<p>"A perfect GPA? Straight A+'s? Uhhh...?"</p>
<p>Uhh what?</p>
<p>"Anyways, if anything is ridiculous it's your comment, "By your logic, these people might not have gotten into MIT. And I think that's ridiculous." Where is the proof of that?"</p>
<p>Because perfectionist tendencies are counted against you in MIT admissions, people who were amazingly accomplished but who were obviously perfectionists may not get in.</p>
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Because perfectionist tendencies are counted against you in MIT admissions, people who were amazingly accomplished but who were obviously perfectionists may not get in.
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That's not true at all. You are thinking too one dimensionally.</p>
<p>How do you know? From listening to MIT adcomm talk, it sounds like if they suspect you are a perfectionist that it may deep-six your candidacy.</p>
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How do you know? From listening to MIT adcomm talk, it sounds like if they suspect you are a perfectionist that it may deep-six your candidacy.
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"Perfectionist" is rather vague. What do you mean?</p>
<p>IMO, there are several types of students (academically speaking)...
Some are school smart, and others are life smart (if that makes any sense)...and some are both. I guess what the colleges look for is a strong balance between our grades and what we do in our free time, which would reflect our determination, passion and qualifications. I know someone at my school who has the best grades in the class, but she is TOTALLY naive.</p>
<p>collegealum, thanks for clearing up your comments. Vocabulary is the best predictor of intelligence, has the most loading on "g"; so, please don't discount the importance of SAT verbal. Math is also a language skill. Essays are so edited by parents and writing coaches they are useless, usually judged for the personality qualities it reveals, used like the TAT test in psychology, the story telling is supposedly a clue to the inner man. Baloney! And I am a clinical psychologist. For writing, rely on school essays, ask for a school sample or just the grade in English classes.</p>
<p>What is so wrong with perfectionism? We don't know what makes for resilience, people who have shown resilience fall apart under certain circumstances when one would expect them to be resilient, those who have never shown rise to the occasion. At least with the perfectionist we know there is an indomitable striving for personal excellence.</p>
<p>Those suicides mean little. Before the third generation anti-depressants we were not able to reduce suicides among those prone to depression. I don't want to be in college with happy go lucky types totally indifferent to how they fare in classes and grades.</p>
<p>I've been asked by a U to read application essays, so I know something of how they're viewed, why they're included. They are not so much a stand-alone element as a piece expanding on the application contents. To the extent that they provide helpful insight on academic motivation (indications of curiosity, consistency of purpose, more) or that they contextualize or elaborate on a pursuit, they can be valuable. Much more often, a bad (poorly written), neutral (offering no further insight), shallow or disinterested essay reduces a candidate's chances much more than a great essay artificially elevates an otherwise unimpressive application. The readers are generous, and also understand the limits of adolescent perspective. But if you sound quite unconvincing about who you are, why you're writing this essay, why you want to go to college X, sound lost & without purpose -- not to mention conflicted or a poor cognitive organizer -- I'm not persuaded that you belong here. Neither a gushing tone nor a self-conscious earnestness is necessary, but it becomes obvious who has put effort into it and who hasn't, as well as who has been poorly trained in writing. Also, don't be fooled that adult-written essays, or overly edited ("professional") essays, are not transparent. Most ofen, they are. The adolescent voice is difficult to manufacture or re-manufacture from an adult timeline. Same for the particular use of vocabulary, which is different from merely comprehending the vocabulary itself.</p>
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Vocabulary is the best predictor of intelligence, has the most loading on "g"
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</p>
<p>I would go further and argue that strong verbal skils and the ability to master the essentials of persuasion - pathos, ethos, and logos- may be more important for success in the sciences and technology than just raw technical ability. Outside possibly of computer programming, there are few technical fields where you can succeed without having to persuade others: writing a grant or business proposal, getting an article published, getting a product manufactured, getting a patent approved or getting a new business idea funded. Strong analytical skills are necessary but far from sufficient. </p>
<p>What Collegealumn sees as an abandonment of traditional values such as "perfectionism" (shorthand for admission based on SAT scores, AIME scores, GPA) by MIT in its admission process for a more holistic process which he derisively calls the "Harvard Model", I see a a more enlightened policy where students are evaluated along multiple dimensions and not just technical ability. </p>
<p>Would MIT be better off by adopting a system such as the more narrow Caltech model? I seriously doubt it.</p>
<p>First, MIT has not relaxed its standards in regards to test scores: if anything the median scores of admitted students are continually climbing because of soaring applications by the most qualified students. Both median verbal and math SAT scores have been increasing. Verbal SAT scores have increased in large part because of more female applicants with stronger average verbal SAT scores than male applicants. Even the math SAT scores have risen, in part because of a greater influx of students interested in the sciences as opposed to engineering. I would argue that MIT is a stronger math powerhouse today than it ever was in its history using the number of Putnam Fellows as a metric. Since 2000, there were nearly as many Putnam Fellows from MIT as from Harvard, Caltech and Princeton combined. So both the average and top end mathematical ability have improved. Hardly a sign of decline. </p>
<p>In other fields, the improvement of MIT have been even more spectacular, probably nowhere more so than in the life sciences. MIT was never known as a great place for premeds, partly because of its hardcore engineering culture. This is rapidly changing with a near 90% admission rate to top med schools for undergraduate applicants. (Interestingly 75% of those are female). Same thing with the number of students pursuing PhD in biology or biochemistry. NIH funded medical research is now the fastest growing are of research for MIT. World class laboratories in neuroscience, cancer research and bioengineering, joint medical technology programs with HMS, a new biological engineering major have attracted a very different type of student to MIT (especially female students) from the traditional hardcore EECS types. Most of these life science majors, which represent broadly speaking 20-25% of the admitted pool, never took the AIME or participated in the Intel or Siemens competitons. Are they by any measure less qualified than the math/engineering majors? </p>
<p>I believe that by adopting a more balanced view to admission, MIT is appealing to broader swath of high-achieving applicants, students that MIT had a harder time convincing to apply as little as ten years ago. The perception of MIT as a one dimensional harcore engineering school is slowly dissipating. The idea that you can go to MIT and get a degree in biology, neuroscience, economics, management or even philosophy is dawning on students looking for an intellectual challenge. This "enlightened view" partly explains with MIT is loosing fewer and fewer cross-admit battles not only against its more traditional competitors, Caltech and Stanford, but also against HYP.</p>
<p>"Vocabulary is the best predictor of intelligence, has the most loading on "g"; so, please don't discount the importance of SAT verbal"</p>
<p>I actually agree with you there, but I kind of figured it was a lost cause. People have such a problem with SAT verbal and its seemed ancillary to my main point, that I dismissed it. I actually think verbal ability is not only indicative of communication ability, but also ability to be creative in technical fields. However, as I'm sure most would agree, a high SAT verbal ability is not as necessary to success at MIT than high mathematical/left-brained ability. Someone with say an 800 in verbal and 650 in math might get more out of going to an ivy league school than MIT. If they got 750+ in both, then great. </p>
<p>To adress some of cellardwellar points, I actually do think Caltech cares about the verbal SAT (and in fact their average verbal SATs are quite high.) I disagree that life science people are fundamentally different from engineering or physical science people and that you need to select for them in a different way. Many of my friends who are in biology were awesome at math team in high school. Also, at MIT in particular, some of the humanities are taught with a heavily quantitative slant. Economics is highly mathematical by nature, and I've heard the same thing about poli sci. MIT always had plenty of people majoring in the economics, the life sciences, and going to medical school. The only thing that seems to be different is the rise of management as a major. In the past it was rare to see it as anything but a part of a double major.</p>
<p>cellardweller and collegealum, thanks for the support on vocabulary. Of course, I did not mean something like 650 v and 800 math; 800 verbal is more impressive than 800 math. (By the way, both math and verbal are left hemisphere). The 800 verbal is only attained after years of frequenting the best writers, the 800 math is more easily taught, etc. Actually, the SAT math is no great predictor of mathematical maturity, in Calculus 2 you see many of them crumble.</p>
<p>cellardweller, nice write up on MIT but I go with collegealum. Life sciences were always superb at MIT, they just didn't make a splash about it; Hargobind Khurana, a medicine Nobel, taught there for many years, just one of many. Now, because of feminization, and females tend to like biology more than physics, there is a song and dance.</p>
<p>Collegealum is perhaps like me, we like pagan virtues of achievement and triumph, perfectionism and competition, the virility which is the root of the word virtue which is excellence and this is often best measured by academic competitions and scores etc. American colleges like the Christian virtues of humility, piety, fellowship and sinfulness, so essays celebrating these and those paying homage to the poor of the world thru social service get in.</p>
<p>Like Nietzche I believe sympathizing with suffering in the world doubles the amount of suffering so I am against community service, it has unintended consequences, save the guy from starving to death today and you will have to save his children and his grandchildren. This last passage meant in jest.</p>