MIT Class of 2018 - THE WAIT BEGINS

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>Much2learn - you raise some interesting points, and while I agree with you on some things, ultimately many of your views are flawed.</p>

<p>First off, I cannot comprehend your argument that, in essence, “volunteering” is somehow superior to research/internships. How in the world can you claim that a superstar is one who merely disseminates knowledge, rather than one who expand’s its frontiers? Moreover, there is an inherent paradox in your claim that MIT wants people who “are more likely to really want to help others in their class and in the world” - if that was true, why wouldn’t they accept more women? In that case, this debate would not even exist.</p>

<p>You point out the necessity for a balance between rigorous yet severely limited metrics such as the SAT and more nebulous ones such as contests. You say that the latter achievements confound student ability with those of possible assistants. I agree with this to an extent regarding science fairs - although I find that mentors are often the catalyst, not the entire reaction, it is entirely possible that a professor or graduate student may have done the majority of the work for a student’s science project. In contests, however, there is absolutely no question of its reliability as an indicator of student ability. Olympiads, in a sense, are unriggable; a good result is the work of a student’s and that student’s alone. Conversely, it is impossible for an unable student to transcend his or her skill in a significant manner. You could possibly claim that men are societally encouraged to participate in competitions more than women, but this is not relevant to your thesis. In any case, it is undeniable that contests (particularly olympiads) are much more indicative of ability than trivial tests such as the SAT.</p>

<p>Finally, you claim that many women with 2300+ SAT scores are being passed up in favor of men with substantially lower ones. This would hold ceteris paribus, yet it is plainly obvious that this is not the case. SAT scores are only one factor in college admissions and rightfully so; you cannot claim any discrimination against women without accurately considering all other achievements. By the way: many men with high SAT scores are rejected too.</p>

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<p>Arhennius,</p>

<p>I appreciate your response. I also understand that your view is the majority view in the world. Most people see caring helping others and volunteering as inferior and not valuable.*When a girl writes an admissions essay about her passion for science and technology and how she wants to help other girls discover that passion too, I see people of value, and you see a waste of talent. I think that caring matters, and you see it as a character flaw. I think that “Making the world a better place” includes caring and volunteering, and you think those traits are inferior.</p>

<p>I acknowledge that it is the Einsteins, Newtons, and Arhenniuses that, as individuals, make the greatest difference in the world, but I question how many great scientists and inventors would have achieved as much as they did without the support, encouragement and teaching they received from others along the way. The world tends to see their achievements as individual achievements. It is as if these individuals sprung forth full grown and with all knowledge in place, like Athena springing from Zeuses head. I see it as also the success of all of the long forgotten people who cared enough to help them, teach them, challenge them and encourage them. I think those people made a huge difference too.</p>

<p>As long you are correct that your view is the lens by which the admissions office views applicants, I believe that it may be a long time before women are fully represented on campus.*</p>

<p>I would add that, if you are correct, I think that it would be helpful to candidates applying for the Institute to clarify that when they say “Making the world a better place” they only mean via research and discovery and not through inferior, talent wasting volunteer work.*</p>

<p>Quote"Finally, you claim that many women with 2300+ SAT scores are being passed up…you cannot claim any discrimination against women without accurately considering all other achievements…"</p>

<p>*I did not assert discrimination against women. I asserted that I hope that these types of discussions are being held between the President, the Board, and Admissions. I acknowledge that I don’t have all the information. However they do, and I hope that there is an honest dialogue about this important subject. I don’t see how that can be objectionable.</p>

<p>Women are in a unique situation as an under represented group. Admissions has historically claimed that it does not have enough high quality applicants for women to be fully represented in a class, and that only through affirmative action are as many admitted as there are. However, the fact that in the case of this one UR group, it then goes on to achieve higher grades and graduation rates. That suggests to me that, it is possible that for some reason, this group was systematically underestimated from the beginning. I am suggesting that the way to understand whether the situation can be improved is not through averages as you suggest. Averages are used to hide things. The only way to get to the truth is by carefully reviewing individuals. You can’t admit averages.</p>

<p>If I magically became President tomorrow, I would not assume anything, I would just request a detailed review of the decisions. Before I would agree that 22% more boys should be admitted than girls, I would want to review the candidates personally and be convinced that the reason this is the right thing to do is that it is clear that the weakest individual male candidates admitted are unambiguously better candidates than the strongest females who are being rejected. The answer should not be, “I don’t know, it just ended up that more committee members voted for the guys.”*</p>

<p>I would also want to better understand how it is that if the bar is really set lower for women in admissions that they continue to outperform the men in grades and graduation rates. *</p>

<p>I think that it is fine to admit fewer women if there are not enough strong women candidates available, but that the burden is on the individuals who are making that claim to demonstrate that they are not, in fact, rejecting some individual women who are arguably just as strong.</p>

<p>Do you agree that this is reasonable?</p>

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<p>I composed a reply, but CC inexplicably logged me out and wiped it. I do not wish to continue making the same points, so I’ll write just this:</p>

<p>Women are under-represented at the highest level of scientific fields. Teaching and volunteering are crucial pursuits, but not worthy of an institution such as MIT. Contests and research and the like are superior metrics to grades and SAT in determining one’s ability. </p>

<p>There are less women than men at MIT, but that is for a good reason: there are more men of higher ability. That is the undeniable truth.</p>

<p>I completely stand by each statement I have made in this post. I too wish that there would be a higher percentage of women at MIT, and in science and math in general, but unfortunately cultural and social influences have diminished the representation of women in these fields. It poses a complex problem that has stood for centuries. There have been conscious efforts to get more women into MIT in relative recency - cynically, a sort of an affirmative action - but that is merely a temporary solution to a societal issue that has essentially pigeonholed STEM as a masculine field.</p>

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<p>Arrhenius,</p>

<p>Again I appreciate your honesty and willingness to just say what most people think.</p>

<p>There is actually much that we agree on, but I think that perhaps what I have seen and read in the last few years has made me realize that some things are not what they appear to be. </p>

<p>Quote:"There are less women than men at MIT, but that is for a good reason: there are more men of higher ability. That is the undeniable truth. "This is the thing that I do not believe. </p>

<p>Clearly, there are more men. But what is not clear is the descriptor “higher ability.” You seem to realize this in the last paragraph where you say, “cultural and social influences have diminished the representation of women.” That is different from ability. If they are so superior, why are these amazing specimens reduced to mumbling out lame excuses when it is pointed out that their grades and graduation rates lag the group with apparently lesser ability? If they really had higher ability, it should be obvious. There is no way to fake your way through math, science, and engineering classes at MIT. This one fact should really make people question the confidence they have that the men have definitively more ability. Strangely, the mind doesn’t seem to work that way and they work to find excuses or claim that grades and graduating are unimportant. Anything to avoid the possibility that they may be wrong. </p>

<p>As the research increasingly shows that there is bias throughout the process, it seems to me to become increasingly difficult to rationally justify rejecting girls with the very highest level of grades and scores, since those may be the only unbiased data available.</p>

<p>While there are clearly fewer women applicants, the level of ability that the top women are showing is, in my opinion, truly impressive. But there are systematic factors that continue to deny these ladies the recognition they deserve, and in my opinion the number of seats in a class that they deserve. Teachers in aggregate continue to fail to give as much credit to girls as they do to boys. We have known this for a long time and research now supports it. They rave more about the boys and encourage them to enter science contests, but are more likely to ignore the equally talented girls. Especially white girls according to the research. Surprisingly, to me at least, this is true of both male and female teachers. Family members tend to do the same thing. They tell girls that they are better at reading and boys are better at math and science, which is discouraging. It is also becoming apparent that the notion of ability is overrated. You may have read recently that a new study that the best students do not believe that math learning is based on ability, they believe it is based on effort. The more a student believes that outcomes depend on ability, the worse they do at school. The more the believe that results depend on effort, the better they do.</p>

<p>When you see female candidates who have 2300+ SAT scores, 750+ Subject test scores, 5’s on B/C Calculus as a Junior and currently getting an A in MV Calc and Physics C as a senior, but do not have science contests or math contests on their application, how can you conclude that these young ladies do not have the ability? In many cases, these women have never been invited or encouraged to participate in science contests, even with the level of ability they have demonstrated. That is much different from not having ability.</p>

<p>When I see an applicant who is volunteering or teaches, I do not see it as inferior at all. I see someone who wants to make a difference, and might be interested in research if they were exposed to it and understood that Research is also a way of helping people. That is not always obvious to young people. One barrier to getting more women into STEM fields is helping them understand that the work that engineers, scientists and computer scientists do is helping people. I do think that girls tend to put a higher priority on helping others and I think it is a good thing. I think they will find STEM options more interesting when they realize that what really makes the world a better place is better science and engineering.</p>

<p>Based on your comments, I think you would agree with me that it is a good idea to compare the weakest boys accepted to the strongest girls rejected on an individual basis. From your statements, you are confident that it would be obvious to everyone that the boys are superior. I am hoping you will agree with me on this.</p>

<p>My main point is that people tend to see what they already believe. They believe that there are more capable boys and they look at the applications and that is what they see. New research is showing that this is true even among scientists who are trained to see what is happening and not what they want to happen. </p>

<p>I know how much you value research. Is some of this new research impacting the way you think about this topic?</p>

<p>I am asking people to challenge themselves on their base assumptions. I am not saying that by comparing the weakest accepted boys to the strongest rejected girls you will get to 50/50 immediately. But I bet that in several cases, it would see that the situation is not nearly as clear cut as you might have first imagined, and you would end up adding some additional girls. Furthermore, you would do it while actually improving the talent level of your class. This should be a win for everyone, and at least a few more girls will be recognized for the abilities that they have and given the opportunity to develop those abilities. Societal and cultural factors do not mean that there are not enough girls with high ability. The girls with ability are there. It just means that it is harder for admissions to figure out which girls have the higher ability. Failing to capture those abilities is a loss for everyone.</p>

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<p>[Why</a> are High School Teachers Convinced that White Girls Can’t Do Math? - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/03/24/why-are-high-school-teachers-convinced-that-white-girls-cant-do-math/]Why”>Why are High School Teachers Convinced that White Girls Can't Do Math?)</p>

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<p>The gender ratio is 54%-45%. There is a 9% difference, not 22%.</p>

<p>That means that, out of a class of 1000, if about 45 of the men were replaced by women, then the gender distribution would be exactly 50:50.</p>

<p>[Massachusetts</a> Institute of Technology | Best College | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/massachusetts-institute-of-technology-2178]Massachusetts”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/massachusetts-institute-of-technology-2178)</p>

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<p>It’s not “finding excuses” to question the validity of a statistic which is based on a faulty assumption. Your assumption is that choice of major doesn’t impact the avg GPA for each gender. Are you prepared to say that someone with a 3.55 GPA in physics or electrical engineering is academically inferior to someone in biology with a 3.6 GPA? That is, the one with the 3.55 GPA in physics/EE is less capable and probably had a worse record in high school than the person with the 3.6 GPA in bio. Physics/electrical engineering is predominantly male and biology has more females (though not as lopsided).<br>
The other problem which I’ve already stated is that the curve is harsher in engineering compared to science classes. I went to MIT and took multiple classes in both fields.
In terms of the average GPA, we are talking about small differences in average GPA between the genders–less than a percent. The effects I have previously mentioned could explain this minute difference.</p>

<p>I’m not making any grandiose statements on how “boys are better,” but I don’t think the abilities of MIT students and their right to be there should be belittled just to advance a PC argument. </p>

<p>But let’s assume that none of these factors matter and the avg GPA/graduation rates are enough to determine which group does better. So then the males did better in high school and then the females did better in college. Why are you so sure that this means the males received better treatment than the females in high school; rather, couldn’t it have been the case that the females received better treatment at MIT than the males, that there is some difference in the socialization of males and females at MIT?</p>

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<p>Much2Learn, you’ve also seem to form a conclusion that the MIT adcoms are intrinsically biased against females, that they will favor a male over a female with the same record. I think this is false also.</p>

189

<p>MIT admissions are biased against MALES, not females. Diversity.
This is true for all schools nowadays, especially institutes of technology. NJIT, for example, grants full rides to women interested in engineering, but not for men. You’re just labeling clich</p>

190

<p>Well College Alum,</p>

<p>Here is my basic math.</p>

<p>If it is 55% boys and 45% girls, then by my calculation boys are 10% more of the total, and 10%/45% = 22% more seats allocated to boys. So boys are given 22% more seats than girls get.</p>

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<p>College Alum,</p>

<p>Regarding post #187</p>

<p>What I am saying is that the rationale that I am hearing for taking fewer girls is that the boys are simply more capable, and that they already take more girls that are less capable. End of story. </p>

<p>It is not my intent to belittle any student. And I did not suggest that any student did not have “The right to be there”. However, it is reasonable to question whether the assertion that they accept 22% more boys because the boys are superior/more capable has been supported by subsequent evidence. </p>

<p>It is fine to adjust the boys gpa for mix of major, it still does not support the claim that the incoming boys were actually superior. Furthermore, the boys gpa is artificially boosted by the fact that so many of their worst performers just drop out rather than continue to receive failing grades. </p>

<p>I am in no way suggesting, nor do I believe, that the Ad Com had anything but positive intent at any time. It is just that sometimes perceptions are not correct and need to be modified as more data and research comes in. No one is blaming anyone. I believe that the administration has always acted in good faith. </p>

<p>It is true that there is recent research showing that even science professionals who do not believe they have any bias, actually exhibit favoritism toward boys. That does raise a concern about the process, but it is not an intended bias. I attached the research in a previous post.</p>

<p>In the end, what is surprising to me is the amount of pushback at the suggestion that given the research and data that we see, extra care should be taken in assessing the girls to be sure that qualified candidates are not being overlooked. Why is that offensive? Why should it be belittled as “Just a PC argument”? I thought there would be more consensus that it is reasonable. Hmmmmm.</p>

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<p>Well, first of all, I think some of these “studies” on social issues are questionable. It seems like often it is the goal to produce a certain type of result and then the study is designed around it. For example, there was a study published by Columbia B-school professors showing an analysis that referees in the NBA were racist because blacks got more fouls called on them than whites. The players in the NBA laughed that off, but it got a lot of traction in the press for a few days. The study didn’t consider the race of the people being fouled; that is, the player who benefited from the foul being called may have been black as well. This point somehow escaped everyone in the press. No matter how poorly designed, it seems like these studies can get published and get a lot of press if they fit in with the correct worldview. Another example is the Espenshade study done at Princeton. Roughly paraphrasing the authors, the original intent of the study was to show that whites were not hurt by affirmative action; they showed this by demonstrating it was actually Asians who were getting in less (i.e., bumped) due to affirmative action, not whites. This was obviously seen as valid as it was published in a journal. However, then Asians started complaining and using the study to show they were discriminated against, and now the study is considered highly flawed. The authors have repeatedly insisted they never meant that it would be used <em>against</em> affirmative action. </p>

<p>These ideas that you are putting forth were novel and relevant maybe 35 years ago. I know that when I was growing up people were super-sensitive to these issues. I mean literally some of the schools I went to did their own studies to help address this issue and I’ve seen countless programs to try to attract women to science. I don’t know what backwoods place still discourages women from science, but it’s not any place I’ve experienced myself. I wonder how many women at MIT would say they’ve been actively discouraged at some time of their life because of their gender, and if they did, whether they felt it had any impact on their trajectory (i.e., it was more than an idle comment by some random person). Going back to MIT admissions, when they brought up the fact that women had a slightly higher GPA than men (i.e., less than a percent,) it was characterized by the MIT adcom as the “women kicking the guys’ asses.” And you think they are biased in the favor of men? What I’m saying is the culture I’ve experienced seems to be biased in favor of promoting the women. And as a result, a lot of these arguments seem tired and cliche’d. I guess where it gets offensive is when you try to deconstruct every conceivable accomplishment and attribute it to society bias rather than talent and hard work.
If you want to help the females who were hurt in their career from discriminated, we should be starting programs to help Baby Boomers. Unfortunately, society is usually a generation late on correcting problems.</p>

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This seriously blows my mind. </p>

<p>Yes, there’s still discrimination against women in science, and the higher you go, the more discouraging and frustrating it is, especially because of inclinations like this to dismiss it. Yes, I have experienced discrimination in science because of my gender (though, admittedly, less so as an undergraduate than as a graduate student and postdoc). </p>

<p>These problems exist. It’s fine if you disagree with the solutions that people put forward, whatever, but they exist nonetheless.</p>

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<p>@collegealum314</p>

<p>“Fifty percent of the US student-age population is female. But only 43% of students enrolled in high school physics and less than 25% of students enrolled in introductory college physics are female (Neuschatz and Alpert, 1996; Fehrs and Czujko, 1992). Only 15% of recent bachelor degrees and 12% of recent PhDs in physics were earned by women, and women represent only 3% of the nation’s college and university physics faculty members (Neuschatz and Alpert, 1996). Women fare slightly better in the study of astronomy but do worse in engineering, where they are awarded 8% of the PhDs granted (Holloway, 1993).”</p>

<p>Source: [THE</a> GENDER IMBALANCE IN PHYSICS EDUCATION](<a href=“http://marge.ragesw.com/~phyzorg/phyz/thesis.html#2.2]THE”>http://marge.ragesw.com/~phyzorg/phyz/thesis.html#2.2)</p>

<p>I think that basically says it all about the dearth of women in math and science. As far as I can surmise there are only two possible reasons for this (and the arguments in this thread can be broken into these sides):</p>

<p>(1) Social norms/environmental factors.</p>

<p>(2) Women are inherently missing some qualities that men have.</p>

<p>From my meager experience what I can tell is this: (1) seems more likely. Societal pressures can be very persuasive (e.g. Nazis). (2) seems less likely because I don’t see an evolutionary reason for why women would be less intelligent… maybe because they weren’t hunting they didn’t have to problem solve as much? Not sure if that holds water though.</p>

<p>In any case, I haven’t seen any convincing evidence for case (2). Until then I submit that we should continue, in the spirit of secular ethics, under the assumption that (1) is the case.* That is, until such time as there is strong evidence for women’s scientific inferiority, let’s treat them as equals.</p>

<p>*Note that, unless I have missed something, either but not both of (1) and (2) are true, and one of them must be true (there must be some explanation for this phenomena). Hence by asserting that (1) isn’t the case you are supporting (2). Not trying to straw man anyone here, but I see no evidence for that not being the case. To clarify, if you don’t believe that environmental factors are influencing women’s participation in science, then the only alternative explanation is that they lack some inherent qualities that men have.</p>

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<p>@NWskier- As far as I can tell, no one on this forum has remotely suggested #2 – which is because it is a ridiculous point of view with absolutely no basis in fact that no one in his/her right mind would even consider. The debate, such as it is, is over whether the difference in the amount of men and women admitted to MIT is due to a difference in the number of qualified applicants between the sexes (due to societal factors) or to some implicit bias on the part of admissions officers. No one has suggested that “Women are inherently missing some qualities that men have.”
Give the people posting here some credit – don’t assume that they are sexist, racist or misogynistic without good reason.</p>

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<p>@Nipthemushroom</p>

<p>It would seem I have missed a case:</p>

<p>(3) Admissions committee’s are biased against women.</p>

<p>You see, I was arguing that if you weren’t for (1) (for instance, when Collegealum314 said “I don’t know what backwoods place still discourages women from science, but it’s not any place I’ve experienced myself.”) But I realize now there is another (obvious) explanation - adcom’s are biased. (Although I think that is ludicrous).</p>

<p>My apologies - I need to read more carefully.</p>

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<p>No, I don’t believe #2 or #3 for the record.</p>

<p>However, there are a lot of other possibilities. For one, it helps to have a romantic vision about one’s career in order to work long hours for little pay and against great competition to gain a prestigious (read: academic) position. If boys are more apt to identify with doing something with great sacrifices and without any tangible benefits to their personal life, then they might be more likely to pursue math/science or to train for it. Or if boys are more encouraged to adopt such a philosophy, this could translate into more boys looking to go into math/science careers. This could drive a lopsided gender ratio in math/science carreers without requiring any difference in encouragement in going into math/science between genders. MIT seemed to be able to market themselves better to girls when it stopped trying to represent itself as a bootcamp. I’ve been around plenty of girls who were talented in math and science, and most of them were much more practical than the boys. </p>

<p>Another possibility is that most people do not have any significant personal time until they get tenure or even after that. Often men who are professors get married much later and have children well into their 40’s. This is obviously much more difficult for women to do because there are more risks to having children in their late 30’s, and after that it may be impossible. So that knowledge could drive some women out of science or sap their enthusiasm.</p>

<p>The gender ratios in medical school is 50:50, even at the top ones, and there is no affirmative action. </p>

<p>I do not believe that the boys who did well at Intel/Siemens got more help on their project than the female participants, or the boys who did well on AMC or other academic contests (science olympiad, scholastic bowl) got more coaching than the female participants.</p>

198

<p>Hi everyone. I have a problem! Before December 10, on my MyMIT dashboard, Dr. R’s name was written beside the heading ‘EC name’. So, I contacted him on December 6. He replied and told me to contact him as soon as I send my application.*</p>

<p>But few days ago, when I checked my MyMIT dashboard, a different EC, Mr. R, was<em>assigned</em>to me. Later, I called the Admissions office and recorded a voice mail and emailed to <a href=“mailto:interview@mit.edu”>interview@mit.edu</a> stating my problems, but the problem still persists.</p>

<p>As soon as I applied to MIT, I notified<em>Dr. V (I emailed him on jan 2). But, he told me that he was not listed as my volunteer EC.</em>*</p>

<p>Now, I cannot contact Mr. R to request the interview as I have already passed the deadline. Similarly, Dr. V says that he is not listed as my EC. What shall I do now?</p>

199

<p>You need to have an interview very soon – the deadline for the ECs to send their reports to MIT must be in a few days. It doesn’t really matter whether you interview with the first EC or the second, so if either one is willing to interview you, you should set up the interview with him.</p>

200

<p>My next EC emailed me telling that the deadlines have passed :frowning: and that I could write an email to MIT, explain them my situation and request an interview waiver. I really wanted to interview but I don’t think it is possible to set that up now.</p>