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Well, I know on fairly good authority (though not derived from admissions work, so I'm not breaking any confidences) that at least one of the people listed above has pretty serious personality issues, making it difficult to be in a class with him..
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<p>This is a good point - the best tests of Harvard's judgment may be this year's decisions. If they reject any of our class's USAMO winners, I'm going to be very upset; they're all great people, with no personality issues whatsoever.</p>
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the best tests of Harvard's judgment may be this year's decisions. If they reject any of our class's USAMO winners, I'm going to be very upset; they're all great people, with no personality issues whatsoever.
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But current seniors will have college decisions before the USAMO winners are known. You need to look at the non-senior USAMO winners from last year.</p>
<p>Anders Kaseorg... that kid was from my city, and I've gone to his house for Mandlebrot... Genius like nobody else I've ever seen. I talk to him on AIM sometimes... He seems to be loving MIT. :)</p>
<p>Interesting post about 55. I certainly wouldn't put down the class -- if only because Noam Elkies taught it -- but there seems to be a confusion inherent in it between quantity and quality. It's not the case that the problems are particularly hard -- I remember looking through them as a sophomore last year (I'm at Caltech) and I found most of them pretty easy (having had excellent, reasonably paced courses by that point in algebra and analysis). But a year before that, I would have found them bewildering -- just too much material from too many disparate areas at once. There might be a certain value to bewilderment, I suppose -- early exposure to many fields -- but I'm not sure it's the best use of that time. Considering that MIT and Caltech could easily replicate 55 and choose not to suggests that perhaps it's a conscious decision that it might be more valuable to start with thorough, rigorous analysis (like MIT) or thorough, rigorous algebra (like Caltech) than a breakneck hodgepodge of both.</p>
<p>(Example for math people: is it that good to introduce tensor algebras/exterior algebras/general Fourier inversion before someone knows enough representation theory to have any idea why these things are good or how the underlying algebraic structures really work? I think it's both mathematically and pedagogically confused.)</p>
<p>My theory is that the real use of Math 55 is that it is a test of commitment -- a signaling device of sorts. That's not so bad, either.</p>
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My theory is that the real use of Math 55 is that it is a test of commitment -- a signaling device of sorts.
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interesting idea. Certainly could be a useful purpose. </p>
<p>I hope I didn't sound like I was putting down the class, which was not at all my intent. Just getting all the top math people at Harvard together and adding the best available prof (which they probably try to do) would make it a potentially great class, regardless of the syllabus.</p>
<p>I think of Math55 as a way to get the top dozen or so Harvard math people, who may be spread out over quite a range of backgrounds, on the same page, so to speak, so that they can then go forward as a group. MIT (and apparently Caltech) may not "need" such a device in order to have a critical mass of students ready for higher level courses.</p>
<p>I don't know about Elkies specifically, but Math55 difficulty apparently varies a lot from year to year, depending on who is teaching it. Others share your opinion that it is the sheer quantity of material crammed into two semesters, rather than its inherent difficulty, that makes the course challenging. How individual students are going to find the course will depend on what percentage of the material they have seen before. Presumably everyone who completes the course started out with exposure to at least some of the material.</p>
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But current seniors will have college decisions before the USAMO winners are known. You need to look at the non-senior USAMO winners from last year.
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No, that's who I was talking about. There are five guys who are currently seniors and who have been a "USAMO winner" (1-12) or "honorable mention" (13-24) in past years. I know them all, and none of them have any personality problems at all - they're incredibly nice.</p>
<p>A note on this, by the way--an INSANE number of Siemens national finalists are applying EA to Harvard this year (and more under RD). Besides Michael, the #2 individual, the #3 individual (that's me :D), the #5 individual, and at least 2 of the team members all applied early here and are pretty much definitely going if accepted. At least one applied early (and got in, today!!) to MIT, but Harvard easily dominates. Funny how that works out, I think :) Everyone cited Harvard's departments, not its reputation--Michael likes their math, Kiran (#2 individual) likes their chem, and I like their astrophysics. For all of these science departments we chose Harvard over MIT/Caltech...</p>
<p>For chem and astrophys, you guys are just plain making a mistake ;-) Come to Caltech. Those departments are stronger, the undergraduates are treated more like people, and there's a decent chance we might give you a full ride (only the #1 prize will really cover the four years for most people), and the weather's much better.</p>
<p>But the final reasons are really auxillary. The major factor is that the relevant departments are stronger, with a more serious undergraduate education (what's the counterargument?).</p>
<p>But do you what you will. Only some of us have it in us to turn down Harvard ;-)</p>
<p>No, I'm not. I'm Adam, but Desh is on this forum too ;)</p>
<p>And ooh, being recruited now, are we? Caltech is easily my second choice and not by much. If I get an acceptance e-mail today, Caltech is the only application I know I'm still sending in. But while both of their astronomy departments are comparable (and let's not forget Harvard's is bigger, simply meaning more research opportunities), I found that Harvard has other qualities, outside of science, that appeal to me over Caltech. The decision is largely rooted in science (and based solely on science it's very close, for me, between the two), but there are other factors as well.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, Desh is on this forum. I remember he contacted me before semi-finalist results were out. It was an amazing experience to get to talk to him at each stage of the competition. I remember, one day I was talking to him and he was like:</p>
<p>Desh: Dude... I got NATIONALLLSSSS
Sagar: *Stares in awe at computer screen</p>
<p>Well this is Post #1000. What better way to spend it then in the MIT forum!</p>
<p>GitarManARS -- well, I'm happier with your second message :-). If what ends up tipping it for H in the end is mostly a non-science factor, then at least I could understand. That almost did it for me, but in the end Caltech won. And it's true that Harvard astro is bigger (though interesting factoid: our physics department turns out to be bigger in sheer numbers than Berkeley's -- that floored me when a prof told me).</p>
<p>As for research, remember that what matters is not the number of professors, but how much work they have available for undergrads, and how many they're willing to hire. Caltech is certainly the school with by far the biggest proportion of undergraduates doing research through the in-house program (SURF), and the undergraduate research culture is a big part of student life; the research typically pays better too, but that's not what should tip the scales.</p>
<p>But yes, see what happens. I wouldn't be saying this in every situation -- it's just in astrophys that Caltech should be a serious contender. I'm glad it is.</p>