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</p>
<p>In what circumstances did you look at college applications?</p>
<p>Not only looked at applications, but "thousands" of them .... from 10 different schools!</p>
<p>I've read them while serving on two medical school admissions committees and while serving for many years on residency training selection committees. The medical schools are both 'top ten' in US News, while the residency program is among the top two in its field. They're on the east coast. So I've certainly looked at thousands of applicants, with way more than half of these coming from Ivy league schools or their equivalent. For what it's worth, I supply a cut and paste list of a dozen of our residents at the end (I could double this list, or extend it by 20 years and it would look similar); I'd have to type out the medical students, and I have work to do, so I'll skip it, but, from that vantage point, I've met with thousands of people from various mid size private schools and another 5-10% from state schools. And when we sit down to talk about applicants at the medical school or residency level, we see an absolutely huge number of qualified applicants from the US News Top 10, and the entire committee (few of whom are from the south or west) looks very carefully at applications but does not differentiate between a Princeton or a Stanford or a Duke student. The ones who apply tend to be in the top half of their classes, which creates an admittedly skewed sample, as does the fact that I only see premeds or med students in this process. But in the midst of all of these applications, we really do view the top 20 or so schools as being roughly equivalent. There remains a bit of a nod to Harvard, but that may be outweighed by the purple prose that flows from the pens of Harvard letters of recommendation, leading to skepticism on our parts.</p>
<p>And so, at the end of the day, we get a bunch of kids from the mid size private schools, and a slightly smaller bunch of kids from the smaller liberal arts schools. We get the occasional MIT person and hardly anyone, ever, from Caltech. These schools just don't havethe vast numbers of preprofessional students that crowd through the campuses of all of the Ivies and Duke and Stanford. If you look at someplace like Yale Law School (which is seen as clearly the best law school) you'll see the same thing. The top three undergrad schools in terms of numbers are Yale, Harvard, and Duke. This isn't to say that the best political science majors are in North Carolina but that Duke--like the Ivy League--attracts legions of preprofessional students who are deeply motivated to get into these schools. MIT and Caltech simply don't attract those students to the same degree; in fact,my view is that MIT and Caltech (as well as schools such as Reed, Bard, and Chicago) tend to attract a more intellectual student than typically goes to the more mainstream schools (and they go on to grad schools, not professional schools), which is why I'd say that these latter five should be clumped together even though the admissions requirements vary significantly. </p>
<p>I'll quickly add that all of the top 50 schools have a significant cadre of intellectual students who are going on to get PhD's as well as a significant bunch of students who intend to graduate and get a job.</p>
<p>Stanford University/New York Medical College</p>
<p>University of Iowa/University of Iowa Carver College
of Medicine</p>
<p>Harvard University/ Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons</p>
<p>Yale University / Brown School of Medicine</p>
<p>Princeton University/University of California San
Francisco School of Medicine</p>
<p>George Washington University / George Washington University School of Medicine</p>
<p>Duke University/Harvard Medical School</p>
<p>University of California, Berkeley/Stanford University
School of Medicine</p>
<p>University of Pennsylvania/University of Alabama
School of Medicine</p>
<p>Harvard University/Weill Medical College of Cornell University</p>
<p>Amherst College/Columbia University College of
Physicians and Surgeons</p>
<p>Pretty silly stuff. You sound like Jay Mathews. </p>
<p>And it doesn't sound like you've seen "thousands" of <em>college</em> applications at all. Maybe not <em>any</em>!</p>
<p>By meritocracy, I meant an academic meritocracy.</p>
<p>Of course athletic accomplishment helps an application. I'm just saying that at MIT or Caltech (and some other schools), such accomplishment is never a "hook". It's just another good EC. The academic bar is not lowered for non-academic accomplishments.</p>
<p>MIT and Caltech are just as professional as the ivy league, but in different areas. You're talking about this from a medical school perspective. That's far too narrow a view to make such generalizations. Premed is not too popular at tech schools. Many premeds are scared away (with or without good reason) from MIT and Caltech because of the rigor and grading. From an engineering perspective, however, the professional statistics are vastly different. It all depends on your angle.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Of course athletic accomplishment helps an application. I'm just saying that at MIT or Caltech (and some other schools), such accomplishment is never a "hook". It's just another good EC. The academic bar is not lowered for non-academic accomplishments.
[/quote]
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<p>You say tomato, and I say tomahto. At the end of the day, it's still the same thing - which is that it's easier to get into MIT (or any other school) if you're a sports superstar than if you are not. </p>
<p>And furthermore, I think it's a bit naive to think that MIT doesn't do any sports recruiting. The truth is, they do. Again, is it as extensive as is Stanford football? Of course not. But let's not kid ourselves into thinking that it doesn't happen at all. The fact is, a good word from an MIT coach who wants you on the team will help you to get into MIT.</p>
<p>Heck, MIT even has a recruiting website where you can attract the attention of a coach who might then put in a good word for you to the admissions committee. </p>
<p>I never denied any of what you just said. I'm just saying that the DEGREE to which being an athlete matters is less...to the point of althletic accomplishment being no more of a "hook" than any other good EC. Yes, it makes it "easier" to get in, but no more so than having any other good EC.</p>