Scandal: MIT bases its admission decisions on names (!)

<p>No really, it seems as though people at MIT are generally only referred to by their first name and their year of graduation. So it's Kathleen '10 or Robert '04. That's a wonderful system, but what happens if there are two people with the same name in the class?
Maybe the admission officers know how to prevent this ... ;)</p>

<p>does anyone else think the title is misleading? or am i missing something here?</p>

<p>Every year MIT posts the most popular names of admitted students. I couldn't find the page where it was listed for last year, but for EA this year the most popular names were Michael and Jessica. <a href="http://matt.mitblogs.com/archives/2006/01/new_year_notes.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://matt.mitblogs.com/archives/2006/01/new_year_notes.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>In the Class of 2009, the most popular male names were David and Michael, and the most popular female name was Sarah/Sara.</p>

<p><a href="http://matt.mitblogs.com/archives/2005/05/class_of_2009_n.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://matt.mitblogs.com/archives/2005/05/class_of_2009_n.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Actually, in The Tech, they refer to people with First Initial Last 'Year. :)</p>

<p>mollie makes fun of my sensationalist thread title. piffle biffle.</p>

<p>How did mollie make fun of your thread title? Sorry if that question has an obvious answer that I'm not seeing just now....</p>

<p>hehe, maybe i have self-serving ascriptive bias, or persecution mania. it seemed slightly similar to my previous one, but probably only to me.</p>

<p>Hey cool, a whole new form of discrimination to argue about!! For the record regarding that other AA thread, I'm dead against AA, but I feel more strongly that the issue has two valid sides than I do about my own personal distaste for the policy. Since nobody else stepped up to the plate, I pushed my well-worn copy of Atlas Shrugged under some papers and took up the other side.</p>

<p>Soooooo in that spirit, names say a lot about a person!! It is a perfectly valid to assume that people named George and Julie have had greater access to life's opportunities than those poor schmucks Ben, Mollie (tries to remember other actual first names from that thread), Laura and Karen. In fact, I'm fairly certain that is why we were all admitted to our respective schools. ANY schools, for that matter. </p>

<p>You can't argue it. It's undeniable. If your parents named you George or Julie, they don't love you. <em>snickers</em></p>

<p>This is funny -- you and I have the same view about AA but I think Ayn Rand (aside from being very very annoying) has the philosophical subtlety of an earthworm. :-)</p>

<p>Oh, subtlety. In the sense that violent murder is a subtle expression of dislike, she certainly is subtle. As are your earthworms. Annoying? Well, she's dead, which severely hinders her capacity to actively annoy. She was an interesting lady, and her ideas have their place in the world. I'll not defend them beyond that. ;)</p>