The key to understanding MIT Admissions?!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>If that was an MIT Admissions blog post, its title would probably be "Intelligence vs. Emotional Intelligence". </p>

<p>Having been anxiously waiting for Pi Day (I am SO NERVOUS!), I read a little bit about Emotional Intelligence and I would like to share some interesting information with you stressful applicants (like me!).</p>

<p>When emotional intelligence first appeared to the masses in 1995, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into what many people had always assumed was the sole source of success—IQ. Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack. </p>

<p>Emotional intelligence is the “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions that achieve positive results. Emotional intelligence taps into a fundamental element of human behavior that is distinct from your intellect. There is no known connection between IQ and emotional intelligence; you simply can’t predict emotional intelligence based on how smart someone is. Intelligence is your ability to learn, and it’s the same at age 15 as it is at age 50. Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is a flexible set of skills that can be acquired and improved with practice. Although some people are naturally more emotionally intelligent than others, you can develop high emotional intelligence even if you aren’t born with it.</p>

<p>How much of an impact does emotional intelligence have on your professional success? The short answer is: a lot! It’s a powerful way to focus your energy in one direction with a tremendous result. TalentSmart tested emotional intelligence alongside 33 other important workplace skills, and found that emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining a full 58% of success in all types of jobs.</p>

<p>Your emotional intelligence is the foundation for a host of critical skills—it impacts most everything you say and do each day. Emotional intelligence is the single biggest predictor of performance in the workplace and the strongest driver of leadership and personal excellence.</p>

<p>Numbers are very important but ARE NOT deal breakers! (lots of people say that but now I have 4 paragraphs explicitly explaining it. Actually, 7,780,000 Google results!).</p>

<p>Now we have a new unresolved issue:
Surviving this whole month until Pi Day!
And YES, I am 100% sure there is no such thing as Pi Day Intelligence!</p>

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<p>That’s very interesting. What does it encompass? I wonder how it is measured.</p>

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<p>Emotional intelligence is not independent of “the numbers,” in high school or afterwards.</p>

<p>Some people may get lower grades if they alienate teachers with difficult personalities. Similarly, it will be harder to get leadership positions even in academic clubs if one is not well-liked among their peers. Thirdly, glowing recs are a sign of emotional intelligence, even if there is no emphasis or even mention of social skills. So I think these things are sufficient to check off the “emotional intelligence” box.</p>

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<p>Yes, that is the chief question. My fear is that worrying an inordinate amount about emotional intelligence leads to measuring things which science people may not be prone to do during their high school years (e.g., founding community service projects, etc.)</p>

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<p>@lidusha, There are some assessment tools here:
[Emotional</a> Intelligence Assessment Tools](<a href=“http://www.psychometric-success.com/emotional-intelligence/measuring-emotional-intelligence.htm]Emotional”>http://www.psychometric-success.com/emotional-intelligence/measuring-emotional-intelligence.htm)</p>

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<p>Was any attempt made to justify why they measured regular intelligence with an IQ test? By 1995, IQ testing was known to be broken and biased. (And I say this as someone who has a high IQ.)</p>

<p>That website looks sketchy at best.</p>

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<p>I think they still measure intelligence with the IQ test. Do you know of any replacement? The SAT has a correlation but it’s not its core purpose, right?</p>

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<p>Nope. I just don’t see the point of “this broken test doesn’t correlate well to this ill-defined concept”.</p>

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<p>Regarding the “ill-defined concept”, perhaps this will help:</p>

<p>Emotional intelligence is made up of four core skills that pair up under two primary competencies: personal competence and social competence.</p>

<p>Personal competence is made up of your self-awareness and self-management skills, which focus more on you individually than on your interactions with other people. Personal competence is your ability to stay aware of your emotions and manage your behavior and tendencies.
Self-Awareness is your ability to accurately perceive your emotions and stay aware of them as they happen.
Self-Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and positively direct your behavior.</p>

<p>Social competence is made up of your social awareness and relationship management skills; social competence is your ability to understand other people’s moods, behavior, and motives in order to improve the quality of your relationships.
Social Awareness is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on.
Relationship Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions and the others’ emotions to manage interactions successfully.</p>

<p>I know. It’s very abstract, especially for a “techie guy” like me (I already graduated from high school and I’m currently a software developer). But it’s very interesting. If you ask me (and you probably don’t), it has a lot to do with holistic college admissions.</p>

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<p>I think piper meant the IQ test is an ill-defined concept. </p>

<p>Emotional Intelligence has problems too (in terms of calculating it) but yes, the OP nailed it, we do care about more than just “raw intellectual ability.” Lots of people have sufficient raw intellectual ability to succeed at MIT. We select a subset of them to come to MIT based on a variety of other factors including something like emotional intelligence.</p>

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<p>I thought he was referring to “There is no known connection between IQ and emotional intelligence” claiming that IQ does’t necessarily correlate well with regular Intelligence.</p>

<p>@PiperXP - Did I miss your point?<br>
@MITChris - I was curious to hear your voice about this, so thanks!</p>

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<p>I think EI used to be called street smarts. A thing I doubt that most professional students possess. You can only get street smarts on the street. Although the hallways of the large public high schools is a good entry level class.</p>

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<p>I disagree.
In my opinion, many of the things you don’t consider as high EI effects are actually high EI side-effects. </p>

<p>Otherwise, star performers (not just academically) wouldn’t exist in high schools. Otherwise, running holistic college admissions would be a waste of time. </p>

<p>But that’s just my perspective.</p>