<p>@ MITChris -</p>
<p>Yes, I’m aware of the first three before awesomeness. After all, for every awesome person you admit, you will have to turn away another 9, and seeing how each class that comes into MIT meld together firsthand for 2 years now had left me no doubt about the seriousness and the magnitude of you guys’ work. </p>
<p>btw, don’t you have a lot of biology grads working in the admission office right now? :P</p>
<p>@oasis - </p>
<p>Yes we do! Dunno what they put in the water over in bio…</p>
<p>@mollie - </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>@ericlee: I don’t remember the exact number of AIME qualifiers per year, but if memory serves right it is about 800 per year (and these people are not all in the same class.) To account for yield, MIT admits somewhere upwards of 1300 to attain a class of 1000. </p>
<p>So obviously, your level of mathematical aptitude is probably at least in the average range of admitted students.</p>
<p>There’s actually around 10,000 AIME qualifiers and ~500 USAMO qualifiers per year.</p>
<p>“51% of the class of 2014 are valedictorians. HOWEVER, of the 2196 valedictorians who applied, only 427 were admitted.”</p>
<p>If the 427 admitted valedictorians make up 51% of the class of 2014, that means MIT only admitted 837 people. However, MIT actually admitted more than 1600. Confused…</p>
<p>I really appreciate MITChris’ responses too. I wish all the colleges would do this.</p>
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<p>Not true. Consider the case that there was 100% yield for the valedictorians and only 50% yield for non-valedictorians. The class of 2014 consists of only those that accept the offer.</p>
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<p>Wow. ok. Well, back when I was in school, it used to be about 800 AIME qualifiers and 160 USAMO qualifiers.</p>
<p>^ They expanded the USAMO a lot even since I graduated (it was 250 for '04 to '07 when I was in the AMC and AoPS loop).</p>
<p>I think they’re also pushing for a USAJMO, which is a USAMO for people who take AMC 10, in an effort to get more people interested in competitive mathematics.</p>
<p>This is actually something I’ve been wondering about for a while, particularly because in some Russian colleges there used to be quotas for Jews, and often Jews were given more difficult placement exams. I’ve read that some American colleges used to have a similar quota. I’ve also read that colleges used to take things like attractiveness into account in admissions.</p>
<p>I’m curious about how this is today, in the US. It might be different in MIT admissions (a lot of things seem to be different in MIT admissions, in a good way), but maybe I can still get an idea.</p>
<p>How are ethnicity and gender treated while an admissions officer is reading an application? Are applicants sorted into different piles (white male, white female, purple female, green male, etc.)? or are all applications read together? If they are read together, are they read differently depending on ethnicity? Is an applicant considered strong/weak compared to other humans, or is an applicant considered strong/weak compared to others in their ethnicity and gender? Are applicants sometimes given a “second look” because of their ethnicity or gender? I know MIT aims for about half its class to be female; are there similar percentages for ethnicity in order to maintain diversity? Are applicants of a certain gender or ethnicity group ever looked at again because the number accepted in that group did not match the expected percentage?</p>
<p>collegealum im still al ittle confused on the statistic about valedictorians. Can you elaborate?</p>
<p>^^On a second reading, I think you’re right.<br>
I was thinking that, in general, “the class of 20xx” refers to students which have accepted the offer. In the case of the class of 2014, no one has made their decision yet, so the class of 2014 has to refer strictly to those offered positions.</p>
<p>@MITChris</p>
<p>Does participation in elite summer programs (i.e. RSI, SSP, etc) qualify someone as a “academic star”?</p>
<p>What percentage of the applicants and what percentage of the class was middle-eastern?</p>
<p>They always seem to get lose in the ambiguous branch of “Caucasian.”</p>
<p>@lidusha - </p>
<p>All applications are read together. </p>
<p>As for the rest of your post, short version: </p>
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<p>[MIT</a> Admissions: Affirmative Action](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/affirmative_action/index.shtml]MIT”>http://mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/affirmative_action/index.shtml)</p>
<p>Long version: </p>
<p>My posts in here - <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/881572-lets-talk-about-race-some-more-because-thats-always-fun.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/881572-lets-talk-about-race-some-more-because-thats-always-fun.html</a></p>
<p>New here, but was monitoring posts on another thread because of my kid applying to boarding school.</p>
<p>I think there is too much speculation on how MIT chooses candidates and how race and gender factor into things. Since I interview for them, let me just say that the factors that determine who gets in and who does not changes from year to year because it’s heavily dependent on the range of students in that particular applicant pool.</p>
<p>I got yelled at, one year, at an MIT session by a parent who wanted to know if MIT turned down students with perfect SAT scores. I said yes, and that they also accepted students without perfect scores. </p>
<p>What MIT looks for (as do other colleges) is a diverse range of interests and experiences. So if every student has designed their first laser beam at the age of eight, and got a Nobel prize at 10, they blur versus a student that was admitted that I interviewed who completed a fantasy novel and another who studied martial arts and was heavily involved in theater. Both had strong grades, top scores, but they also had interesting lives. And trust me - if you have to read through thousands of applications, you want students who stand out beyond the normal scores and recommendations.</p>
<p>So when I interview, I do NOT ask about things that can be seen on an application - I probe for the person behind the paperwork. I’ve seen examples of poetry, artwork, heard stories about planning and organizing clubs on campus, etc. I’ve seen Eagle Scout projects and seen Girl Scout adventures. Those students I remember as sticking out. Those students I know will add to the depth and breadth of the campus experience.</p>
<p>The students who are strong academically but don’t stand out are the ones who buy into the idea that college acceptance is only about grades and test scores. Because 16,000 other students are coming in with comparable metrics in that respect - so how does one choose 10% of that pool if there are no major differences? Obviously everyone who applies wants to be there (or one would hope).</p>
<p>So when trying for a competitive college such as MIT - ask “what else do you have beyond grades and scores?” “What makes you memorable beyond that?”</p>
<p>And there is your answer. Forget the idea of affirmative action (not a factor) or gender preference. Just as many people in those categories get turned down. One of the biggest pools of applicants is still Asian and white males - and those that are rejected often assume someone else got preferential treatment and took their spot. When the truth is - the vast majority of people applying are highly qualified. The hard task for the committee is putting together a broadly diverse student population that will contribute as much as they receive from the institute.</p>
<p>I was bothered, once, when an applicant didn’t gain admission. He went to another college, completed the coursework in 3 years and is working on his PhD. He’s happy and the universe put him where he was supposed to be.</p>
<p>So don’t sweat it. It’s a hard job to say no to someone who is very qualified. But with so few spots - admissions and ec’s do a pretty good job of creating well balanced incoming class. I don’t mark whether someone is a minority and frankly, I don’t care. </p>
<p>I hope that helps.</p>
<p>^Great post.</p>
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This is a terrible post. If you have two Nobel laureates, you take both. You certainly don’t throw one of them out for a guy who wrote a fantasy novel. </p>
<p>If it’s too boring for MIT admissions committee members to read thousands of applications and select the people with the most promise in science, maybe they should find another job. And it seems that non-technical people have an impulse that academic stars are boring–people with such an impulse should not be involved in the MIT admissions decisions.</p>
<p>I think you are reading that post far too literally… </p>
<p>I think they are rightly trying to do more than establish an admit list composed of the top 1500 candidates rank-ordered by promise in science. They are looking for a mix that will create a rich, dynamic educational and social environment for 4 years and prepare students for a variety of leadership roles in a technologically driven, but often technologically ignorant, society. Many of those roles will encompass far more than direct skills in the sciences. Alternatively, MIT could opt to become a tremendously advanced science trade school and drop all of the extraneous things that detract from accumulating credits and grades in scientific and engineering majors.</p>
<p>Yes, I know that I also interpreted your post far too literally for dramatic effect but the underlying message is unchanged. </p>
<p>BTW: Aren’t most of the senior positions in the Admissions Office held by MIT alums? Perhaps they were some of the scientific weakest links, but at least they passed the GIRs.</p>
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<p>Really? Why do people with IMO, IPhO or IChO medals get rejected then?</p>