<p>Was MIT easier to get into in the old days? Maybe not. But certainly the admissions process was simpler. You get an entrance exam. Score high enough and you're in. If not, then you're out. Simple as that. </p>
<p>Whoa, that was easy. Hahaha, I so wish I was applying in 1876.</p>
<p>And if you're female... well, hope</a> you wanted to study chemistry!</p>
<p>That probably was considered "hard" back then. Perhaps the current level of education in our high schools, while not entirely spectacular, has surpassed theirs? I don't know.. probably not.</p>
<p>was there a time limit?</p>
<p>that would be too cruel for some people who just seem to suck at taking standardized tests... (like me?? haha)</p>
<p>The test isn't all that overwhelmingly easy. The geometry questions require some agility. Plus, how many of you can, without a calculator, "extract cube root of 39.304" ?</p>
<p>( <a href="http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/52605.html%5B/url%5D">http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/52605.html</a> for the secret).</p>
<p>It's also amusing how the questions are phrased in this harsh, schoolmasterish tone, with a lot of abstruse terminology that nobody uses anymore. The SATs are cuddly by comparison.</p>
<p>i'd be able to get perfects in arithmetic and algebra, but not geometry.</p>
<p>I should point out that I have yet to find any information on what the 'passing' score is. Maybe you really did need to get a perfect score in order to get admitted. I don't know. </p>
<p>Here's another entrance exam, along with some background material.</p>
<p>holy crap... the english would kill me...</p>
<p>like no kidding....</p>
<p>it'll kill mee...</p>
<p>good thing they dont do it anymore</p>
<p>
[quote]
That probably was considered "hard" back then. Perhaps the current level of education in our high schools, while not entirely spectacular, has surpassed theirs? I don't know.. probably not.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know that it's the level of high school education that would be the issue. I think the real issue is that back in the old days, educational attainment was far lower than it is today. For example, in 1876, most states of the US had not yet enacted compulsory education laws. As a result, many children did not go to any school at all, and only a tiny percentage of Americans had actually attended high school, never mind actually graduating from high school. Heck, in 1876, a sizable percentage of Americans, including almost all African-Americans, were functionally illiterate. {Keep in mind, thie is 1876, which means slavery had been banned for over a decade, yet obviously most African-Americans still had little opportunity to become educated}. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0112617.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0112617.html</a></p>
<p>So, back in the old days, far fewer people were qualified to go to college than there are today. Even if you were qualified, that doesn't mean that you would go. A college education was just not that important to the common person back in those days.</p>
<p>I like the question, "what is the area of Massachusetts?"</p>
<p>well 1876 is still prevalent in Indian college admissions.</p>
<p>In many universities in europe they have entrance exams. I like the idea. For example, they know they have 1000 positions open for electric engineering. Then, people get a test covering basic electric engineering/physics/math and the top 1000 get in, the rest don't.</p>
<p>It would be kinda nice...</p>
<p>I don't think those tests are that easy... I mean, some of the questions are fairly easy, but if there was a time limit I would certainly run into trouble.</p>
<p>In most of the world, admissions is done solely via entrance exam. For example, the admissions into the India Institutes of Technology are determined by entrance exams, although admittedly with a heavy dose of affirmative action for the dalits (the "untouchables") and for traditional tribes (of which India has many). </p>
<p>The US is one of the few places where admissions consists of a smorgasbord of criteria. To quote Jerome Karabel: "...the admissions practices of America's top colleges and universities are exceedingly strange. Just try to explain to anyone from abroad--from, say, France, Japan, Germany, or China--why the ability to run with a ball or where one's parents went to college is relevant to who will gain a place in our nation's most prestigious institutions of higher education"</p>
<p>In fact, Karabel wrote an interesting book that documents how the elite US schools moved away from using pure entrance-exam based admissions and towards admissions based on 'well-roundedness' with the explicit purpose of restricting the number of Jews who won admission. Basically, the colleges felt that too many Jews were getting admitted based on their high test scores, so they felt something ought to be done about it, and the colleges could always say that a Jewish applicant was just not well-rounded enough as an excuse to reject that applicant. In other words, the present state of US college admissions was conceived from anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>Sakky: Ever read The Chosen? It talks a lot about stuff along that vein.</p>
<p>I presume that's exactly what he's talking about. It's required reading for college admissions gadflies.</p>
<p>haha yea, Jerome Karabel is the author of The Chosen. great book so far (i'm on page 100). I've always been curious about the roots of elite college admissions.</p>
<p>Well I still like the US procedure.
Now my side of the story for Karabel is that: I think US gives an applicant a chance to show each and every sphere where one is good at. NOw in the Indian Institute of Technology Exam (the IITJEE) I have to just write a stupid Phy/Chem/Math entrance test to enter and then I'd be given an Engg. Now I want to do Comp Sci/Engg but the test never really checks my knowledge of computers so dont you think its just unfair that I dont get a chance to prove myself in my field of interest. Whereas in the US admission process I can show all my olympiads, competition victories and research work. Now what is fair is for you to judge.</p>