<p>exactly. thatswhy MIT rocks. but its still affirmative action… to a certain extent xD</p>
<p>Yes, I was mistaken in terminology. As I stated above, I (like all the CCers I have seen on past AA threads) assume AA has to do with quotas and admitting the underqualified - which are things MIT does not do.</p>
<p>Chris, can you expand on what it means to MIT to be an “affirmative action” school?</p>
<p>@PiperXP: “There are no quotas”
Actually MIT has a quota on the number of int’l admitted:
[MIT</a> Admissions | Blog Entry: “International Men & Women of Mystery”](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/international_applicants_helpful_tips/international_men_women_of_mys.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/international_applicants_helpful_tips/international_men_women_of_mys.shtml)
Anyway this doesn’t affect much their policy on their affirmation action, which is not about using the unequal as the equal (at least, so far this is what I understand).</p>
<p>^ As previous conversation might suggest, I’m talking specifically about AA quotes. Chris can clarify if the international vs. US citizen/permanent resident counts under AA, but my current assumption is that it does not (considering it’s not a quota by country, which implies that it’s not a quota by race - which is was AA is about, no?).</p>
<p>
Given certain trigger words/lines of discussion, I think p approaches 1.</p>
<p>From my perspective (which is probably biased), it seems much harder to get into MIT as an international student from a developed country than as an American. This is understandable - MIT obviously wants to promote great opportunities for US citizens and the quota probably makes this feasible without diminishing the diversity of the campus. However, the quota DOES make it difficult for internationals to gain admission - from what I’ve heard, most of the overseas students who even apply tend to be among the best in their country, so the competition’s really tough. I heard that if you have standardised testing in your country (A levels, HSC, something along those lines), American universities hold them in higher esteem than your SAT results.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There is a chunk of this that is true, but I seriously disagree with the spin. The simple fact is that MIT is committed to being completely need blind for admissions for everyone, American, International, Martian, whatever. Money does not enter into the admissions decision cycle. MIT is hugely fortunate in this regard. There are many other fine institutions that do not have this luxury. MIT’s view, and it is a an ideological view, is that they want to accept the best students they can, completely without regard for their ability to pay. </p>
<p>So 5up3rG observes that at some schools you can forgo any chance at financial aid, and be “considered like any other applicant”. That is true, but it neglects the fact that at MIT internationals ARE considered like any other applicant. The same rules apply, the same things are looked for in the application. Money still doesn’t matter. Yes, it is more competitive, there are more applicants chasing fewer spots, but the criteria by which the applications are judged are the same criteria.</p>
<p>5up3rG seems to suggest that he/she would like MIT to offer wealthy internationals the opportunity to apply as an American by bypassing financial aid, suggesting that to do otherwise discriminates against or at least “ostracizes” internationals. I disagree, and I think that if you have to draw a line, I would prefer to discriminate on the basis of nationality, rather than on wealth.</p>
<p>Schrodingerscat notes: </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is so, and indeed, the quota is based in large part on MIT’s desire to separate the money from the admissions. MIT commits to having need-blind admissions for internationals and to meeting the full financial need of internationals. There aren’t many schools that do that. To the best of my knowledge, for the current year, MIT is one of only six need-blind & full-need schools for internationals (along with Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, and Amherst College). A key driver for the quota is this fact that MIT is committed to meeting full need. Providing aid to internationals is often more expensive than to Americans and MIT has to miss out on the significant pools of funding provided by the US government for aid, so the MIT corporation requires a quota.</p>
<p>I find it interesting that at the other competing schools on the list, they do not have a fixed or explicit quota, and yet somehow several of them manage to admit almost precisely the same percentage of internationals that MIT does (as a percentage of the class, rather than as a percentage of the applications). When 5up3rG says “this isn’t some USA policy”, I’m not actually sure what is meant. If 5up3rG means that this isn’t a US government standard, then that is true, but MIT (and Harvard, and Yale, and Princeton, etc…) receive a great deal of money from the US government each year, and they are all American universities, which the US congress hopes to be educating predominantly Americans. Now the US Congress is not part of MIT’s governance processes, but I do thing that there is definitely a USA policy at work.</p>
<p>
Having objective evidence that MIT can interpret to answer the question “Can this applicant do the work” is hugely useful to MIT, but many of these are of much less value than you would imagine. Many of these tests, for example A-levels, are often taken at the end of what would be senior year, or the upper sixth form, or 7th form depending on the educational system. Which means of course, that these tests scores arrive AFTER MIT has taken its admissions decision. Schools like Oxford and Cambridge get around this through the use of conditional acceptances, whereby a student is admitted provided that their actual A-level grades match their predicted A-level grades (more than 90% of acceptances are conditional in this way). MIT does not provide conditional acceptances, and so they take a much smaller role.</p>
<p>Oh, I was told by the American consulate in my city that our HSC/VCE results (which arrive before MIT admissions) are more important - our curriculum isn’t geared towards the SATs, APs or other international standardised tests.</p>
<p>That may be true, but without any specific knowledge, I would GUESS that it is not. Look the SAT’s are a shorthand. There is a huge variation in curricula taken by prospective undergraduates, and a huge variety of different national awards and tests, some of which are challenging to properly value (which is one of the reasons why the interview is so important for internationals, if possible). The SAT is the one set of tests taken by all undergraduate applicants. It is the only way of putting the same measure up against everyone.</p>
<p>That does not necessarily make it fair. For example, in my region, the standard physics curriculum covers a great more material on circuits and electronics than is covered on the standard US curriculum, but it does not cover any general or special relativity. As a result, students in my region planning to take the SATII in physics need to self-study (or work with a tame physics teacher) in order to learn the stuff that is not covered in class, but is still on the SATII. Is that necessarily fair? Maybe, maybe not, but every student is held to a common standard, and that is why I think the SAT has a real value.</p>