<p>I hear a LOT of rumors about MIT trying to admit more people with regular appearances and personalities than the number of socially awkward math geeks that run around campus (tho I KNOW that there are a ton of regular people too, don't worry)</p>
<p>I just hear this rumor a lot. any substance behind it?</p>
<p>The admissions office isn’t, so far as I know, trying to do anything of the sort. It’s just that really smart people interested in science and engineering come in lots of different kinds of packages.</p>
<p>How could they possibly do something like that?</p>
<p>Incidentally, a guy I know from back home went to MIT in the 1960s and is basically so cool that he’s like the Dos Equis guy. So, growing up, my impression was that MIT guys had younger girlfriends and Porsches.</p>
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<p>DUDE. I know current students who are like that.</p>
<p>The whole “MIT wants to be less nerdy” thing I believe is totally overblown and is a product of movies that propagate the stereotype (consider the main character’s classmate in 21…you know, that guy who slops sauce all over himself when he eats a burger and is totally socially awkward). I will concede that we all are to a certain degree nerdy here (nerd jokes are understood and frequently appreciated), but the “socially awkward math geeks who run around campus” I personally place to be probably 1 in 10 here.</p>
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I actually think that it is a lot less than that.</p>