So my little brother wants to know if he's on the right track...

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>Well... he has no particularly interesting ECs. He's in... 6th grade... but anyways...</p>

<p>Skipped 5 grades in math. 6th grader in Honors Alg 2. All As and at this point, I'm going to assume a 4.0 UW in high school. </p>

<p>Qualified for AIME with over 130 points on the AMC 10. Near perfect on the AMC 8. And he has... probably over a hundred other math awards. </p>

<p>The end of resume. Probably too early to tell, but he wants to know if he will get into MIT purely from him math ability </p>

<p>p.s. I know this is early but he's been bugging me to post this ^^; It's been his dream school since he was 5 so....yeup!</p>

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<p>i mean his math coursework is obviously very good. it’s by no means unheard of in our pool, but being an AIME qualifier in 6th grade and scoring in the 130s on the AMC 10 is certainly remarkable. if he fulfills his potential by doing well on the AIME and USAMO / MOSP he would certainly be “on the right track” in that respect to anywhere in the country. </p>

<p>in that respect. i wouldn’t assume a 4.0 UW. some kids who are very passionate about one subject lose their focus in other areas when they get to high school. or they get wrapped up solely in schoolwork and don’t contribute to their community - or worse, are mean to their community. </p>

<p>the best thing your brother can do is to continue achieving at a high level in math, to be a good student in other areas as well, and to contribute positively to his community.</p>

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<p>He knew about MIT at the age of 5?? I didn’t know what MIT was until I was 16.
Your brother sounds awesome, but make sure he has a personality. You gotta make him one of the cool kids!</p>

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<p>Math team gangbangers?</p>

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<p>It’s probably about their lack of empathy because they don’t spend time trying to understand others by seeing things in others’ perspectives.</p>

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<p>“or they get wrapped up solely in schoolwork and don’t contribute to their community - or worse, are mean to their community.”</p>

<p>Yea, tell your brother not to accept that job as an engineer on the Death Star.</p>

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<p>with this rate, he may be able to make USAMO, and maybe even MOSP, gl</p>

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<p>I hear mathletes use a lot of e</p>

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<p>It’s true (I speak from experience)</p>

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<p>LOL. That’s all I have to say.</p>

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<p>Wow, that means he’ll be done with Calc by the time he finishes middle school.</p>

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<p>lol, collegealum314, in post #4.
That comment hardly needs any follow-up! But I have to admire michaelwiggins post #6, too! </p>

<p>Still, MITChris, I would like to offer the following observation, based on a number of years of reading the MIT Admissions website and blogs, as well as CC posts by people in the admissions office at MIT:</p>

<p>There seems to be a certain degree of stereotyping the super-bright as having a higher than average likelihood of being defective in character. This would be unacceptable when applied to almost any other group. </p>

<p>I was a post-doc at MIT more than 30 years ago, so I’ve had a long time to observe groups of people. I have seen no evidence that the very bright are likely to be mean–in fact, the Nobel Laureates of my acquaintance are without exception very generous people. </p>

<p>I do know a single “top” scientist I would classify as mean, but even he has defenders who claim he just has high standards. Also, I have seen some unkind postings on CC by students who have been rejected by MIT, when they apparently have strong qualifications for admission. However, these have been limited in number.</p>

<p>It seems to me that the social dynamics in most American high schools make it unlikely that a very bright student will act mean. Being a math nerd does not exactly carry a lot of social cachet! To generalize, I’d say that these students actually face a higher than average social necessity to be kind. </p>

<p>This week’s New York Times Science section (Feb. 15) carried a report of an article in the American Sociological Review, and related research at UC Davis, which suggests that “increases in social status were associated with subsequent increases in aggression” and that “aggressive behavior peaked at the 98th percentile of popularity.”</p>

<p>Where I have lived, the 98th percentile of popularity was not populated by math geniuses! Admittedly, my experience is limited. So, I’d like to ask others: In your experience, are the unusually bright students at your school mean, or in danger of becoming mean?</p>

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<p>Many times, the very bright are the ones who try something really hard, know what it feels like to feel stupid, and the really dumb people are mean because they think they know everything because they never tried anything in their lives.</p>

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<p>If I may, I have this belief that generally, those mean smart people end up unheard of in general life. Nobel Laureates are undoubtedly great achievers, and probably ended up there as much due to their personality as their intelligence. And in my opinion, this is a reason why holistic admissions are so important in determining the most promising students. They aren’t always (rarely, probably) dictated by simple numbers alone.
Sometimes, uncontested intelligence leads to ego-inflation, getting in over one’s head, and ending up nowhere in life, whereas one other person who is just as intelligent but keeps his ego in check, actually has determination to use this intelligence for good, generally, and is creative - well, I think that kind of person is the one who would end up as a Nobel Laureate.</p>

<p>Young geniuses can end up on any of the above 2 ends, usually. I think that’s why Chris was emphasizing that these people should contribute positively to their community.</p>

<p>All IMHO, of course.</p>

<p>PS: With my respect to posters 4 and 6, I think poster #8 easily claims the crown as the most amusing joke :smiley: Have no idea why he was overlooked in the above posts. (In math terms, 8>6>4.)</p>

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<p>Didn’t mean to ignore post #8–but I have to admit, I didn’t get the joke. Could someone explain it? (Not meanly, please!)</p>

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<p>^I believe it’s a play on the fact that e refers to a drug as well as Euler’s number.</p>

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<p>^Yep. e = 2.7182818284… and e = ‘street talk’ for “ecstasy”. Pretty intelligent quip ;)</p>

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<p>Oh. Well, if I ever make it onto Jeopardy!, I’ll have to hope that street names for drugs is not one of their categories.</p>

<p>Back to the original issue, though. Jimmy797 advanced an interesting hypothesis that meanness would be anti-correlated with success. Probably true–except that I really haven’t known anyone who started out mean. (Maybe that one guy I mentioned earlier.)</p>

<p>Let me ask again, for the high schoolers: Are there people in your school who are exceptionally talented in math and science and are also mean?</p>

<p>“Don’t become mean” is good advice, of course. I just can’t tell whether it’s on par with the advice to avoid contracting Venusian burping disorder.</p>

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<p>^I’m a current high schooler, and was actually drawing from my own experience in my previous post. To answer your question, I’ve met plenty who are arrogant, none who are downright mean (assuming that arrogance doesn’t fall under this category, which it probably should), a few who are pretty kind-hearted. But then my school has a lot of talented kids so… not sure what to make of this.
I don’t think being mean is a problem, really. Rather, being arrogant is. And it’s quite easy to fall into. Perhaps being mean can result from it, or perhaps it’s correlated with arrogance in places that don’t have as much good influence as my school does. Who knows.</p>

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<p>I think arrogance tends to be a self-correcting problem. I don’t think people who over-estimate themselves and get in over their heads are mean, per se.</p>