MIT 2011' admits who were rejected by WTP back in Summer 2006

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

<p>Please help me with something that has been driving me nuts
since receiving this letter from the MIT WTP program today....</p>

<p>something to the effect of "Dear ____, You are overqualified and
....for this program....etc. etc..."</p>

<p>Could any of you class of 2011 MIT admits who were originally
rejected by WTP with a similar "overqualified" letter
for summer of 2006 please post here, PLEASE :)? </p>

<p>... this will tremendously help me and other :rolleyes" "overqualified" :(
applicants develop a realistic picture of our chances at the real MIT given
that this has happened to us in the summer before our application year...</p>

<p>*<em>wildly clutching for straws *</em></p>

<p>What is depressing is that I don't feel "overqualified", I am scared of
AP Physics C which I am self studying and am sure can match anyone's
phobias :eek: and low moments :(</p>

<p>P.S: I am not posting this on the summer or high school program threads
because the question is directed to current MIT admits</p>

<p>I am going to go out now and run this bad feeling off with an extra 4 miles :mad:</p>

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<p>bump (10 char)</p>

3

<p>
[quote]
WTP was designed and created by MIT students in 2002 who were concerned about the fact that many young women do not consider engineering or computer science majors in college, despite having strong math and science backgrounds and analytical abilities. Research into this issue identifies some key pipeline barriers which the WTP experience addresses: </p>

<p>lack of pre-college computing or engineering experience
negative stereotypes about what engineers do and how they work
lack of confidence in their potential to pursue engineering
lack of female role models </p>

<p>207 high school students have participated in WTP since 2002, and 147 are currently in college.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I had never heard of WTP until your post, but I got this from the MIT website. Sounds like they are interested in females who are not superstars but are good students, and accept them in order to encourage them to pursue science careers. Look at the number of females who participated and the fact that only about 70% of them are even in college now. If someone was accepted at MIT, they were probably a superstar even last summer.</p>

4

<p>Call the WTP people and see what is going on. In response to your post, I just scanned the WTP site, and it has a low bar to admission--80th percentile standardized test scores. Basically, you are talking scores that many (most?) of the folks going to MIT obtained in 6th or 7th grade without any prep. </p>

<p>Thus, the letter could well be accurate.</p>

<p>If you were my kid, I'd strongly encourage you to call or write the person who signed the "overqualified" letter.</p>

5

<p>So I was in WTP a while back (so I'm not 2011 but hopefully can still help), so I would like to respond to your question, but I'm actually in a rush right now. As a quick answer, I would say don't worry about it being an indication of your chances at getting into MIT, especially if you were not accepted for just being "overqualified". I'll try to answer what I can of your question later when I have time.</p>

<p>Also, as a note to VeryHappy's comments, only 147 out of the 202 in the program are currently in college because the 60 in the program this past summer are still seniors in high school and have only just been accepted to colleges. Every girl that's been in the program that is college age is in college, and I'd say about half of us are here at MIT (and the rest at other fabulous schools, so I wouldn't exactly say the bar to admission is "low" - even though the website says applicants should have scores at just least at 80th percentile, I think many applicants/accepted girls have considerably higher than that).</p>

<p>I know of at least one girl at MIT who was not accepted to WTP I believe beacuse she was overqualified, and at least one more girl here that didn't get in just because the program is very competitive to get into. The program is very rigorous and does get a lot of applicants from a lot of probably amazing girls, so it is competitive to get into. </p>

<p>I'll get back to you later, ok? But don't worry too much about it :)</p>

6

<p>thank you stevedad,engineering hopeful and veryhappy for your replies!</p>

<p>I am reminded of Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie commenting
about getting a job ... "too short, too tall , too thin..."
or something close to that...</p>

<p>A routine rejection letter is a sign I was not competitive enough but this "overqualified" thing is wierd to say the least;</p>

<p>By getting the relevant admit stats I am hoping to dispel the burgeoning
idea (in my mind) that I am doomed in regular admissions as well to
a rejection (or worse still a defer-> waitlist).</p>

<p>the real crux of the matter is I am wondering now if I should begin to
think like a "girl" and not as a "person"; i feel total kinship to the
molliebatmit and pebbles kind of people who are being themselves...
this "overqualified" thing is beginning to raise serious questions.</p>

<p>as a chess player I am used to being defeated and learning from the
times I have lost; </p>

<p>(from engineeringhopeful's post , looks like there is 1 person [possibly]
who was 'overqualified for WTP' who is actually studying now at MIT)</p>

<p>(stevedad, I am planning on writing right after marathon monday since only
2 people seem to be handling the entire load of 228 applicants ti would
probably be a burden on them if I call;)</p>

<p>the summarized dry-stats me</p>

<p>-2 time AIME qualifier (AMC 12 school top score despite my 105's :(
that cannot be overqualified!)
- Intel Isef finalist and a few SF awards
- Ultimate Frisbee and 5K running (21:30)
- AP Physics C (Self studying Junior year), AP Calc BC, USH, English , Chem
- EPGY Stanford Univ. PreCal & Trig, Calc A, Calc B, Comp Sci basic, inter
- 1510 V+M SAT I, Math IIC 800, Bio M 760 (beginning of sophomore yr)
-work: webmaster (Perl, CGI, Apache, Mysql)
+ a somewhat quirky sense of humor and I relax by running
+ captain of chess team & national championship 2nd, Math team etc..</p>

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<p>Your AP/EPGY classes, Intel finalist, and 2 time AIME qualifier takes you out of the perceived target pool of gals who because of their gender have been barred from sufficient exposure to math/science to form an interest in those type of subjects. (I don't agree with the premise in the first place, but that is the reason given for the program.) Granted, you haven't attained USAMO, but you are still in the top 5% of those taking the AMC--which is a very self (and school) selected pool. And, hey, this year a 105 really wasn't bad--qualifier was under 100!</p>

<p>From the standpoint of the particular program, you are beyond the "need help" pool.</p>

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<p>hey..
I got into WTP and I am qualified for USAMO...
but I have lower SAT scores...</p>

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<p><a href="from%20engineeringhopeful's%20post%20,%20looks%20like%20there%20is%201%20person%20%5Bpossibly%5D%0Awho%20was%20'overqualified%20for%20WTP'%20who%20is%20actually%20studying%20now%20at%20MIT">quote</a>

[/quote]

I feel like there are more. The WTP thread from last year is [url=<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=146919%5Dhere%5B/url"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=146919]here[/url&lt;/a&gt;]; on page 4, mangopeachie (who did WTP in the summer of 2005) talks about the rationale behind being "overqualified":

I don't recognize any of the overqualified people on that thread as applicants for this year, but you could check their posts and see where they got in this year.</p>

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<p>stevedad thank you for your reply! mangopeachie's comments from
molliebatmit's post throws some light on the situation ....though
why WTP program admins could not say it on their info pages
so people do not waste 6 hrs designing an E-coli genome faced
beaver and an evolutionary influenza protein map based WTP watch
(okay I got a little carried away on their ..send something in on a page
question) beats me......</p>

<p>hmm I actually had more fun doing the one question on the application that
was lifted from the Caltech application.... </p>

<p>molliebatmit thank you for a very helpful post! :)</p>

<p>I found two "overqualified rejects" from the mangopeachie
post pages (kiki930 and ultimateslacker) interestingly it looks
like neither of them applied to MIT this year.</p>

<p>18 of the 60 who were admitted to WTP last year
were eventually rejected at MIT apparently...I have
no idea what happened to the rest..</p>

<p>thanks again ...:)</p>

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<p>arwen15, I am in the same situation! It seems really weirds, but the program might not reverse its decision anyway. Did you apply for anything else?</p>

<p>On a different note, I am not sure if WTP ever recieved my math rec, did that really count against me?</p>

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<p>you are probably right westcoastlove.</p>

<p>...arguments against reversing decisions would follow the same rationale
that is used to not negotiate with terrorists ...you do one and there
is going to be an avalanche of such negotiations.....?</p>

<p>...the part that rankles, it is okay to <em>reject</em> me for a bad essay,putting
smileys next
to low AMC12 scores, perverting science by spending hours modifying
a K-12 e-coli genome picture into a beaver face or influenza proteins
into a tye die pattern <em>BUT</em> it is not okay to reject me for being
'Overqualified' for a "competitive" program at MIT</p>

<p>the admins at WTP could have simply avoided inconviniencing themselves
and prospective admits like us by posting the requirements for their
ceiling.... something like ...</p>

<ol>
<li>have you done AP Calc BC, Ap Phy C Mech </li>
<li>you are a)not at all b) mildly c) heavily conversant with Linux and Apache
(or a question similiar to that)</li>
<li>you have taken multiple comp sci programming courses at the school or university level</li>
</ol>

<p>If you answered Yes to 1 && 2C && 3 STOP! Apply Elsewhere :)</p>

<p>...hmmm I have spent way too much energy on this...going into
conservation mode... ciao :D</p>

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<p>hey i got rejected from WTP cuz i was overqualified - but then got accepted RD into the Class of 2011</p>

<p>don't worry about it</p>

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<p>arwen15,
i got the same overqualified letter last summer
i was furious! but I got over it</p>

<p>I had similar test scores....1540 SAT, 800 MathIIC, 760 Bio, 800 Chinese at the time of the application
and was on many leadership roles and sports teams...and did a summer intern experience at a local EECS lab. I took 4 APs sophomore year, including calculus...and scored 5's. </p>

<p>Guess we were a bit TOO interested in science than other girls. </p>

<p>my backup was the wharton summer program
and i felt totally in love w/ wharton...and decided that it was my 1st choice (MIT was previously my first choice)
and i was accepted to wharton ED in december.
so i didn't apply to MIT this year...</p>

<p>my twin sister applied to MIT RD and got in...
she has nearly the same stats as i did when I applied WTP...
so i guess, if you're overqualified for wtp, you'll be accepted to MIT.</p>

<p>so sometimes hindrances can open to more options...
looking back, i think wharton suited me more
although I was always inclined toward science and math and thot MIT was the only school out there...</p>

15

<p>Overqualified?
I feel a kind of down now, I got into WTP actually, but I am not "overqualify", which makes me sad..(I am weird?)really, I feel like better WTP gives me overqualify better than give me that "congrates" letter.
these days, I was thinking, hey, I am not overqualify for WTP, so I am not good enough? WTP only choice median~high level student? which makes me more and more sad....I was 100% sure I would go to WTP when I just got the result, but now, feel down and may not go.
WTP let us decide by next week,so someone plz gives me more ideas about WTP and overqualify thing!</p>

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<p>kiki930 and syzygy07 congratulations on getting to where you are
and thank you <em>very much</em> :) for both your posts!</p>

<p>Congratulations ohyeah. (in a nutshell my original post in this thread
was to ascertain my chances at being admitted to MIT were not in the
statistical trashcan so to speak given that I had been sent the overqualified
letter; I believe now this letter's intent is genuine and not a polite reject
and do not cloud the odds of being admitted to matriculate at MIT if I applied)</p>

<p>On another thread (the MIT WTP Rating your WTP app ) I had
posted my thoughts that the higher the rating the higher the chance of
attending WTP.</p>

<p>This was obviously faulty reasoning. </p>

<p>I think you will find that all the people
admitted including yourself are <em>very good</em> [35..15]; I thnk those above a
37 probably got this overqualfiied letter...just speculation ...</p>

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<p>where did you get that rating thing? WTP actually use that?
it still make me feel down, b/c u said people who got into it's around 15~35?!!!!15 !!!.....</p>

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<p>I filled out an application to WTP, but my school screwed up and sent it to the wrong place, so MIT didn't actually get it until September. Lame-o.</p>

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<p>I think the rating thing was just for fun. </p>

<p>Arwen15, it's ok. If you still wanta go to MIT, apply EA. I understand how you are a little frustrated though because I got "overqualified" for WTP and then SSP and YSP waitlisted me and I got rejected from crappy programs (a little odd) :( I wanta go somewhere this summer lol</p>

<p>Are you doing anything other programs?</p>

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<p>who has something like MIT admission rating thing? I just want to know more about MIT admission.
P.S.: if 15 could get into WTP, then it's definitly no fun to attend WTP. I am not a that super strong applicant, I got 38 in your rating thing.</p>