<p>Oh and, trust me…this guy is very, very smart, absolutely without a question. If admitted to MIT, I could bet quite a bit he’d exit MIT with a 4.0 in very rigorous math classes, and outperform many of the apparently solid admits. Very, very naturally good test-taker, and otherwise intelligent. </p>
<p>Is it so easy to conclude that there’s no clear way to detect such people?</p>
<p>I did know somebody at MIT who hadn’t taken calculus in high school – he was valedictorian of his small rural high school, but they didn’t offer calc. He found 18.01 pretty tough, not to mention 8.01, but he survived them. (We were pset buddies freshman year, if you want to talk about the blind leading the blind…) I’m not sure what he’s doing now, but he graduated with me.</p>
<p>I think it’s really difficult to identify the students in the applicant pool who will make the best use of the resources at MIT, and will come out the better for it. That’s the reason we have so many arguments around here about MIT’s admissions policies.</p>
<p>“Is it so easy to conclude that there’s no clear way to detect such people?”</p>
<p>A fairly substantial amount of research supports that conclusion, much of it conducted at the University of California. Just google “Richard C. Atkinson SAT and GPA” to pull up a number of articles and search from there.</p>
<p>A significant proportion of valedictorians don’t succeed in college; a significant proportion of high SAT-scorers also don’t succeed. Atkinson, formerly at the University of California, has concluded that the best predictor of success is a mix of GPA and subject-test scores (like the SAT subject tests or the ACT), but even that mix doesn’t provide a clear way to detect an individual who will succeed in college. </p>
<p>Other measures (interviews, essays, artwork, etc.) are just as flawed.</p>
<p>I’ve met highly talented scientists who came up through the community college system, including my sister. She graduated high school with a “D” average back in the day. Hard to believe she’d eventually earn a Ph.D. in biology from the University of California and eventually go on to run her own lab. </p>
<p>Hey, it’s just not the end of the world if a student doesn’t gain admission to MIT or another top-tier school right out of high school.</p>
<p>I happen to believe that interviews are a very good thing, but as I’ve expressed elsewhere, I think the interviews to a school like MIT should somehow strive to have the prospective student converse in a technical language about something, ideally speaking. There is just something about how someone speaks to you in a technical language that tells you A. if they’re really into the subject or just faking, B. how mature their thought process is. </p>
<p>For instance, if you looked at the way the individual I referenced thought about precalculus, it was very significantly different from how anyone else I’ve ever met did.
In other words, at the very least, it’d be clear that a challenging calculus class (for instance, I think MIT does a Calculus with Theory class) + calculus-based physics class would be very much up this person’s alley.</p>
<p>What I do believe, however, is that while there are wonderful ways of concluding someone <em>IS</em> MIT material, even accurate ways (for instance, if someone earns a very high SAT, has near perfect grades, and communicates very maturely in a technical language as above, I’d say they’re already a rather rare species and highly eligible to be MIT students), it’s harder to conclude someone isn’t. This is where one has to resign to making offers to those who are, and leaving the unclear cases to another school, at least according to one philosophy.</p>
<p>This has gotten to the point of semi-rambling, but in any case, thanks Mollie – that at least tells me it’s possible. I’m curious as to how this individual was identified.</p>
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<p>Yeah, I guess I can believe it quite easily. Like I said, there are a few cases one can really identify to be up to it, but plenty of scientists find their spark later on…like your sister very much for instance.</p>
<p>I have been in academic for over 30 years. I have met many talented scientists. I haven’t seen a single ‘talented’ scientist coming from Community College. People from Community Colleges could be a scientist, maybe even a decent one. But talented? I doubt it, particularly in this environment where college opportunities are abound.</p>
<p>I know a guy who graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Chem E who transferred to MIT from a community college. However, he only went to community college for financial reasons, and was working while he was going to school.</p>
<p>I knew another guy who had a community college “undergrad” education. He went to MIT grad school in EECS. However, he had been working for NASA for 10 years. I think he had done some programming for the Mars Land Rover or something. I’m sure it was one of those cases where the guy just hooked up with an interesting programming job and decided not to go to real college. </p>
<p>In neither of those cases, did the person go to community college because of academic weakness.</p>
<p>Straighttalk – essentially what collegealum said. The one big reason I’ve seen some bright people end up at community college for is that A) they weren’t very wealthy, B) they were INCREDIBLY unmotivated in high school, and decided they’d opt to try to transfer later.</p>
<p>It’s rare, yes, but there are some very exceptional people out there who make it as transfers. I know second-hand one guy who came in as a junior transfer from a community college to Berkeley, and ended up at Princeton math graduate school. Some people don’t know what they want to do in life until later, and something sparks in them. Their stories are not the typical ones of “work hard in high school, get into college, then work hard some more.”</p>
<p>^^ Some go to community college for financial reasons. Some others go because for various reasons, they seriously underperformed in secondary school. In the example I gave, my sister was diagnosed with dyslexia at age 19. Armed with that information and some effective strategies, she eventually overcame it. She earned her Ph.D. at age 31. It’s probably not a common story. More common is the kid who gets seriously ill or pregnant in high school and can’t continue in the regular program. Life happens.</p>
<p>To flip the perspective, I know of several MIT graduates who went on to have very ordinary lives, taking career paths that did not differ in any significant way from the expected career paths of community-college graduates. </p>
<p>“The cream rises to the top.” I used to hear my grandfather say this. Sometimes it just takes longer to rise, and sometimes that process doesn’t follow the expected or usual route. </p>
<p>All I’m saying is that there’s no sure-fire way to identify such individuals early, and in any case, a place like MIT isn’t for everyone. It’s extremely intense. A talented student with serious time-management skills might do better elsewhere and yet thrive at a place like MIT several years down the road.</p>
<p>Oh, forgot to post mine. Prospective student at a private school.</p>
<p>Ninth grade: Honors Integrated Math 9 (basically a geometry/algebra ii sequence)
Tenth grade: Accelerated Math Analysis (precalculus)
Eleventh grade: Calculus BC
Twelfth grade: Multivariable Calc/Differential Equations</p>
<p>@ Pebbles, who “just turned in the thesis today”:
APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE !!!
Thunderous applause where you least expected it.
Congrats!</p>
<p>Prospective student! I’ll be a junior next year.</p>
<p>Ninth grade: Honors Geometry
Tenth grade: Honors Algebra II/Trigonometry
Eleventh grade: AP Calculus AB, but I’ll take the BC Exam thanks to MIT OpenCourseWare 
Twelfth grade: No idea. Calculus III at the community college?</p>
<p>Absolutely CalAlum. It’s definitely hard to say. </p>
<p>Given I’ve been bombarding this thread with my curiosity, I’ll basically say the reason I asked is that MIT has this whole thing about “finding the spark” and I was wondering what current MIT students thought about the particular situation I mentioned.</p>
<p>Being elected as Phi Beta Kappa would qualify a good student. Doing programming for NASA is a job. “Talented” scientists mean capability of making major breakthrough. I also know several cases of community college transfers similar to yours. Some of them later moved on to successful careers. But I will refrain from calling them “talented”, because I have met the truly talented scientists. </p>
<p>Not all students at MIT are great students. Why would anyone be surprised that some of them fail in their careers?</p>
<p>^^I’m not sure what your point is. And I wonder what you mean by being capable of “making a big breakthrough.” Do you mean someone who has something sufficient to get them elected to the National Academy of Science or the National Academy of Engineering?
Or just that they could attain tenure at a top 10 university. The Nobel Prize maybe? </p>
<p>Also, I don’t see why a guy who aced all his classes but went to community college for financial reasons should have some kind of black mark. Surely, it isn’t that common for someone to give an MIT-caliber performance in high school and then end up at community college, but if that’s what happened then I would evaluate them the same as if they applied senior year. If they had to go to community college because they messed up, then that’s a different story. </p>
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<p>I’m not sure what you mean here either. Do you mean they weren’t good students to begin with or that they weren’t good students at MIT?</p>
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<p>You’ve probably seen enough of my posts to guess what I’m going to say.</p>
<p>Anyway, imagine if you’re friend was cloned right before high school. Your friend continued on and didn’t really try. The clone used all his native ability and sought out opportunities to show his talent. Imagine what his record might look like. Maybe the clone actually ended up taking a hard math class like number theory and acing it, demonstrating his talent.</p>
<p>Now both the friend and the clone are applying to MIT. Who should they favor? I say they should favor the clone.</p>
<p>The “spark” CAN come out at interview (I would of course say this as an EC, but it is true). </p>
<p>MIT gives EC’s an opportunity at each interview report to designate a candidate as that “1 in a million” who MIT simply has to admit. Now, while I have interviewed lots of brilliant, talented, wonderful kids, I’ve never ticked that box; I’ve never even come close. I’m sort of envious of any EC who gets to interview someone where that box could be ticked. I’m a regional co-ordinator for the Council and I believe that only one of my EC’s has ever ticked that box. </p>
<p>But the possibility exists that if someone truly has that indefinable something, then the means exists for that to be identified in the applications process and communicated to MIT Admissions committee. (I should also add, that just because an EC ticks the box, then that does not guarantee the candidate admission, but it does mean that the file will be reviewed very closely indeed.)</p>
<p>Mine is very funky, I’m a freshman but I’ve drawn it out:</p>
<p>7th:Algebra 1
Summer: Algebra 2, Geometry
8th: Pre-Cal
9th: Statistics at a real University (not a community college)
9th Summer: Number Theory, Combinatronics, Problem Solving in Algebra 2, Coordinate Geometry (all for competitive math study)
10th: Online AoPS AP Calculus BC, as well as Algebra 3 and AIME Problem Series
11th: Math SL, AoPS Woot
12th: Math HL, AoPS Woot</p>
<p>I’m also going to fit linear algebra, multi-variable calculus, and some others in there.</p>
<p>Definitely the clone. That’s part of the issue, collegealum, I’ve read your posts and I’m sure you’ve read mine, and I’m pretty conservative – even people with great high school work ethic needn’t do anything great at MIT. Cases like my friend are exceptions. I would unfortunately have thrown this friend’s application in the trash if I were an admissions officer for a school of MIT’s technical reputation. However, by the time he applied for graduate school, although he didn’t have a full 4 years of solid college math work, his application would easily convince me to take him above many talented applicants. </p>
<p>The thing I’d personally use as my benchmark in judging an application is how <em>mature</em> someone’s perspective on math/science/engineering is. Those who really know what they’re getting themselves into, have a clear plan, tend to be those who do very well, I think. More so than those who’re very smart (the intersection obviously being ideal). Those who have a vision and a plan for why they want to study at MIT in terms of academic goals (needn’t have decided perfectly what major, just be very actively thinking about what they’re going to do). I actually don’t think there are all that many students out there with a very mature perspective on what they want to do academically in the first place, so admitting these would be an easy deal.</p>
<p>My friend is an interesting case – by the time he was applying as a junior transfer, while he had not assembled more math coursework than, say lower division linear algebra, he had quite a vision for what he wanted to do – in particular, he knew from the outset there was some attraction he had to the ideas of number theory, from constant outside reading. If you talked to him, I think that’d be one of the selling points – a lot of motivation to do great things stems from energy to do what is necessary, which stems from attraction, which is evidenced by this “maturity” I reference.</p>
<p>You could’ve taken a billion classes in high school, but be very immature when it comes to what it takes to think about your academic career actively.</p>
<p>Current Junior, going to apply for 09-10 year.</p>
<p>9th: Pre-Calc
10: AP Calc AB [pre-req to bc at our school]
11: AP Calc BC/MVC
12th summer: self study Lin. Alg. + Diff Eq. through MIT OCW
12th: Real Analysis and Complex Variables at university</p>
<p>@ mathboy98 - That was a really good post. I read that a lot of people switch majors in college, and I always used to wonder why people change their minds so much. Personally, I really need to take the time out and ponder about my academic career, like you mentioned. I have never really thought beyond “get into MIT.” It sounds so silly, but I guess so many people think only about getting to a destination that is supposed to prepare them for life without ever thinking about how to prepare.</p>