<p>"Hopefully it won't change the humane admissions policies at MIT."</p>
<p>Depends who replaces her. And I hope that admissions become more objective. Humane...that's the term they use to describe selection not based on merit.</p>
<p>geomom- if you've been reading the thousands of posts relating to Marilee Jones over the past few days, you'd be getting pretty irritated about it too. I can't count the number of people who have said outrageous things, including suggesting they all get together to sue Ms. Jones for rejecting them and claiming that women are only admitted to MIT to be girlfriends for qualified males. Those both sound pretty bitter to me.</p>
<p>I also don't see how much of what I said was rude. It was obviously not said in the nicest way, but in all honesty, why should MIT change its entire admissions policy because someone on a college discussion forum doesn't like it? All I mean is that MIT as a whole (the admissions office, the "higher-ups," the students, etc) like the admissions process we use, so why should we change it because of recent events?</p>
<p>
[quote]
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.
[/quote]
Is there any evidence to back up this assertion?</p>
<p>None. That is the type of wild assertion that LauraN and others are responding to.</p>
<p>I didn't see the post as rude at all and certainly not more so than the arguments she was responding to.</p>
<p>Laura,</p>
<p>Of course you are irritated. Everyone can see that some of the posters are some combination of young, politically motivated, or just plain provocative. But you don't win the argument by using the words represented by <em>stars</em> or hell, utter crap, or calling people jerks or idiotic, or by comparing caltech's merit scholars to "hookers" (not you, pebbles in this case). These word choices just immerse you in a brawl and prove nothing.</p>
<p>I've got this little 16 year old at home (OK, not little, he's 6'2") with MIT at the top of his list. This discussion will have no more effect on the direction of admissions than an argument at the corner bar. But your behavior does have an effect on the public perception of MIT.</p>
<p>Peace. I wish you well.</p>
<p>Only because they have been put on the defensive by many with an ax to grind against AA.</p>
<p>College,</p>
<p>I don't know, I just had this image of MIT students as clever, humorous, smart but subtle. Tough under pressure. Better than ax grinding internet trolls.</p>
<p>Ben, cghen, lizzardfire etc. you have all made excellent points and conducted yourselves well here.</p>
<p>I must admit that I'm absolutely mystified as to why anyone would think (or imply) from the comments on this thread that women aren't absolutely respected at Caltech! Personally, one of the reasons I chose Caltech was that I liked the idea that everyone there was admitted under the same system and the same criteria regardless of skin color or sex. I think the stigma (i.e. "the soft bigotry of low expectations") with which affirmative action invariably tars its "beneficiaries" is quite probably the worst thing about it. Worst of all, AA affects the perception of those who would have been admitted under a merit-only system anyway.</p>
<p>Caltech is completely free of that.</p>
<p>As for the scholarships, they don't bother me very much. Which statement do you think is more damaging: "She came to this school because she got a scholarship" or "she might not have been admitted to this school if she were male"?</p>
<p>P.S. No personal ax to grind--was admitted to MIT in both 2000 and 2004.</p>
<p>How will it change?</p>
<p>In some aspects, it appears there is a lot of momentum built up that will prove bigger than MJ's individual influence. Eg, the interim Dean is an MIT alum who was also the</a> MIT crew coach for 13 years. The newly hired Mens</a> Soccer coach comes from the highly successful sports program at Amherst College.
[quote]
For the last five years, Gooding has also been heavily involved with the Adidas Elite Soccer Program which is designed to identify the top 150 high school soccer players around the country.
[/quote]
It does not appear likely that sports are going to be de-emphasized in the near future at MIT.</p>
<p>CalTech is a unique place and MIT is unique. Good!</p>
<p>To Laura and Mollie, I appreciate your coming on this board to respond to posts about Jones's resignation. While I wish MIT had fired Jones, rather than asked for her resignation, I hope the scandal dies down quickly. </p>
<p>The most interesting thing I've learned from the discussion here is this, about Caltech. From 2003-2005, Caltech admitted males at an acceptance rate of 10.5%, and females at an acceptance rate of 29.4% (see cghen's earlier post). We have also been informed by members of the Caltech community that admissions are entirely merit based, with no regard to gender or race. One might hypothesize from this information that the female applicant pool is much stronger than the male applicant pool. Unless, as I've argued earlier, Caltech's admissions policies regarding women are similar to those of MIT.</p>
<p>Both are great schools. My daughter is going to MIT, but I certainly don't want to disparage Caltech. I do take issue, though, with some on this board who have used Marilee Jones's deception as a pretext for questioning the qualifications of women admitted to MIT.</p>
<p><a href="pebbles:">quote</a> Why doesn't that bother you? You are just as qualified as these ladies yet Caltech dangles heaps and heaps of money in front of them to get them to come.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>pebbles clearly wins on this particular point, flak that she(?) got notwithstanding. It is obvious that in offering a school-sponsored (i.e., not donor-restricted) scholarship only to "underrepresented" applicants, Caltech explicitly practices in financial aid what it claims not to practice in admissions. There is no meaningful separation of the two when financial considerations are an integral part of school selection for most acceptees.</p>
<p>geomom: Fair enough. I've certainly been getting grouchier and grouchier as this topic wears on. For the record though, I'm normally horribly sarcastic anyway, clever MIT student or not. =)</p>
<p>CalAlum --</p>
<p>
[quote]
From 2003-2005, Caltech admitted males at an acceptance rate of 10.5%, and females at an acceptance rate of 29.4% (see cghen's earlier post).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is plain wrong. Are you just making up numbers now? cghen's post with data in that ballpark was about the tiny handful of transfer admits, and that's certainly not the acceptance rate for females and males on the whole.</p>
<p>You also ignored my reply at #98 to that offensive silliness about how it's great that MIT professors treat girls like a special class of citizens who need extra encouragement. What gives.</p>
<p>To Ben G:</p>
<p>Caltech's own data indicates that the school admits female students at a much higher rate than it does males, both transfer and freshman students.</p>
<p>Yes, but the female acceptance rate is 30% and the male acceptance rate is 17%, and that's a much smaller advantage that at MIT. Just because a > b, you don't get to make up a and b and say they are whatever you want.</p>
<p>It is hard to take your arguments seriously when you are so cavalier with evidence.</p>
<p>Remember, the most coherent point made by the MIT advocates is that if MIT does it, Caltech does it too. The fact that the MIT advantage for girls is much bigger makes it quite possible that Caltech's policies are driven by self-selection (which is true) and MIT's are driven at least partly by affirmative action. Especially when you look at those magic 50/50 admit pools year after year at MIT.</p>
<p>To Ben G: For the record, I never posted that "MIT professors treat girls like a special class of citizens who need extra encouragement." Those are your words, not mine. </p>
<p>I shared a story of my daughter's different experiences when visiting at Caltech and MIT. I do think she had a very honest and frank discussion with a female physics professor at Caltech. She ended up applying to MIT and not to Caltech, and she chose MIT over Princeton, Harvard, Yale, etc. The point of the story was simply to illustrate that some qualified females may self-select MIT over Caltech.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The point of the story was simply to illustrate that some qualified females may self-select MIT over Caltech.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>With due respect, this point was entirely obvious to begin with. This debate won't be settled by individual anecdotes. If I were as undisciplined, I could tell stories daily for a month about times I've seen MIT admit relatively mediocre female applicants over more talented males, and people would (correctly) beat me with a stick for the bad debating technique.</p>
<p>Here, here, Ben. I have to admit I feel like a cheerleader, but you are exceptionally effective at this. (Of course, having the truth on one's side never hurts!)</p>
<p>CalAlum, points like "some qualified females may self-select MIT over Caltech" are so general and qualified as to be essentially useless in the discussion. The reverse is also true, for example--I could post many anecdotes where it has been (the one that comes to mind is a young woman currently at Harvard Med School) but as Ben correctly points out, that wouldn't prove a thing.</p>
<p>I don't think the things I said were unfounded. Clearly, there are manners of speech used to lighten up the conversation a little. I apologize if I offended anyone with my personality. Tough crowd, that's all.</p>
<p>Remember, just strength in numbers doesn't prove a point.</p>
<p>I made several points that haven't been refuted to my satisfaction:</p>
<p>1) "Merit" scholarship money to minorities regardless of economic status. What about that is meritocratic? If I'm not mistaken, I distinctly recall many of you (yes, the ones who are champions of race-gender-blind fairness) complaining about these programs that separate the "minorities (who often do not need any help)" from the "regular people". Minority-only workshops, etc etc. It sounds a whole lot like giving an advantage to minorities to me. And that brings me to another thought. If they so clearly desire to attract minorities (with money instead of propaganda like MIT) - and you can't argue with me there, having special scholarships for minorities is pretty evident of a strong desire for more minorities on campus - and clearly that information is there (they didn't replace their names and minority statuses with numbers or anything during the admissions process) - and moreover since Caltech environment is really on the brink of being unhealthy, they can't afford to lose any more female and minority admits. So who is to say that these factors do not give the females and the minorities a conscious or subconscious tip in the admissions process? The truth of the matter is, you don't know. And neither do I, and until they come out and say it, no one is going to win this argument.</p>
<p>(also, you know my opinion on AA, but that doesn't come into play here)</p>
<p>2) Arguing about rounding is silly with the data we are using.</p>
<p>AGH i have to go to class. For an interesting read:</p>
<p>not sure what, if anything, it says about the situation here, but thought I'd throw it out there.</p>
<p>One should not compare Caltech min# 1.7x vs MIT max# 2.6x</p>
<p>In 03-04, Caltech admitted 14.00% male vs 27.56% female (~2x) while MIT admitted 11.57% male vs 29.33% female (~2.54x).</p>