<p>Dude, saying things like 2000 years? is just inciting anger. I thought you wanted productive debate?</p>
<p>Second, of course humans at any given moment are not equal in capacity and/or ability. However this variable can change in the next moment if adequate environment and opportunity is granted. Did the Vietcong defeat the armed forces of the United States of America because they where genetically, gender, developmentally superior? No, it happened because they as all humans reduced to their essentials and weaknesses do. They found a way.</p>
<p>Where do you think this species will be in 2000 years. In less time our descendants will look back wonder how we did anything but fight like children only living to 70 or so. Oh....</p>
<p>BTW, this is good debate. Don't get me wrong. </p>
<p>Ramaswami, your being very... Balsie. Which is respectable.</p>
<p>Toffee327, your keeping up the fight and making great points (despite the need for better research). </p>
<p>Molliebatmit, I don't have much to say, I think your so dead on you could kill the debate if the rest of us weren't so stuborn about arguing the great contentions of our time.</p>
<p>Oh, and the hot women are very hot, thanks Ramaswami...</p>
<p>Tokenadult, I forgot, you asked me how I would set up admissions for MIT. Have not given it much thought but off the cuff, I have no problem with highest weight given to rigor of HS curriculum, grades in that curriculum, class rank weighted (much like AI) teacher recs, outside awards, SAT scores etc. Would give somewhat more weight to SAT than I think it currently gets but less than HS performance, would add 2 more subject tests, eliminate essays altogether, drastically reduce weight given to counselor recs, eliminate alum interviews. The ECs stump me. They deserve some weight but I view community service dimly (they are all saving the rainforest and Ecuadoreans etc etc), would increase weight to ordinary jobs like waitering and drugstore etc, would not look kindly upon the research experience which is often a result of connections. The ECs trouble me greatly. Your thoughts?</p>
<p>I think MollieB should now be referred to Mollie* (* = ???!) to make it more current.</p>
<p>ramaswami, I'm not going to respond to your long debate as I've only got a few minutes. But I will give you this advice about MIT Admissions. I have noticed that many of the most productive and most intelligent people here at MIT draw a subtle distinction in their minds. They don't see male or female, tall or short, fat or skinny, they see:</p>
<p>1 - People who waste my time.
2 - People who are worth talking to.</p>
<p>Of course they are smart enough to give people several chances. But after a while, they start drawing this important distinction (because it's more useful to invest heavily in collaborating with a few people than with 10,000 people). </p>
<p>So instead of debating on these deep philosophical and social issues, I suggest you spend your time jumping off your ass and getting onto a lab bench, or working through a book on quantum field theory or something useful and productive. It's very easy to go on talking about what conditions would be needed for this and that to produce great science. It's far harder to produce great science.</p>
<p>Differential, I am certainly not in your class, but in a very modest way, I am in science. I train newly minted Ph.Ds (have one myself with a few post docs and publications) and know a trifle about science. I apologize for wasting your time but although I raise controversial issues I would never tell someone to get off his ass. I regret your language.</p>
<p>I regret not seeing your earlier post about your academic position. Hopefully you can see why I would use that language with the typical angsty teenager on these boards. I do think that you should make it a bit clearer early on that you do science professionally, because while we all like to idealize that ideas are independent of position, the reality is that the majority of people will take what you say differently depending on what side of the fence you are.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think MollieB should now be referred to Mollie* (* = ???!) to make it more current.
[/quote]
Hee, I agree. :D Particularly now that neither the B nor the MIT are current. The "at", I suppose is still accurate, as I am still, in fact, located somewhere.</p>
<p>I stand by what I said earlier about IQ being basically cooked-formula hogwash. I also think it's an exercise in futility to try to select the top teenagers in the nation by relying heavily on SAT scores -- you'll pick a lot of smart people, for sure, but you'll also pick a lot of smart people relying on other criteria. As a bonus, if you use other criteria, you will pick a lot of smart people who have qualities you desire -- for example, you could pick smart people who are effective communicators, or smart people who don't freak out when presented with a challenge a bit beyond their abilities. MIT and other top schools aren't just trying to select for high test scores, they're also trying to pick creative students, and those aren't always the 2400 scorers.</p>
<p>^^well, the SAT is too easy to be used as a selector. I think you would get a good group of people if you asked yourself who the smartest, most hard-working and creative people were based on the following criteria: performance in class and the rigor of those classes, academic awards, SATI + SATII scores, and recommendations.</p>
<p>I don't think the essay or the interview are particularly helpful except as a disqualifier (The guy says they hate science.)</p>
<p>To collegealum: on a different thread I proposed exactly the criteria you recommend: rigor of courses, performance in those courses, class rank, awards, perhaps AP scores, SAT 1 and 4 SAT subject tests. Essays and counselor rec to be eliminated, teacher recs to be retained.</p>
<p>Differential, I didn't want my day job to affect the debate, who knows, I may be a poor scientist, just a hack!</p>
<p>rigor of courses - No standardization. AP can mean a world of difference between two different schools.
performance in those courses - What about grade inflation? What about extra credit? What standardized metric will you use?
class rank - meaningless when you go to a school of really smart or really dumb kids.
awards - WAYYY too quantized. Often two projects from the same local science fair can both get 1st or 2nd at ISEF if they come from a good district, but you can only choose 1 first place winner...
perhaps AP scores - Easy to get all 5's. Will degenerate into a "how many AP's can I take competition"
SAT 1 - Easy to get 2300+ with practice
4 SAT subject tests - Easy to get 4 800's.</p>
<p>The problem with your indicators is that it's trivial for really smart folks to completely ace them. What you want to do is start looking at indicators like AIME, USAMO, national research competitions, etc. Recommendations often give insight into the specifics of how the student did what they did.</p>
<p>The thing about "match" is that it's just a variable thrown in by admissions to let them administer a "what feels right" which is very important as it allows for them to use intuition, allowing them to catch the occassional deviant genius who would normally go through their nets. </p>
<p>Honestly however, I do believe there is a bar that can be reached after which the only way you won't get in is if you are a total ass to everyone (and MIT does not need to start admitting people who are total *******s to everyone else). Unfortunately for most aspiring applicants to MIT, this bar is very, ridiculously, high (to the point that 99% of applicants will not have these); I could imagine things like first author publications in top tier journals, winning national research competitions, IMO/IPhO/etc Gold medals, or several hugely popular patents, etc.</p>
<p>The problem with admitting kids who say that they just do physics problems all day is that they have nothing to show for it. MIT is not going to go out of the way to try to peer into this kids head (although they try with interviews and essays). (S)He has to demonstrate h(is/er) merit like everyone else.</p>
<p>I was never one to fault a little "color" in discourse; sometimes a well-placed "rough" word can add a kind a raw, immediate spark to a discussion (with the enormous caveat of being used effectively).</p>
<p>As for the numbers game, I like MIT because it barely plays that at all (even if it's because most applicants have the numbers to spare anyway). Lots of places preach diversity of admissions, but only go so far; on visiting MIT, I've seen it, and specifically the idea that a diverse collection of ideas are at work; I may sound like a shill, but I've yet to see evidence to the contrary; heck, I'm planning on going back for a second visit just to be there again.</p>
<p>Rama, I suppose I wasn't going off the same palette of definitions as you; reading some of your subsequent posts has helped illuminate what you mean. I still believe you're being a little overly cynical, though (referring to select groups as "herds" to be catered to, for instance), but that's neither here nor there. As for "elitism", I think differential got it right: you're either worth the time to be listened to or not, but you deserve your chance(s) to prove yourself.</p>
<p>Class rank never won me over as a solid criteria; different schools operate on different standards, so those numbers are all over the place, where at least testing like the AMC/AIME and (I guess) the SAT are held to a standard. Still, I have to concede that there's the money factor in training and practice and tutoring or even repeated taking for a test, and that's just sad; I take my tests once, cold, no practice, do how I do, and leave it at that. You either know it or you don't, so I can at least say my scores reflect on me accurately.</p>
<p>^^Well, to the two previous posters, ramaswami did say that teacher recs and awards (like AIME, etc.) should also be considered. </p>
<p>I think MIT can get a general idea for the rigor of the coursework if the school is well-known (Bronx Science) and can account for that. There are other schools that aren't famous like Bronx Science that have sent 1 or 2 to MIT for years so they pretty much have a good idea of the rigor. </p>
<p>I don't think ramaswami was advocating any sort of precise formula of the factors he mentioned, but he noticeably left out things like personality, displaying "spunk" and quirkiness in essays and interview, athletic ability, and other non-academic activities. I would guess that rami thinks having passion is important, but that it should be shown through your teacher recs and performance in school, exams, and competitions.</p>
<p>So, are you guys saying that applicants need AIME or USAMO for qualifications? What if applicants are from schools that haven't introduced these competitions to their students?
From what I can tell, admissions to MIT is overly complicated. I agree that SAT/GPA/Rank are not at all good factors.
I would say ECs are most important as there is no limit for ECs (There is a limit for GPA: 4.0 / SAT: 2400 / AP:5 , etc)
I would definately not admit someone who participated in USAMO or USABO or something like that. Remember MIT admits may people who don't have international ot natinal awards. If that was the case, MIT would admit a ridiculously low number of applicants (It's unfair too). Soon everyone will try to take USAMO and USABO and soon it will become mandatory like the SAT.</p>
<p>"Um, you might want to look into that a little more. Catherine the Great was a bit of a fire cracker. A smart one but no stranger to the military power struggles of nations."
Agree, but she was one of the 2 greatest monarchs in Russian history (the other being Peter the Great).</p>
<p>"In fact if by Isabella of Spain, you were referring to Queen Isabella II (1843-1868) Then the morrocans would whole heartedly disagree about females not starting wars."
Referring to Isabella I who unified Spain into the country it is today and supported Columbus. She started a war too, with the Moors. But this war was nothing compared to the examples I cited (WWI, WWII, etc). Same goes for Catherine, and for any other example of a great female ruler that you want to bring up. </p>
<p>"Maria Theresa established the Theresian Military Academy in 1752 and doubled the size the Austrian military. Through a very complex series of events she tried to start a second conflict with Prussia but was pre-empted."
Very definitely pre-empted... they took over a piece of her country.</p>
<p>These examples were just of female rulers that are historically considered significant/great, not ones that were perfectly morally upright. I doubt any leader, past or present, is/was like that. And my point on the destruction was the magnitude. You will not find a female equivalent of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. As I said in my later post, this is probably due to difference in opportunity, a fact that, if you are consistent, should also explain why there are fewer female "greats"--which is the point I was trying to make. </p>
<p>To ramaswami: I think I understand where you are coming from now. It seemed earlier, however, that you assumed the answer to be genetic/innate differences, not that you were open to both explanations. That was the point that bothered me.</p>
<p>toffee327, I regret I misspoke, I raised innate differences as a hypothesis to be confirmed or rejected. </p>
<p>Differential, good points, I have not thought through the criteria, don't know enough about USAMO but 4 800s plus 2350+ in SATs plus 5s in 7 or 8 APs together will be difficult, not easy. Example: only 1600 2350+SAT scores in last year's cycle, if you then add nos who got 4 800s to this etc I think the field will narrow.</p>
<p>Collegealum, I think athletic ability should be high on list, it screens for energy, competitiveness, drive etc all very needed for achievement in any walk of life; I guess interviews can screen out kids who bring their toy bears to interview and keep talking to the bear, or stay mum throughout. I continue to devalue essays, will never know who wrote them. How to capture quirkiness? That is the problem. Maybe no way, we will always have to live with some false positives and some false negatives.</p>
<p>My concern is with emphasis on diversity of race/gender/socio econ status. If colleges value this, in order to create a class that reflects America then they have to deemphasize some of the criteria we have all agreed on. No one has suggested we test for race or gender. Let us run a thought experiment: if as the result of using all the criteria mentioned in these posts, we end up with a class that is all white, or all black or all female or all Asian will we accept that as proper or try to social engineer the outcome?</p>
<p>I think race and gender matter, in the same way that location matters -- I mean, do you propose letting in a class full of northeast prep school kids, just because they all have academic awards, over the valedictorian from the middle of nowhere who's the best anybody at his school has ever seen?</p>
<p>Race, gender, and location are attributes out of the control of the applicant, but they have a profound impact on the applicant's life. And MIT is doing its best to pick out the top candidates whose upbringing may have obscured their true academic potential.</p>
<p>
[quote]
4 800s plus 2350+ in SATs plus 5s in 7 or 8 APs together will be difficult, not easy.
[/quote]
But if you say, "This is the standard, and you must have these scores to be admitted to MIT," then you will see a jump in people having those credentials, because people will re-take the SAT over and over until they get a 2350. People will take 15 AP classes just to make sure they have a score of 5 on seven of them. The moment you set up firm numerical criteria, you're allowing people to take advantage of them, and this system advantages students with the time and money to take the test until they meet the standard (which is to say, it advantages students who don't "deserve" to meet the standard, students whose "true" scores would not cut it). It disadvantages students without the money to re-take the tests over and over, and it strongly disadvantages students who don't know about the requirements in the first place. You're giving up a lot of discrimination between students in order to have an arbitrary numeric standard.</p>
<p>In my mind, every applicant has some true academic potential -- something that combines intelligence and drive, and which correlates with all of the factors considered, to varying degrees. Pretend that it can be assigned a number. What MIT is trying to do through the application is filter out the people with applications better than their true academic potential would suggest, and pick people whose applications aren't as strong as their true academic potential. This isn't easily done by relying on numerical criteria alone.</p>
<p>mollibatmit, in the example you gave re location, you mentioned the valedictorian vs northeast prep school award winners. There is a commonality here: academic merit, however imprecise or unequal. Yes, in this example, between relatively academically equal kids, location would add perspectives, farm kid from Nebraska vs suburban New Jersey, etc. But in race and gender preferences, they are OK between approx equals, ie a nearly as good as white kid from Exeter (I am assuming certain attributes for argument's sake like kids from Exeter are white and good tc so don't pounce on me for this) black or Hispanic is fine but not to put racial or gender prefs well over academic merit.</p>
<p>This is happening, uniformly black and Hispanic achievement lags far far behind, and they get preference, example is UC system when preferences abolished and private college composition with preferences in place.</p>
<p>Both metrics and non-metrics do advantage the moneyed somewhat. To play sports you need money, also to participate in tournaments and travel for them, ECs take money ,etc. However, it is erroneous to say that if 8 APs are demanded kids will all take them and excel. They will take them all right and there will be an improvement in scores but differentiation will still happen.</p>
<p>The SAT has been around for a long time and at least for the last 30 years has played a strong role in admissions and there are repeat takers but differentiation still happens. Not everyone can take it again and again and again and score 2350+</p>
<p>ramaswami, have you seen actual papers of the AP, SAT II and SAT exams? Especially the AP and SAT II exams are really very trivial if you study carefully, and getting 5's on the most difficult math and science ones is not very hard. And even then, they give you massive curves. For most students applying to colleges, this is reasonable, but if you change the standards of MIT admissions, expect to see 15,000+ 2300+, 8 5's on AP's, 4x800 SAT II applicants. Right now a very large number of very smart students think the SAT is a massive waste of time, but if you turn on the light and tell them that's the only real way to get in, everyone will start seriously studying.</p>
<p>If you want real differentiation between MIT applicants, then you want the majority of the tests to have an average of 50/100 and a std dev of around 15. Right now these exams for the MIT applicant pool have averages near 100 with standard deviations close to 3-4.</p>