<p>If you are going to play the game, you need to know the rules. Applying to college today is much different than applying to college even 10 years ago. Competition at top schools has increased and enrollment at lower tier schools has decreased. The difference between the "haves" and the "have-nots" is greater, and the rules have changed. </p>
<p>If you don't believe it, you need to check out the video below. This is a clip from a segment on CNBC that featured the former Dean of MIT. In the clip she says:</p>
<p>"(Colleges are) not going to tell people what they want (because) they want as many applications as possible ... and they want to take as few of those as possible ... so they can brag ... and they want as many of those to come -- and that's the holy trinity of college admissions."</p>
<p>They tell you what they want you to know … Believe me, they won’t tell you what they really want because if they did, people who didn’t fit wouldn’t apply. That means applications would go down and they would be less selective.</p>
<p>Let me guess, they said … “Someone passionate” or something of the like. </p>
<p>I’ve been doing this for a long time, trust me.</p>
<p>Alignment with MIT’s mission to make the world a better place.
Collaborative & cooperative spirit.
Initiative.
Risk-taking.
Hands-on creativity.
Intensity, curiosity, and excitement.
The character of the MIT community.
The ability to prioritize balance.</p>
<p>While some schools may play the “need more apps to reject more to look more prestigious”, MIT and a few handful of others don’t feel that pressure. Indeed Yale and MIT are scaling back their mailers. </p>
<p>Purchasing less names does not mean they cut back recruitment efforts. Many schools are going to different recruitment models. For example, social media type recruitment models like ***** may allow for less purchased names, but it will have little effect on the applicant pool size. </p>
<p>If the applicant pool suddenly shrunk by 40% they would be crying. </p>
<p>Who needs logic when you can have a conspiracy?</p>
<p>johnli3, I’d love for you to figure out what every single student at MIT has that Admissions doesn’t say it’s going for. I’ve seen basically every “rule” about what Admissions is theoretically lying about get broken.</p>
<p>I agree with this. I’m just about as cynical about admissions as you can get and I don’t agree with everything MIT does, but my observation is that MIT is at least honest about its policies.</p>
<p>It’s worth noting that Marilee Jones, the former MIT Dean of Admissions, is not singling out MIT here as not being completely honest about who they would admit, although it may be implied that MIT also participates in this practice.</p>
<p>Well, Marilee Jones doesn’t say anything MIT-specific in the video. Actually, she doesn’t say much at all. It’s a panel with 5 people and the video is only 5 min. long.</p>
<p>As I said, I think MIT is straightforward about who it admits. </p>
<p>I think the general accusation is that elite schools make people think they can get into a school with subpar academic credentials if they are passionate about their ECs or write good essays. I think in MIT’s case, there do definitely admit people despite academic blemishes if they like other things about the person’s application.</p>
Of course, from a less cynical point of view, top colleges are looking to cast a wide net and attract smart people to apply who might not immediately think of themselves as top college material. They’d rather sift through a few more applications than miss out on a really good match. </p>
<p>And the criteria are general and flexible both because they’re really not looking for one kind of student, and because they don’t want the entire applicant pool to have identical applications.</p>
<p>My take is that colleges are casting wide nets, not so that they can say they are selective, but so that they can avoid the PC Police who would complain that the college does not do enough to solicit poor and minority applicants. I’m sure that a lot of the poor and minority applicants would have a better chance if they went to better schools, but there is nothing the college can do about that. If the child is not prepared for the rigors of that college (MIT, Yale, etc.), it is a disservice to the student to admit them. </p>
<p>I’m not saying that a marginal student should not be admitted. MIT has living communities that help those students make it through. That student is great to begin with. It is environment that can make a good student good enough to have a chance at MIT. Poor and minority students at under performing schools never get that chance.</p>
<p>My take is less cynical. I believe schools like MIT realize there are hidden gems. That’s why they participate in Questbridge and do their own targeted recruiting.</p>
<p>Many poor and minority kids and poor schools never get the chance – that’s a given. But MIT et al still expend resources to scour for the few. I don’t see that as warding off the PC police – but an honest understanding of the environment and a willingness to push harder to get the few choice applicants.</p>
<p>I absolutely agree with Piper calling out the OP and his conspiracy charges. You’re on the friggen MIT forum Johnli. You better come up with better facts – your post sounds more like a TMZ commercial-trailer than anything of substance.</p>
<p>Yes, it is true that MIT has significantly cut back on its recruitment. It was a decision taken by the admissions office that encouraging people to apply who did not really stand a chance to get in did not actually serve MIT’s interests. That being said, MIT is at the far end of the bell curve on this. Being seen as selective matters less at MIT than at many schools, and that is in part, because the MIT applicant pool has long tended to be quite self-selective. Yes, we do get applicants who don’t stand a chance of getting in (and by golly I have interviewed many of them over the years), but the strong majority of our applicant pool is at least academically qualified. This is less so than at (say) Harvard, who gets a much higher number of “what the heck, why not” applicants than does MIT. I would not presume whether that is desired by Harvard admissions or not.</p>
<p>Right. We are relatively rare among schools in cutting back our recruitment efforts to the degree that we have, in encouraging a self-selecting pool (see: not using the common app), and we are able to do so in part because we have the privilege of already being sufficiently prestigious etc that we don’t need to game the USN&WR rankings with higher scores / lower rates / etc.</p>