MIT has an admissions preference for high performers in HS math competitions. Of course they do well. I have no doubt that MIT fosters their competitive drive, but they walked in talented and driven to compete. I doubt there’s a student on that list that wasn’t a high performer already.
As for the “long tail,” it’s a frequently used justification. By definition though, most will not fall within that portion of the distribution. The average person will be, well, average. No one want to believe that will be their kid, especially if they broke the bank on their education, but that’s the reality.
Ok, @TheVulcan this is where you will get some deserved push back and here’s where you loose me and any credibility you’ve established. To say that MIT has lock on “something very special” is laughable, so try reining it in a little. All top schools (I’ll include Vandy) have a certain magic to offer that is unique to them. To think that ONLY MIT has this, and that they have it across the board for all majors doesn’t pass the laugh-test.
And, if you will allow me get a little parochial, I’ll put my son’s CS/AI/ML experience at Stanford against MITs program any day,…any day.
That’s where you have to make the call. And if you have reasons to believe you might fall within that portion, then you know where most of your people are.
Now you are into some extreme cherry picking. Why should that one amazing internship or this Putnam competition matter? How does that matter for someone who clearly is interested in AI/ML/CompE?
On that Putnam list, there are perhaps no more than 4-5 Berkeley students. By that comparison, MIT is 10x+ a better school than Berkeley. But would anyone really argue that in the context of AI/ML/CompE. As you already acknowledged, a self-selecting group of folks apply to MIT to begin with and math competitions are a clear and necessary pathway to MIT.
Perhaps people with aptitude for solving obscure or abstract math problems are more motivated by equally obscure or ephemeral concepts like “magical learning environments”.
Its clear MIT is a poor choice for the OP’s situation.
Those “long tail” students may well be your people for a kid who is extraordinarily talented, ie beyond 1 in 10,000 ability (which equates to one of the top 400 18 year olds in the country). And more of those kids attend MIT than any other college in the country.
But they are also rivals for the most prestigious opportunities. MIT clearly wins a disproportionate share of the glittering prizes (eg Rhodes, Marshall, Churchill scholarships). But the majority of winners come from other colleges and at MIT most of those 1 in 10,000 level kids will be outclassed by someone even better.
That isn’t the case at the vast majority of other schools where talented kids are often picked out early for special attention and have opportunities lavished on them (eg D’s freshman year roommate who won a Rhodes this year). It is particularly relevant in cohort scholarships like Stamps, Jefferson etc. (hence why these scholarships are so hard to justify turning down) and why there are definitely multiple ways to the top (after all you can always go to MIT for grad school if you are a superstar somewhere else).
But is OP confident her kid is actually in that group? Clearly she’s accomplished. But we can’t know if these are “her people” or if she’ll end up feeling intimidated by “those people”.
No question about it. I hoped it was clear from my example that I was looking at specific examples of long tails in areas that matter to us.
I don’t now very much about Stanford, but you do not need to know very much to know that it is an outstanding institution (as is Vandy). But in the context of the particular fat tail I was discussing, the numbers send a clear picture to me, and I am just the numbers guy.
This is a thread of Vandy vs MIT, and I only used Stanfor and Harvard as extreme examples of clearly very high-end elite institutions that still do not show up in some of these lists we think are meaningful - but you don’t have to.
If we were to derail the thread towards Stanford, my hearsay understanding of its culture is that it is more “entepreneurial” and “laid back” (where as at MIT it is common for students to complain to each other how hard the classes are, at Stanford the culture calls for pretending that noone is working hard to get their A. Again, an anecdote I am sure you will take an exception with).
Again. There is no doubt in my mind that Vandy (let alone Stanford and Harvard) are great institutions. But in some ways that matter to us the objective numbers on long tails are very clear.
Oh, and btw, Vandy has higher ACT averages (33-35) than Stanford (31-35)
Even then it depends on the individual and whether that’s stimulating for them or intimidating. And what their long term ambitions are. For example it would be a pretty poor choice if you wanted to win a Rhodes scholarship.
But this is all angels dancing on the head of a pin. OP’s kid has been offered one of 200(?) full tuition scholarships per year at Vanderbilt. We can’t possibly know that she is one of the top 50 students in the country.
Both UF and FSU are also on the list. If those are instate, I would also look closely at them if eligible for Bright Futures. Also, Georgia Tech if Stamps is in play. Since money seems to be an issue, and you have two sons to also educate, I would consider taking MIT off the table, since you say you would be full pay there . There is little point in visiting MIT if you are not really in the position to pay for it. Perhaps your daughter did not understand she would not be getting merit there when she put it on her list. I am all for being fair to the younger siblings and also considering their future educations in the equation. Good luck!
As OP (aka, @havanamama1959) has come back to the thread and given additional context to the situation, I was going to forego commenting on this.
Since the conversation has returned to the topic about what type of undergraduate institution is going to produce the most elite outcomes, I feel compelled to share a little bit of research I have found.
The link below is from 2015, but still gets the point across.
18% of the Senate graduated from Ivy League institutions.
10% graduated from Big 10 or Big 12 colleges.
17% graduated from Top 5 colleges
35% graduated from Top 50 colleges
Median college ranking was 92 for Democrats and 176 for Republicans
Average college ranking was 275 for Democrats and 317 for Republicans
So, are the top 5/Ivy League overrepresented? Yes. Are they the majority? Not by a long shot. And an institution like Vanderbilt is far higher ranked than where the vast majority of the Senate went.
Although T10 institutions are overrepresented on lists like 50 schools with the most Nobels, there are a number of state schools (and UC Berkeley beat out a number of Ivy Leaguers as well). But I found a list on Wikipedia (please let me know if you find a better source!) that lists the university affiliation by winners. The list is in alphabetical order by last name, but when I would run down the list I would see institutions that surprised me, like Virginia Commonwealth, U. of Delaware, etc. And these were all Nobels being awarded in the 21st century…not in days gone by. If anyone is inclined to play around with the data, it’d be interesting to see if the T10 (or whatever “elite” institutions on wants to use) are still dominating from the last 22 years.
Suffice it to say, students who are accepted to elite universities are going to have a tendency to do well no matter where they land. Doing her undergrad at Vanderbilt is not going to be boxing OP’s daughter into a small box with few possibilities. The world is her oyster and it will remain fully open to her should she enroll at Vanderbilt.
Well, 100% of the track and field, & XC team @MIT gets accepted to Med school. Your daughter might not be a runner but I think med schools recognize that if you can do MIT level work well, you can handle med school. MIT would have med school admissions stats.
Yes. And moreover, the Cambridge area is a hotbed of activity in AI ( check out the MIT media lab), Robotics and and CS. Doesn’t mean she won’t land well at Vandy. She will. But kids who like these subjects like to be cutting edge. And that means $$ and local start ups and an established employee base. Vandy is pumping $ into robotics. Ask them about it. Actively recruiting kids in that field. They might be able to provide you with a long term plan.
Well, it’s great to be in a selective group of scholarship student who get the first crack at lots of opportunities. But at MIT, kids are also going to be at that level. And opportunity which are selective at VAndy might be common at MIT.
Team projects: IMO, it’s best for students to learn to work with all types of people including difficult ones. High fucntioning teams are often people who know each other well. But they can also be people with great soft skills who adapt well. It’s not an either/or. It depends.
On the academic front, the OP should definitely compare MIT and Vandy head-to-head in the desired field. If the major area is CS/AI, Vandy may, in fact, have benefits to offer. I do know that back when our S was researching schools, for his very specific area of study, MIT lagged compared to Stanford, CMU/SCS, and that good old State School Cal.
Saying Stanford is entrepreneurial is like saying its frigid in Boston during the winter. VC funding in Cali is almost 5x that of Mass (and 4x NY), so you can’t help but feel the VC influence. Actually two of my son’s internships came about after he was approached by some VC reps at poster sessions. Stanford engineering classes are quite hard, but it’s not Cali-Cool to show it ( duck syndrome) and keeping your head about you is a life and VC funding skill learned early on.
A few weeks ago I had the amazing opportunity to come across one of my favorite MIT lecturers, Lex Fridman, during a morning jog around Austin’s town Lake. A truly amazing person who continually decries the lack of humility in engineering and science. I sometime wish I had seen this thread before my morning jog. Would be interested in his thoughts…
Not sure at all if taking stats on people born in the 20Th Century is relevant to the 21st. Things have change a lot in the last ten years and even more over the last two years. Getting into and having an Ivy league degree is not the same as it was 40+ years ago. State schools are stronger, more schools offer more programs. It just goes on an on.
Plus, the data someone selected was biased. They chose ONLY those fields in which the credential of the college matters a lot (IB, consulting, government, Supreme Court judges).
You would need to compare and mix in current and recent outcomes for those going into those fields today. And you would also need to balance out fields which are highly desirable TODAY that were not around decades ago. For example, tech, AI, robotics, big data. There you are going to see far more school represented that a narrow view of schools listed.
He’s got a point. These threads often leave me wondering whether there is something particularly attractive about a school like MIT to those who lack humility and self-awareness. If so, that might be reason enough for to avoid the school for those seeking a bit more from their educational experience than the prestige of attending a school with lots of math contest winners.
Of course it may not be fair to judge schools by the attitudes of the parents whose kids attend those schools, but wouldn’t that be an interesting ranking?
Note, it’s not an alum or current student banging the drum. It’s a parent. The only alum that I’ve seen chime in, @DadTwoGirls, is always gracious and pragmatic.
That would be interesting. He’s a Drexel alum, for all of his degrees. It didn’t seem to hurt him.
I don’t know. I lean toward MIT but think Vandy is great too. Everyone has their own opinion. Someone from Vandy could come out with the next major robotics, AI or other firm and blow it out of the water. They might get VC funding before a Stanford grad. We just don’t know.
I don’t see that any of the points are invalid. Some think the $ is paramount ( or the deciding factor), others love other aspects. I really don’t see the need to attack/attach insults to others opinions or call them out. If you don’t like the opinion skip it or state your own. They are both excellent choices IMO.
