The MIT Slaughter: A Bad Sign for HYPS

Colleges & Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>Why would I find three instances of your arrogance on the MIT forum in the last 24 hours? What is that indicative of? The fact is, based on your posts here and the Yale forum over the last few months, and your Facebook status that you like to brag about, you feel entitled to being accepted at these colleges because of some random stats and numbers. I’m currently reading through the sickening thread you just made about race, and it’s pathetic. Everyone knows your application is “good” as well, and now you’re crying your head off after two decisions (one of which was not even final.) Calm down. Maybe if you get rejected everywhere I’d feel a bit more sorry for you, through probably not because there’s nothing to show that you wouldn’t run around screaming that the only reason you didn’t get in was because of URM status factoring into decisions. </p>

<p>Handala… LOL. That’s all I have to say.</p>

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<p>Ok Starbuck, I need to do this in list format:</p>

<p>1) The thread is entitled, “Lets Talk About Race Some More, Because That’s Always Fun.” If you look at my first post in the thread, it says “So we can keep it out of our decisions thread.” That being the intent: to keep our decisions thread from becoming a debate about affirmative action (this was before the admins began moving the chatter out of the decisions thread). If you look through my posts, I reject the idea that I lost my spot to a URM. Virtually everything I’ve said in there has been obviously sarcastic.</p>

<p>2) I actually support AA. If you dig through the Yale threads, you’ll find my justification.</p>

<p>3) They are not “random stats and numbers.” A person (me) earned them. Most of the people on this board should be proud of what they’ve done, and I’m no exception.</p>

<p>4) I don’t ever recall bragging about my facebook status. I don’t think most of the stuff I do on fb is particularly interesting. I remember somebody (maybe you) criticizing my reaction to my deferral from Yale, and responding that I was angry, as plenty of people are when things don’t turn out the way they want.</p>

<p>5) I have never blamed anything on anyone with respect to my admissions (or lack thereof).</p>

<p>6) There are three main defense mechanisms used when you ask a girl out and get rejected. There’s the get really sad and depressed and think you’re not good enough (that’s not me). There’s the plenty of other fish in the sea (also not me). And there’s the angry “She should have said yes. I’d be a great boyfriend. She’ll regret it some day.” That’s me. It’s probably not the most gracious reaction, but I don’t think it’s unhealthy or arrogant in the extreme.</p>

<p>7) In the future, you’re free to vent your frustrations with me on formspring.</p>

<p>8) You’d be jumpy too if two of your best friends had gotten likely letters from Stanford and Yale and you kept getting deferred/waitlisted/(in the case of scholarships) rejected. And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for them. I’m just antsy about me.</p>

<p>9) If you are still reading this, you’re crazy, because you shouldn’t read so much by a guy who annoys you. You’ll give yourself an aneurysm.</p>

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<p>Lol. I’m amused.</p>

<p></p>

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<p>MIT =/= HYPS</p>

<p>Mostly because MIT is a different school from H is different from Y is different from P, etc; but also because MIT looks for different qualities in its applicants than do HYPS (it’s a science- and math-oriented school, for the most part, after all).</p>

<p>So a rejection from MIT is in no way indicative of success at MIT’s peer institutions.</p>

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<p>christian is my hero.</p>

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<p>The Government, it definitely is indicative. Not perfectly indicative or even particularly good, but are you honestly saying MIT rejects will get in at equal rates to HYPS (or other colleges) as MIT acceptees?</p>

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<p>^seconded 10char</p>

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<p>^seconded 10char (to stupefy)</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Many schools meet 100% of the expected family contribution, but frankly the EFC is much too high for most middle class families. I used that calculator a few months back and it estimated that we would have to pay around $50,000 per year (my family’s income is between $100,000 and $150,000).</p>

<p>Now I was not accepted to MIT, but unless it had pulled a Harvard and guaranteed that we would pay no more than 10% of family income, then I would not have been able to afford it. Or Stanford, Penn, Duke, etc., any of these other schools.</p>

<p>I would imagine many are in my shoes.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>There are lot of reasons why otherwise highly qualified students will be turned down by MIT. Valedictorians with otherwise stellar ECs, near perfect SAT scores, boatloads of APs are not especially advantaged applying to MIT. You may remember the Polish student accepted to all Ivies a few years ago, was turned down by MIT (which was ironically his first choice). </p>

<p>On the othet hand, many of the students that MIT actively seeks out may not be excellent candidates for HYP such as the student admitted this year who who built a nuclear reactor. MIT will look at much more lopsided candidates than HYP. MIT will also dig much deeper into the “fit” with the school. </p>

<p>BTW, HYP are NOT the top overlap schools with MIT. Caltech and Stanford are more common, even Chicago because of the ability apply to both EA. As an interviewer of MIT applicants, I very seldom see applicants to Yale for instance. Even Princeton is more common than Harvard as it has stronger engineering. Think of it this way: CC conducts every year a cross-admit battle for HYPSM. MIT was even with all the other schools including Harvard, but the numbers of cross admits is VERY low. CC can barely find 60 students TOTAL admitted to more than one school. Cross admits with of HYPS with MIT number less than 25 TOTAL, of these there were only 2 with Yale. You would probably find 10 times the number of MIT/HYPS cross admits with Caltech alone.</p>

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<p>^if i had gotten in and believed your post, id now be like NOOOOO. now i cant get into the other schools!!!</p>

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<p>@Handala</p>

<p>No, he was rejected outright RD. He was interviewed on TV and visibly upset about the MIT rejection. He had no rejections at any of the Ivies. (he applied to 7 of 8). Again, he was not an obvious fit for MIT with an extremely well rounded background but no standout technical achievements.</p>

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<p>cellardweller, in the video "[MIT</a> TechTV - Behind the Scenes of Admissions at MIT](<a href="http://techtv.mit.edu/genres/28-life-at-mit/videos/1502-behind-the-scenes-of-admissions-at-mit]MIT"&gt;http://techtv.mit.edu/genres/28-life-at-mit/videos/1502-behind-the-scenes-of-admissions-at-mit)", at the 18 minute mark, Stu Schmill lists the 4 top competitor schools in 2006 as Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Stanford while pointing out that this list has changed from 1959 (RPI, Harvard, Cornell, Caltech) by moving away from overlapping the most with tech-centric schools.</p>

<p>As I doubt this data has changed significantly in the past 4 years, I’m not sure what your rationale for contradicting my claim is. College Confidential is not a representative sample, and the fact that not many people voluntarily respond to a single thread does not indicate that not many of these high quality cross-admits exist.</p>

<p>And once again, I have already made it clear that MIT admissions is not a perfect (or even necessarily good) predictor of admissions at HYPS. However, it’s absolutely ridiculous to state that MIT admissions are completely independent of HYPS admissions. You are effectively claiming that MIT looks at virtually zero of the same factors as HYPS. I believe it’s more reasonable to assert that MIT admits will do better at HYPS admissions than non-admits.</p>

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<p>i now feel i still have a chance at HYP despite being waitlisted…</p>

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<p>@ omega and cellardweller - </p>

<p>You’re both right. HYPS are our biggest competitor schools. However, we also look for very different things from HYPS. So while we have some number of cross-admits by virtue of looking at the same demographic of highly qualified students, we also look for different things.</p>

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<p>I don’t think a rejection from any of the extremely competitive schools should depress anyone. I was rejected by Stanford early but admitted to all the other schools I applied to that have already released decisions. So, for those of you rejected by MIT, don’t feel too bad! It’ll all turn out just fine. :)</p>

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<p>MITChris…What exactly is your affiliation with MIT? you dont have to get into the specifics…are you in admissions or are you an alum affiliated with the school, etc?</p>

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<p>I was rejected by MIT but accepted by Caltech and GOT MONEY from WashU so…hmm…</p>

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<p>So would being waitlisted at MIT be a good sign or a bad sign for HYPS? Or is the criteria looked at so different that it’s basically indifferent?</p>

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<p>

This is exactly my point… straight from the horse’s mouth.</p>

<p>However, any applicant should be able to somewhat tell whether or not they’re competitive for HYPS, even without taking into consideration their results with MIT.</p>

<p>An applicant with, say, low test scores and a low GPA (non-URM) getting rejected (or waitlisted, if he or she is lucky) by MIT is very different from someone with an impressive application on the whole getting turned down by MIT. In the former case, yes, the rejection is indicative of success (or lack thereof) at HYPS; in the latter, it isn’t, for the reasons MITChris elucidates above.</p>