male students than female students. Although we're limited to a pretty small sample size, it's clear that the number of acceptances is hardly balanced between men and women. This contrasts with MIT freshman admissions. Why do you suppose that is? My speculation is that for transfer students, there are so few people admitted that it makes no sense to consider building a 'class', hence I think people are judged more on their individual merits. Now, if women are not admitted here in equal proportions (as in admissions) that makes me suspect that freshman admissions does take gender into account in someway.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Would it be too forward of me to publicly request my own exemption from the generalizations about my gender?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, not at all. Step right up, there's a signup sheet over here.</p>
<p>kidding*/</p>
<p>
<p>quickly, before I get combative again.
Self-selection...it obviously plays at least some role for females applying to tech schools. The relevant question is how much. What I've been trying to argue is that self-selection completely explains Caltech's acceptance rate difference, but that it doesn't for MIT's.</p>
<p>
<p>Would it be too forward of me to publicly request my own exemption from the generalizations about my gender?
I've never tried to suggest that, personally. I have no question that everyone accepted is qualified. My only point is that beyond being able to do the coursework at MIT, MIT admissions may, in fact, be trying to shape the make-up of their class which may involve admitting more women than would be under a system like Caltech's. And as I've said before, there's really nothing wrong with that...</p>
<p>I agree 100% with cghen. I've certainly never questioned the abilities of female MIT students.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I have no question that everyone accepted is qualified
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Indeed, I don't think MIT would admit someone who is completely unqualified.</p>
<p>
I agree with this entirely. I've never seen questioning of female MIT students anywhere but on CC (and certainly not just from Caltech students). When I first started blogging, I was asked a few times if I had experienced discrimination as a female MIT student, and I was just bowled over -- I mean, what does that even mean? The lab coats in the mouse room button the guy way, does that count? I mean, no fellow MIT student ever questioned my abilities because I'm a woman. Nobody at MIT cares whether you're a woman or a minority or are from Mars -- they care whether you can answer question 2b on the pset this week.</p>
<p>
All questions of who's rooting for men and who's rooting for women aside, I am not comfortable drawing any conclusions from the small numbers of people admitted as transfer students to either Caltech or MIT.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Indeed, I don't think MIT would admit someone who is completely unqualified.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, I don't believe that's strictly correct. I do remember Ms. Jones writing that she "reserved" a number (10?) of admissions that she selected for people who (again, from memory) "would not be admitted under the standard criteria".</p>
<p>Sure, it's not a big number, but one of the experiments being run was admitting a small number of people who would be disqualified under the regular admission program.</p>
<p>Unless we want to quibble about the modifier "completely".</p>
<p>
[quote]
Actually, I don't believe that's strictly correct. I do remember Ms. Jones writing that she "reserved" a number (10?) of admissions that she selected for people who (again, from memory) "would not be admitted under the standard criteria".
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's very interesting. How were those students not fit to the "standard criteria"?</p>
<p>Someone who is completely unqualified:
Can't write a sentence.
Has barely passed their science/math classes.
Horrible SAT and GPA.</p>
<p>"You can do the "is x times" calculations but that skews the importance of smaller percentage points. I'm no math major but I know saying 2% vs. 1% is TWICE AS MUCH!!!111 is really not as representative as saying 50% vs. 25% is twice as much."</p>
<p>You're comparing two sets of two numbers each -- the most valid way seems to me to be to compare the ratio of each pair. Of course we could just stick to differences and say that Caltech's female admission rate is 13 percentage points higher than the male one, and MIT's is 16 percentage points higher, so the difference isn't that large and so forth. But you have to take into account that the significance of the difference is determined by the size of the original numbers. </p>
<p>Exaggerated example... I could say that the difference in admission rate percentage points for schools X and Y is 15 for both, so they practice the same policy. Only not really, because school X might admit 17% of girls and 2% of guys, while school Y might admit 65% of girls and 50% of guys. That's a huge huge difference, though it wasn't apparent at first.</p>
<p>By this logic, I think it's more representative to apply the same process to Caltech/MIT.</p>
<p>Please don't be mad -- I'm not attacking you or questioning the validity of the admissions process or anything. I just think that we have to be clear about where affirmative action is present and where it is not before we can argue about whether it's "right."</p>
<p>No, I agree, I think what I was saying was that though it's MORE valid, it's definitely still kind of slimy to me. And the precision of our data isn't really good enough to warrant being picky about rounding 1.7 vs. 2 with a sample size of one or two hundred, per se.</p>
<p>It's clear is that there is a desire for better data. MIT admissions (like any admissions office, including Caltech's) tries for the most part to release only the data that are convenient. It's partially for this reason that we don't see SAT averages by gender and ethnicity.</p>
<p>An honest data gathering operation would, in two weeks, put to rest any discussion of whether women are treated on the whole differently or on the whole the same. If there were no gender preferences, it would be trivial to do statistical tests of this hypothesis.</p>
<p>On the whole, the amazing coincidence of knife-edge 50:50 admitted pools year after year is enough for many reasonable people to conclude that the absence of such statistics is not an accident.</p>
<p>
[quote]
pundit said:
That's very interesting. How were those students not fit to the "standard criteria"?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I honestly have no idea. It was a throwaway comment she made in an article about how she was changing the mix of admitted students.</p>
<p>
[quote]
pundit said:
Someone who is completely unqualified:
Can't write a sentence.
Has barely passed their science/math classes.
Horrible SAT and GPA.
[/quote]
Ah, you do wish to quibble about the meaning of unqualified.</p>
<p>Well, I don't think I would agree with you on the definition. I might if the subject was qualifications for a high school diploma. However, in this case, I would expect that it would mean people with SATs / GPA / etc. 3 or more standard deviaitions below the mean for people admitted under the standard criteria. Considering the applicant pool, I believe that's significantly more qualified than your examples above.</p>
<p>As Ms. Jones did not quantify what she meant, chasing the whole argument is likely pointless. I think it is more instructive of her state of mind and philosophy towards admissions.</p>
<p>Let me try and express a point in the touchy feely language which some may feel at home with.<br>
By denying the validity of, and failing to apply, convential academic standards, Marilee Jones was validating the lie of a life she was leading. It is naiive to think that during her 10 year directorship her philosophy did not trickle into the system as a whole. Rather than live in denial the school should be asessing and remedying the damage.</p>
<p>Hey guys, here's a thought: maybe MIT <em>likes</em> the philosophy that Marilee supported. You guys clearly don't, which is fine, but I don't understand why you seem to think that MIT should go redefine its entire admissions process because of recent events. Because you said so? Well no offense, but who the hell are you?</p>
<p>Like I've said before, we can debate this all we want, and it's fine if people disagree with the admissions policy MIT uses, but using Marilee as an excuse to air your bitterness just don't make sense to me.</p>
<p><a href="pebbles%20wrote:">quote</a> Where you expect to see disrespect, you know, from MIT boys going "HA HA HA I deserve to be here more than you!!", you don't see that at all. At least I've never heard anything along those lines.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That would not be the smartest way to become popular with the ladies, so of course it is never voiced.</p>
<p><a href="mollieB:">quote</a> I've never seen questioning of female MIT students anywhere but on CC
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Where if not a college admissions forum would you expect a discussion of differential admissions practices to be more on-topic?</p>
<p>Again agree with LauraN here. The trustee's appointed Marilee. She did not implement admissions policy in a vacuum. It had and still has full support of the administration.</p>
<p>Laura N,</p>
<p>Wow. Not all the people on this thread are bitter rejectees. Some of us are, in fact, parents of prospective students. You and pebbles seem to be representatives of MIT of some kind? I've got to say, I am mightily unimpressed by your rudeness. That rudeness reflects quite badly on MIT, as does this whole scandal. As people have pointed out, there are a lot of other fine colleges to go to.</p>
<p>Even if MIT does "like" the policies Jones put in place the administration faces serious credibility problems defending them as they will invariably be associated with their architect.
One thing is for sure. Jones was not implementing changes that were proposed from above. She was a pushy outspoken woman who pushed hard for her own agenda. She launched her own public relations campaign and left MIT no choice but to embrace it or to appear regressive to the politically correct crowd who are such a force in higher education.
Unfortunately, MIT now appears to many as an insitutution that allowed itself to be be led astray by an unqualified fraud.</p>