<p>"Marilee Jones, head of admissions at MIT commented recently that the increase in average SAT scores and GPAs of incoming freshmen over the past decade has often resulted in less creativity in the classroom according to surveys among professors."</p>
<p>This makes me crazy. These schools invariably seek to cull the most perfect applicants from their extraordinary applicant pool and then they bemoan the lack of creativity in their students? What exactly did they think would happen? Given the expectations placed upon them, when do these kids have the freedom to foster their creativity?? I hadn't noticed that MIT had made a brave departure from the typical top tier school approach of choosing students. It accepts kids with a 2250 and a 3.85? Wow, what a risk. Does this institution really believe that such an approach captures more creative thinkers?</p>
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Many of the top schools are not looking only for high school "scholars" with perfect gpa's and sat's, but people who will produce in the future and are leaders.
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<p>Given the obvious difficulty in identifying such people by their experiences and accomplishments during the first 17 years of their lives, it might be better if MIT and similar colleges devoted less effort to selection and more effort to developing students' creative and leadership abilities once they enroll.</p>
<p>We hear so often on CC that HPYSM etc. are not sure bets for anyone, make sure that every applicant has a safety that he/she loves. It seems like a lot of these "super applicants" do not have safety schools. Maybe they'll adjust their lists if they don't get into their ED/EA school.</p>
<p>It is not clear that leadership or creative abilities can easily be developed in college. While one is not necessarily born a leader or inventor, the traits that will make a person develop these skills are generally present by high school age. A conformist, social acceptance seeking individual will not be easy to turn into a leader who may have to subordinate his personal preferences to an organization's benefit. Similarly, a methodical, structured student may not easily develop the intuitive traits typical of a creative type. </p>
<p>It is therefore certainly easier for colleges to screen for the precursor traits that to try to develop these traits in students who lack them. </p>
<p>The good news is that top colleges often look for different characteristics in students. MIT looks more the creative type with narrow interests, Harvard may look more for leaderships skills, Yale may have a preference for the intellectual with broad liberal arts interests etc..</p>
<p>Actually, MIT specifically asks teachers and GCs to evaluate the applicants by asking the following question (culled from memory, rather than verbatim)</p>
<p>Did the student achieve this grade by dint of:</p>
<p>hard work? being grade conscious? memorization? brilliance?</p>
<p>If I were an adcom, I would not want to admit a student who achieved a high GPA solely on the basis of being good at memorization of being grade-conscious, but would prefer a student who was brilliant and was willing to work hard. (It has been argued that being grade conscious can motivate a student to work hard, but I think that in the context of the application, it means that the student did not choose courses on the basis of easy grades).</p>
<p>If push comes to shove, I would suspect that the MIT adcom would go for the brilliant student. And, judging by the profile of some applicants, there are quite a few out there.</p>
<p>Did the student achieve this grade by dint of:</p>
<p>hard work? being grade conscious? memorization? brilliance?</p>
<p>I still have a very difficult time seeing how the best answer wouldn't be a student who excelled by using all of them. Brilliance without goal or direction or hardwork or the ability to remember data won't make for a very good student IMO. But hey, I could be wrong. Undirected or incompetent genius may just be the ticket ;). </p>
<p>We've fought this one many times before. Let's just say I don't think MIT's questions are very well drafted considering the teachers who will be answering the questions.</p>
<p>A student who was brilliant but lazy and lacked direction would presumably not achieve an A. I believe the question assumes that the student has achieved a great grade and that it aims to test the ceiling effect. How to distinguish between students who have all achieved the top grade of A? The same applies to SAT scores. The SAT is good at distinguishing among 7th and 8th graders. Not so good at distinguishing among 11th and 12th graders because of the ceiling effect. </p>
<p>You are probably right though, that many teachers would not be able to make the distinction. I'm thinking in particular of teachers who award points for good (read compliant) behavior, for neat presentation, for bells and whistles on projects, or who seem unaware that mom and dad were the chief authors of whatever homework was submitted.</p>
<p>The point, though, is that colleges do try to identify creativity, initiative, brilliance--which is what I was trying to say in response to post 61. And I have read enough about MIT undergraduate wunderkinds to know that MIT is pretty successful.</p>
<p>I agree with curmudgeon. I don't think teachers are particularly reliable and I also think it's likely that students excel by using a combination of all techniques. If you haven't read or heard Denise Clark Pope, I recommend her book on "Doing School." She contends that it's simply not possible to excel at high school without cutting corners (she calls it cheating) and grade grubbing. Sorry, but this questionnaire sounds like lip service to me. If a school is truly willing to look for creative brilliance, it needs to look beyond a very narrow and very rigid set of factors. I have my eye on a friend's kid who is an unusual, creative, staggeringly brilliant kid....who has not achieved the heady numbers on the new SAT or the perfect gpa. This kid's best numbers come from the old SAT taken in middle school. Same with the math SAT II. If the school recognizes the unusual ability of this kid, I'll eat my words.</p>
<p>I will be anxious to see over the next decade the places from where the next set of creative geniuses emerge. I've been watching the college admissions scene with real alarm and find it increasingly unbelievable that this process is truly looking for anything that deviates from the perfect template. Sure there are brilliant undergrads at MIT. But what about the ones who aren't there?</p>
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I have my eye on a friend's kid who is an unusual, creative, staggeringly brilliant kid....who has not achieved the heady numbers on the new SAT or the perfect gpa. This kid's best numbers come from the old SAT taken in middle school. Same with the math SAT II. If the school recognizes the unusual ability of this kid, I'll eat my words.
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<p>There are plenty of ways to look good to college admissions officers other than a good GPA/SAT scores -- olympiads, research, and college/AP courses, to name a few. I'm sure lots of colleges would prefer a 15 on the AIME to a 2400 on the SAT (which basically measures how careful you are anyway). After all, some of the most brilliant mathematicians aren't good with arithmetic.</p>
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Sure there are brilliant undergrads at MIT. But what about the ones who aren't there?
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<p>Wait a minute. Can't MIT leave some for other schools? There are some 3,000 insitutions of higher learning, if I remember correctly. </p>
<p>At no time does MIT suggest that brilliance can only be discerned via grades. All it ask sof teachers is to explain by dint of what quality a student achieved the grades--presumbaly very high--the student got. There are such things as ECs, essays, etc.. that MIT also looks at. And these can show creativity, dedication, willingness to fail, and brilliance even better than a straight A transcript. So what else is new?</p>
<p>I'm not trying to pick on MIT. There are many schools doing the same thing. I'm reacting to MIT's statement that the rise in SATs and GPA's among its students over the past decade or so had led to a decline in creativity. This seems at once obvious and deserved. The elite schools have bought into the increased competition and demands on the kids and have fueled this state of affairs. So I become more than a bit testy when a representative steps up and claims to look for creativity and brilliance in its applicants and that the school will go so far as to look at 2300 SATs and 3.7 GPAs (gasp!). I think it's utterly hypocritical.</p>
<p>Well, I believe that the stats posted by MIT admits would support the adcoms' statements. And the first one to say so would be our own Molliebatmit (now at Harvard, I believe).</p>
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'm sure lots of colleges would prefer a 15 on the AIME to a 2400 on the SAT
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<p>lol. I envy the four kids who got a 15 this year. Regardless of what colleges say about test scores, I think that's one achievement that pretty much guarantees you a spot at the college of your choice.</p>