USAMO an anti-hook?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>Hey Guys!</p>

<p>As you can see, I'm new to CC. I was looking over the MIT RD results this year and noticed a relatively low USAMO qualifier acceptance rate at MIT when compared to other top colleges. This struck me as being rather odd as MIT is an "institute of technology." Is MIT trying to render its image of primarily being a math/science institution obsolete by rejecting more talented math/science students? </p>

<p>How does one justify rejecting the following user?


</p>

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<p>Obviously a 10 on the USAMO isn't good enough for MIT.</p>

<p>...but seriously I have no idea why he was rejected. I doubt MIT sees "USAMO" and thinks "Wow, now this guy's gonna have to work extra hard to get in, because we hate USAMOers!"</p>

<p>/USAMOer and EA admit</p>

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<p>


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<p>But see Φ is also one of only two URM MOPpers in the past decade or so...</p>

<p>And yeah I literally stared in disbelief at my computer for like 20 minutes when I saw Godot's results</p>

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<p>The only thing I can imagine is that something personal kept him out, such as a req that said he has a big attitude problem or spends his days kicking puppies (not that I know anything at all about Godot as a person, that's just the only thing I could imagine at all.). The objective stats are without a doubt phenomenal, wayyy better than me (EA admit), and as good as anything I can imagine other than just mailing MIT a higgs boson or something</p>

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<p>He is simply over-qualified for MIT....if there is such a thing.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
such as a req that said he has a big attitude problem or spends his days kicking puppies

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yeah, I'm thinking either that or a bad/no interview.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I was looking over the MIT RD results this year and noticed a relatively low USAMO qualifier acceptance rate at MIT when compared to other top colleges.

[/quote]

I would not use the CC results threads as a representative sample of either the applicant pool or the admit pool, ever.</p>

<p>I obviously don't know the issues at play in this particular case, but when I see cases like this for grad school admissions, I tend to think there was a recommendation that raised serious issues. A friend of a friend applied to bio PhD programs this year -- good GPA at MIT, had worked in a lab for three years, rec letters from three big-name MIT professors, one or two of whom the applicant had worked with, middle-author publication in a great journal. The applicant didn't even get interviews from any of the big-name programs, even those which are relatively less selective. That says to me that there was something seriously awful in one of those rec letters. That is also what this sort of undergrad case suggests to me.</p>

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<p>WaitingForGodot didn't apply EA. It appears that all the really qualified applicants that were accepted had applied EA and were accepted either early or after being deferred.</p>

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<p>^Wait, so if you have really really good stats for MIT and you apply RD you will be rejected? :rolleyes:</p>

<p>....I think you might want to reconsider your statement...</p>

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<p>I think what MIT is trying to do is reshape its image. I remember a teacher in my school last year talking to me and telling me about an article he read in the Boston Globe about how MIT wants to ungeekify its image a bit (this was last year BTW). So I think that he didn't have anything wrong with his recs (really, do you think he would have picked a teacher that hated him?), and it seems as though his essay was an extremely well picked topic. This leaves me to believe that MIT a statement. "Hey, see what we do? We reject "math geeks" and secondary school researchers. We aren't a geeky school. We aren't stats driven. You could have really good stats but you might not get in. See all the people with 2100s that got in?"</p>

<p>Really, I think it is a retarded thing to do, but I think that is what they are doing. They are trying to make a statement that you need more than math and science to be at MIT...(just to clarify, I don't agree).</p>

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<p>I do not, for the record, think that MIT is trying to send a message or reshape its image by accepting or rejecting any single applicant. There are enough spots in the freshman class for MIT to accept all of the USA_O/RSI/Intel/whatever applicants and still have space for the "normal" kids -- not accepting a superstar applicant represents a conscious choice on the part of the MIT admissions committee, as there's actually a "superstar" flag in the admissions system for really exceptional applicants.</p>

<p>Re: recommendations, I don't think people intentionally choose teachers or professors who hate them to write recommendations. But the point of a recommendation is that the applicant can't actually control the content.</p>

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<p>What could MIT have complished by making that kind of change/statement?</p>

<p>"We don't want to be too smart, we like to be a litltle bit dumb".</p>

<p>Either MIT made a bad decision (it happens every year) or something we don't know from the applicant. It's not a normal case and it does happen in reality.</p>

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<p>geomom, who has said that she is an MIT alum and whose child is a friend of Waiting for Godot, has posted on another thread that Waiting for Godot is a person of good character. He is apparently a real person.</p>

<p>Please, think carefully before posting here.</p>

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<p>USAMO qualifiers are awesome. It's very, very hard to qualify. I don't see why MIT would discriminate agains USAMO qualifiers.</p>

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<p>USAMO is a hook, but it's never a guarantee of admission. I've served on a graduate admissions committee at U.C. Berkeley, and I've also served as a faculty representative on an undergraduate admissions committee. Since the individual in question was denied admission and not waitlisted, I agree with Mollie's conclusion, that there must have been a serious red flag in the application. Since the red flag does not appear in the statistics, it must have appeared in the other materials, including letters of recommendation.</p>

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<p>Godot is definitely a real person, I verified that upon reading his admission results. He was at the top of his class at TJ, arguably the best high school in the country. Seeing results like this make me feel as if I have no shot whatsoever at MIT (even with decent achievements in mathematics (2x usamo, amc perfect score, arml 4th place, etc), science, humanities, community service, and leadership).</p>

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<p>^^ Instead of going into panic mode, you'd do better to think about ways to improve your chances of obtaining strong letters of recommendation. Here's an old post on the subject: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/554681-teacher-recs-right-teachers.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/554681-teacher-recs-right-teachers.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Don't be discouraged Data box. I've found out admissions are very random. And remember, for every super genius that gets rejected, at least 10 other normal persons get in.</p>

<p>BTW: congrats on USAMO. It seems you are also a user of AoPS, aren't you? :D</p>

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<p>CalAlum thanks for the advice, however, I am currently a sophomore and already have two teachers that have written outstanding rec letter templates for me. Both of them of them know me very well and approached me earlier this year, telling me that they wanted to write rec letters for me.</p>

<p>faraday, I have an account, but am not a really active user, thanks, congrats on MIT and Stanford!!!</p>

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<p>Hey, thanks! <em>blushing like a tomato</em></p>

<p>Anyways, I'm also the living proof you don't have to be amazing/multiple national awards to get in. Luck/essays/ rec's play a really large role. Think about it, an adcom may take about 10 min reading your academic info, but it takes him also about the same time to read your essays/rec's etc... So they are just as imnportant.</p>