<p>@goblue, if MIT is in decline, why did you let your son apply? and why are you even bothered that he was rejected? (you obviously are)</p>
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<p>Bahahahaha I burst out laughing when I read this. I found out why you were rejected :P</p>
<p>iCalculus: You make me glad that I addressed the whole “why so many tests” question in my HYPS essays.</p>
<p>ORM valedictorian from my cousin’s school was rejected. He was Chinese(ORM), first-gen, low-income, had a disabled father he had to take care of. He had the average stats(33 ACT, 97 % UW GPA, 10 AP’s, a few awards, 770 and 760 on SAT 2’s, had a passion for studying forms of mental retardation, worked with a doctor for 3 years to observe mentally ■■■■■■■■ children, started his own workshop for mentally disabled children, and has a few other E.C.'s(tutoring, math team, etc.)).
HOWEVER, a cuban girl from the same school, who was ranked 5th, had a 34 ACT, 95 GPA, low-caliber E.C.'s, who came from a high income family, who has the money to go to expensive summer classes at ivy schools, was accepted.
So the idea that MIT looks at context is ********!!!
Clearly, the ORM should have gotten in, he accomplished more, even though he was in an environment which did not “promote” educational values.
The only reason MIt picked the Cuban girls was b/c she was “female” and an “URM”. If they really looked at context, they would have understood that the ORM did much more, and was a better fit(had a true passion) for MIT.
That’s dissapointing.
Even though MIT is an extraordinary university, it is not suprising to see such erroneous decisions coming from a university that once had a dean of admissions who lied significantly about her credentials!!</p>
<p>Colleges are businesses. That’s the truth!
The Soviet Union will return!
Hahahahaha!!!</p>
<p>Lola, in this case, I agree with you that MIT should accept ORM valedictorian.
However, you should not draw conclusion from the form dean.</p>
<p>You lose credibility by making such remarks…</p>
<p>@ lola-</p>
<p>in soviet russia, colleges go to you</p>
<p>You don’t actually know anything about the girl’s application or extra-curriculars, there are so many factors that you are unaware of. Virtually everyone’s anecdotal evidence about MIT admissions being unfair is based on assumptions.</p>
<p>Ok, I got into MIT ea. I’m sure that people at my school were surprised. The kids in my classes would only see me IN CLASS, doing what everyone else was doing, taking tests, listening to lectures etc. So of course I would not have been viewed as “special” in that respect. But, outside of class, there was a different story that only a couple of my close friends knew. I took additional physics/calculus courses at the local university, I worked on big robotics projects for the team that I founded, I worked on my own robotics projects, I was in the process of becoming an Intel semifinalist, worked, AND did club athletics. These outside-the-classroom pursuits were my focus. I chose to do these things on my own because my school did not have anything substantial to offer. </p>
<p>and I am STILL shocked and humbled by MIT’s acceptance.</p>
<p>I just found out that my friend got rejected when I called her :(. She seems to be totally okay with it though, and we mostly talked about other stuff. </p>
<p>I think I’m probably the only person at my school who got in. The only other guy I knew who applied EA was rejected, and none of the RA’s are changing their FB status or showing up on the guestbook. Oh, well. Still excited about the tattoos in the FA package!</p>
<p>O.K. thanks iCalculus.
But, this girl didn’t do Intel, she didn’t do independent projects, and the only course she took was at Brown’s summer program, which only requires $$$ to get into, not a lot of brians(like RSI). She was in the honor society, in the drama club and chorus.
I know this b/c my cousin was good friends with her, as well.
My point is that are Ec’s were not impressive.
@iCalculus: when you talk about outside stuff, the val, did his own independent research on autism, worked under a medical professional, started his own small workshop for mentally retarted children. He helped these kids to read and write, he tutored other kids on his own, he was in honor society, math club, science club, etc. He had minimal involvement/support from his parents, who haven’t gone to college. He comes home, takes care of his dad, does his school work, and leaves to tutor kids and attend to his workshop.
I don’t mind if MIT rejects him b/c he didn’t win Intel, or participate in chemistry, physics, math olympiads and he’s Asian with imperfect stats. BUT there has to be consistency.
Congratz to her for getting in, but it was wrong for the Val to get rejected(if you consider CONTEXT).
@ oasis- haha Nice!!</p>
<p>My bad for the dean comments.
That was a cheap shot.</p>
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<p>It isn’t much more difficult at all than maintaining focus for four hours and fifty-five minutes. Your second point is ridiculous; I just said that someone who knows everything can still miss a few questions due to unpredictability (occasional questions are just ridiculous) or chance.</p>
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<p>Or maybe find something more interesting to do. Not many people care about fine differences in scores, and it doesn’t say anything additional about a person.</p>
<p>Lola995, </p>
<p>I understand where you coming from, but I must contend that you would know what’s a better fit for MIT than MIT themselves. Also, the university (and others) is pretty open about its affirmative action policies. In a move towards diversity (ethic, social, etc.), the admissions office chose the other applicant. It’s a private university with its own admissions practices. If someone has such a problem with it, then that person should not even apply or want to go there. </p>
<p>p.s. I’m asian and I know i’ll be hurt by this policy, but i applied to these universities knowing full well that an athlete or URM has a far better chance than I do.</p>
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<p>What an incredibly general question that is so widely varying based on loads of factors that no answer will prove any point at all. And… why does what your son got in 8th grade matter?</p>
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<p>LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what is goblue’s complete argument here. From what I’ve read, he/she has complained about affirmative action and apparently links it to MIT’s decline.</p>
<p>A couple of points:
- MIT has practiced affirmative action for decades. So it cannot be the cause of a sudden decline.
- URM’s account for, what, 22% of the student body? It’s not enough to signify a decline, even if you think they are subpar. I wonder how many of these URM’s are internationals also, because trust me, these guys are clearly above average at MIT–usually way above average. (And, in fact, with respect to domestic applicants, the application process is harder.)
- As MITChris says, MIT lowers the bar less for URM’s than do it’s peer schools, mainly because MIT is so much harder.
- There is only one super-elite school that doesn’t practice affirmative action, Caltech. So obviously MIT is not losing ground to other elite schools because of affirmative action.
- MITChris has said that high-scoring URM’s are rejected sometimes in favor for lower-scoring URM’s, and people wrongly infer that the latter admits got in because of their ethnicity. While this sounds like a BS adcom thing to say, I’ve seen that happen on CC. </p>
<p>Still, it is misleading to say that affirmative action doesn’t get people admitted who would otherwise have been rejected. That’s the point. If it didn’t do that, then it would be completely toothless. Certainly there are URM’s that would have gotten in anyway, but that is beside the point. It is what it is. </p>
<p>If goblue has another complaint about MIT’s admission process, I haven’t seen it. Though sometimes school reputation can dominate reality, the graduating undergrads at MIT are still rated number 1 by recruiters in every engineering category as rated by U.S. News. </p>
<p>Now, granted, MIT admissions have shifted away from pure intellectual firepower above all else, but what school exactly would it have fallen behind in terms of undergrad intelligence. Stanford? Stanford admissions, even for science/engineering majors, is way more subjective than MIT’s. Ivy’s typically don’t have strong engineering programs, and the choosing of their science candidates is very subjective (particular bio and chem majors because of the whole well-rounded pre-med thing). Other good engineering schools, like Berkeley for instance, may be more straightforward in admissions but their talent is not as concentrated as at MIT simply because their applicant pool isn’t as strong. Other than Caltech, MIT undoubtedly has the greatest concentration and abundance of science/engineering talent in the country.</p>
<p>First of all, I think we all agree on a “FACT” that race has played and is still playing a “not-small” role in the admission decision.</p>
<p>The only thing I don’t understand is why it has to be that way? (Sorry for the dumb question) I can understand the validity of all other “subjective” criteria but RACE? How can a student decide his/her race? Basically if a student is Asian/white when he/she was born, he/she automatically has to try harder than a black student to be admitted to MIT regardless of their socioeconomic status? (Assuming that the admission bar is higher for asian and white students than for black students, which can be considered a fact, by now) </p>
<p>And another question is: “WHAT GOAL DOES MIT WANT TO ACCOMPLISH WHEN EDUCATING ITS STUDENTS? WHAT DOES IT WANT THEM TO BECOME, TO ACHIEVE AFTER COLLEGE?”
Because i feel that colleges are not all about academic, intellectual, research… anymore.</p>
<p>A very interesting fact that I read in an article somewhere is that when affirmative action was ban in California, the numbers of Asian students in UCLA, Berkerley increased sharply. Obviously, they are just interesting students enough, not a bunch of socially awkward nerdy kids. (please don’t tell me to quote the source since I don’t remember it. I think it’s pretty easy to do some research on google)</p>
<p>Why don’t colleges just say that they choose spots by lottery and then choose things however they want? It’d cause way less of a headache.</p>
<p>I mean if you have all 8th grader take SAT, very few will get 2400. Therefore there is a big difference between 2250 and 2400.
The way for AA or hollistic to work is to take the strongest aspect of one race, SAT and GPA for instance, lower it to a point many people will qualify and claim there is no difference between 2250 and 2400, 3.8 and 4.0, then once you are in, they use other factors to pick whomever they want. Like PGA tour will have everyone who get 73 in and pck a champion based on some hollistic factors.</p>