How Does MIT Justify This Expectation?

<p>There are no “assertions”, that is reality. A person going to MIT or pursuing science as a career is taking a risk, they just don’t think of it as one. And the fact that you just admitted that your definition is too narrow means that you essentially agree. My “assertions” assigned a very broad definition to “risk” that have nothing to do with upbringing. People who take “risks” will be more able to optimize an MIT experience. I also feel as if you should not have mentioned all those things you desired to do but did not because of XYZ, too many “buts”. Whatever, I hope you get in somewhere good. If and when you do, avoid the “buts”, just do it. College is a prime time to do that sort of thing and the environments at many top schools supports those who carry out their ideas. And realize that things don’t have to be “terribly” risky
to discuss. It seems as if your definition of risk robbed you of the ability to provide a solid response to the prompt. Your outlook on “risk assessment” and the mere definition of “risk” will likely evolve with your college experience so you’ll be okay.</p>

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Unfortunately it doesn’t “mean” much. Those alumni are (probably) not the ones making your admission decision.</p>

<p>OP, don’t worry, there are hobbits here. I am extremely risk averse. I take really stupid academic risks, but that’s all.</p>

<p>@lidusha- That’s a pretty serious risk in the current climate were just raw numbers are preferred over the substance behind it. One in which law schools treat all majors the same and medical schools rather admit the Biology student with a 3.8 and 30 vs. the BME student with a 3.6 and say a 32 (and even in the case that the biology program at the applicants institution is far more rigorous than most programs, no slack is cut. For example, it is apparently, on average, just so very slightly easier for a Duke student to get into medical school than it is someone at MIT) , even though we know which one has likely developed better and longer lasting non-test based problem solving skills. It’s not a trivial risk to do academic risks in this “credentialist” sort of climate where even the superficial sorts of perfection are rewarded. At least grad. schools (Ph.D admissions) are a bit better, and likely some employees are too. Again, taking risks associated with one’s schooling is not really rewarded now a days where everyone finds the path to a near perfect GPA while having plenty of time to engage every EC activity (even if not in much depth) on the planet. Taking your academic choices more seriously than just another requirement or A you need to rack up takes quite a bit of guts, even if you have the MIT brand behind your degree. I applaud you on just doing this alone. It’ll find some way of working out for you in the long run I hope.</p>

<p>Thanks for the compliments.</p>

<p>Don’t worry, I don’t take my academic choices very seriously. I’m also not going anywhere where grades matter.</p>

<p>I think the OP is confused about the difference between a “conservative” attitude and the following three traits: “sheepish,” “professionally shy,” and “risk averse.” None of the three have anything to do with having a conservative demeanor. All three can exist with a conservative attitude or a liberal attitude. </p>

<p>OP might be using “conservative” in a more denotative sense than the political one, maybe? But I think we already got to what concepts we wanted, regardless of what wording we prefer for them.</p>

<p>I don’t know if this qualifies as an example of risk taking available to anyone, but my son didn’t start or join any clubs, didn’t create any businesses or charities, or ran for offices or other outward shows of risk in the sense that your interviewer may have implied. However he did like to take “risks” in just completing his normal school assignments. When given a problem with a common and expected solution, he would mull it over and come up with a quirky, different, challenging way to solve it, and he gave examples in his essays to show that he had this attitude toward his work whether the assignment was in english or science or health. </p>

<p>@PiperXP - I was as well. I was using liberal, as in the sense of easily accepting of trying new things, as oppposed to conservative, e.g., in sticking to what you like (not to be confused with non-risking).</p>

<p>I think the OP may be confused about the college admissions process. It isn’t about everyone having the same chance of getting into any particular school that someone else has. MIT gets a lot of applicants, obviously. And the admissions process is designed to identify the students MIT thinks are the best fit. They have characteristics in mind that they are looking for. And different schools do value different characteristics. I am not an admissions officer and I am not affiliated with MIT (except having kids there) but I do know that the result of admission efforts is that the climates or personalities of the student bodies of different colleges are different-on purpose . MIT is a place where students are using what they learn to invent new things, improve existing things, change existing things into never before thought of things…you get it. So, MIT will be more interested in whether a student can put them self on the line, throw creative caution to the wind, step out of step with everyone else when there is a better step nobody has noticed. A student who has dutifully gotten As and who has been rushed to a tutor to cure a 99% and who has fretted immensely over whether colleges will like the World History or American History SAT2 score more is not going to be someone who gets to MIT and figures out what nobody else has ever considered. instead, that student will be too busy trying to figure out what everyone is doing so she or he can do it too. That student might describe the biggest risk as wearing white after Labor day or not ordering the same lunch as the popular kids. That student might be happier at a school where conformity is rewarded. Regardless, MIT is probably not in that student’s future.</p>

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Well, keep in mind that this was 12 years ago, and I neither knew very much about MIT nor applied to very many schools – I ended up with a choice only between Ohio State and MIT (I’d been waitlisted at Harvard, which was the only other school to which I’d applied). I saw Ohio State as more of a risk for someone with my personality, because I saw a very real possibility that a quiet, naturally-reluctant-to-ask-for-things student would fall through the cracks at OSU. And I think I was right.</p>

<p>Given my background, I don’t conflate risk aversion with intellectual laziness, or with total avoidance of challenges. And I also don’t think risk aversion means that you don’t take any risks – just that you feel the need to carefully justify them, and, all things considered, you would prefer not to take them.</p>

<p>It’s true that many people at MIT (and many people in STEM careers) are less risk-averse than I am. I married a fellow MIT alum who gets his kicks from doing flips on skis. Not my bag.</p>

<p>In this context, risk is about mindset, how you think and the quality. Whether you can even see “outside the box.” Don’t think of it like walking in traffic. Or defying your parents’ beliefs. Or having the guts to apply to MIT. It’s about the sum behind these nameable moves. Can you see more than what’s in front of your nose? Does your mind function structurally as well as creatively. Can you reasonably evaluate the worthiness or legitimacy of the effort, the value in the try, and then go for it. Big or small.</p>

<p>Thinking outside the box is pretty critical for problem solving, innovation, forward moves. There’s also personal gain in the breadth and depth of experiences you seek out, including intellectual. Lately, there’s been a lot of chat on CC about “standing out” or going for wildly unique experiences to seem different. That’s not it either. That can be empty, off track, one-dimensional. </p>

<p>Knowing that at the end of failure is disappointment and condemnation, have I really had an equal opportunity to take risks? Risks have a rather high probability of failure. A lot of stem is about testing ideas. Sometimes retesting what failed before, replicating to understand the failure, sometimes having a new approach. Can’t do this if your mindset is in the box. Think about it. </p>

<p>Since several of you have talked about risks and their relation to STEM fields, which I’m obviously interested in, I’ll say this: I’ve spent the past eighteen years in an environment that condemns failure (and, by extension, risk). Once I get into my STEM studies and work, I won’t have this burden. But as far as my application and interview go, I only have the past eighteen years backing me.</p>

<p>Actually, I think OP has more of a point than some of you have given him/her credit for. </p>

<p>Willingness to take risks is inherently bound up in privilege. Someone with more privilege (more social capital, a better safety net, etc) can more easily take risks, and more risks, than someone with less. This is risk broadly defined, but it is something we talk about, and think about. </p>

<p>One archetypical case is the lower SES student who isn’t involved in as many ECAs because they know they need to focus on grades and get a scholarship or else they can’t go to college. They may not be able to risk being involved in as many ECAs because they have more to lose should they be distracted, lose a point off a grade, etc. So this may translate into a profile which looks more risk averse, when in fact the fundamentals are profoundly different. </p>

<p>Now, as others have said, this type of risk mitigation is a bit different from a personality trait of being “afraid,” or “risk-averse” in some global sense. But I do have some sympathy for the anxiety discussing this question can induce, and OP, what I’d say is that it is one question / expectation of many, and that we always try our best to interpret risk tolerance in the applicant’s context. </p>

<p>(Hope this makes sense - quick note before I crash)</p>

<p>@MITChris Nice bringing together of several different points. Yes, image of an applicant does not show the conditions, which caused that image. I would venture to posit though that the same student who may have had to curtail ECAs because of focus on grades will exhibit a “risk-taking” attitude, if he has one, in his essays and elsewhere, such it as being recognized by teachers in recommendations etc. </p>

<p>I feel that I need to add the perspective of an interviewer here. There seems to be a sense that we as interviewers are trying to tick boxes here. That we are asking questions trying to ensure that we get a perfect MIT applicant. Under this model, every answer has a series of approved correct answers and if the wrong answer is given to any question, then suddenly the student gets negative recommendation from the interviewer. Nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone walking around the MIT campus, talking to the MIT students will quickly realise that we are not looking for some cookie-cutter model of an MIT student and that we are looking for a wide variety of interesting characters, some obvious risk-takers, and some not. I would like to hope that most of the Educational Councillors out there have the skill to interpret the students contextual capacity for risk, or for anything else. I have interviewed a student who had no in-school extra curricular activities, as his income was needed by the family and who needed to work after school. Of course, MIT is interested in the choices that an applicant makes, and the fact that the student did not have choices about after-school activity is indeed relevant. Whether the student takes risks is much less relevant. There are traits that correlate well with success at MIT (see <a href=“What we look for | MIT Admissions”>http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/match&lt;/a&gt;). Risk taking behavior correlates less well.</p>

<p>That doesn’t mean the question was irrelevant or wrong. As a interviewer you ask a variety of questions looking to build up a picture of the person you are talking to. At the time you are asking a question, you do not know whether it is going to tell you anything at all that will be useful for the report. I have told the tale here once before of the interviewee who told me that his school had assigned an Agatha Christie book to read and she had become one of his favorite authors. I, just trying to move the conversation along, asked if he had a favorite detective, if he preferred Jane Marple to Hercule Poirot, or perhaps one of the less well known detective series like Tommy and Tuppence. He, baffled, indicated that the school had only assigned the one book to read, and from that it came out that he had never read a book that had not been assigned to him to read. The most important question in the whole interview turned out to be whether he preferred Jane Marple or Hercule Poirot. And that was a question, it turns out, which to my surprise did have a wrong answer.</p>

<p>Do not obsess over a single question in a single interview. We are not trying to make you fit some predetermined model. We are just trying to meet you. And for the overwhelming majority of our questions, there are no wrong answers.</p>

<p>^^ Thanks for your perspective. I get it.</p>

<p>I don’t think the interviewer lacks privilege (something MITChris mentioned). In fact, I suspect the opposite in this case. I am guessing the OP does come from a privileged background.</p>

<p>^ You can have more net privilege than someone else, but still have less privilege in certain areas.</p>

<p>To the new contributors: thank you all very much for your inputs; I’ve enjoyed reading them. I’m quite happy with all these different perspectives.</p>

<p>intparent & PiperXP: I do indeed come from a “privileged” background (but even then, we meet a good deal of ambiguity). The bigger issue(?) is the very strict, unyielding parental “guidance”/influence I’ve had…it hasn’t condoned risky behavior to any degree. Thus, I might say – in agreement with PiperXP – that I have less privilege in being a “free spirit” (especially in being one who frequently takes risks).
There’s no way for any school to see this (i.e., the cause of my risk aversion), which is why I thought of posting starting this discussion.</p>

<p>Mikalye: I hope I didn’t (and don’t) come across as argumentative when I mentioned how I was told by my EC that MIT seeks risk-takers. As for your story: yikes!</p>

<p>That’s a great story, Mikalye. Such a good example of how even the most banal questions can produce the most interesting insights! </p>