"Why MIT accepts the students it accepts?"

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>While I don’t claim to know MIT’s admissions process at all, I think it’s pretty easy for me to side one way or another based on the philosophies stated in this thread. So my post is more general, yet it may have plenty of relevance to the discussion at hand.</p>

<p>There is no question in my mind that there is something unsettling about social engineering and the role some claim it plays in admissions at various institutions. Where the evidence for this is clear to me is, as collegealum alludes, is the illusion of “randomness” that many have observed in the admissions process, plus the hysteria about URMs and guessing at how personal background can help so and so candidate. It’s pretty clear the admissions offices are not random - they put time and effort. But what they are doing is attempting to measure several intangibles in an application and correlate them to some definition of “successful class,” say as opposed to successful applicant. The following statement, as I have posted before, can justify almost any decision: the admissions office sees an application that you do not see fully. At a point, this statement is absurd as justification. Can the admissions office garner more about an applicant’s personal background, correlate it with the future of the given applicant and all, better than people who may know these applicants deeply? Sure, maybe someone wrote a deep, dark secret on there, and sure, some otherwise talented applicant may have been an insolent pig, and been thrown out of the process for everyone’s sanity. But it’s become almost a joke on CC to cite these sorts of examples, which I don’t think are the norm…any more than the story of the non-existent age-8-Fields-Medalist getting rejected from all top math programs. </p>

<p>The problem seems to be that people love citing extreme examples, when the question to me is really one of how much one can really tell from looking at certain parts of an application, and what that information should be used for. It’s really one of philosophy to me.</p>

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<p>Oh and my side, which I allude to only above: I take the view of a skeptic as to how much can be garnered from personal background considerations when they’re not blatantly extreme and hitting one in the face. Having had very talented family members who starved and could not afford paper to write on back in the day, and who fully share my skepticism for the same reasons I have it does little to shake it.</p>

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<p>@collegealum314,</p>

<p>You don’t think “pushy self-promotion” occurs in the academic realm? I know kids that camp out at every opportunity at teacher study sessions, office hours, etc. to ingratiate themselves to teachers or harangue them into giving extra credit, permission to rewrite a paper that didn’t get a high enough grade, etc. The push to get those measurables up to the “objective standards” that people on this board are enamored with is stunning. Ask any teacher - particularly those in advanced courses taken by students pursuing top universities. They’ll tell you the motivation of some students is often less about learning and more about perception. Regardless of the criteria used there will always be those that try to game the system.</p>

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<p>Assessments (grades, SAT, etc) are used for two things simultaneously: they are used for feedback on learning, and they are used for sorting. The problem is that we want kids to be focused on learning, but they are ever aware of the sorting function, which creates anxiety. To compound the problem, at the average US high school, MIT caliber students’ assessments are pegged at the top - 4.0, near perfect (2250 and above) SAT’s, school leadership positions (because their peers recognize them as bright). So how to stand out from the pack when really so little is asked of you?</p>

<ul>
<li>For those of you who would argue that too much is asked of high school students, consider that an MIT course progresses 2 to 5 times as fast through the material compared to a high school course, and that MIT students take 4 or more of these classes, while still having time for extracurriculars. - </li>
</ul>

<p>Magnet high schools add a few more classes to the high school experience, and offer a lot more contest opportunities. Ideally contests provide an opportunity for a lot more learning, but done badly these extra assessments create a finely-tuned and stressful sorting within the high school, and not much extra learning.</p>

<p>Kids at regular high schools are left feeling like, “What can I do to compete with that? The teachers at my school want to teach their classes and leave, but they stay and help the slow kids. We are never going to get a _________ team here. How can I learn more?” </p>

<p>I think part of the reason bright kids flock to music and athletics is that adults are excited about excellent performance in these areas, while really, really truly, they are not excited about a high school kid learning more math or physics (or other academic subjects). This is an attitude that extends to some at MIT: the former dean of at admissions referring to an applicant as a “textureless math grind”, or students on this board telling a 9th grader who asks, “What can I learn to prepare for MIT?” to “don’t worry about learning, go outside and play.” The kid who is a basketball star, on the other hand, gets only encouragement and admiration when they want to stay after practice and shoot more free-throws.</p>

<p>So until we adults value knowledge as much as we value sports, the polymath will remain indistinguishable from the pushy self-promoter. Admissions officers will continue to have the unenviable job of sorting through 10,000 applicants who have all topped out at their high school. </p>

<p>I do see a light of hope, though. The internet allows bright students the chance to make an end run around the world we adults have set up. AoPS, EPGY and the like, OpenCourseWare, the bulletin boards where my middle-schooler has learned to program, and to do computer graphics, animation, and special effects. It is a place where it’s all about learning new stuff, and no sorting at all. Its a brave new world for kids who want to connect with others who like learning.</p>

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I think it’s inaccurate to characterize this as a sort of anti-intellectualism on MIT’s part. In my opinion, it reflects something Jessie and I have discussed here a few times: that it’s good (and often, essential) for an MIT student to have something they love to do outside of class, because the students whose entire identity is predicated on being the best, smartest student often get here and have an identity crisis. </p>

<p>It’s absolutely not that MIT doesn’t value students who care about the pursuit of learning. But students who value learning and nothing else often don’t transition well to the big time.</p>

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<p>You are mixing up two things, Mollie. The student “whose entire identity is predicated on being the best, smartest student” is focused on the sorting function of assessment, not the learning itself. That person, the promoter, is missing the point, and even having interests outside out class is probably not going to help them at MIT. In fact, the interests outside of class may well have been part of the promotional package.</p>

<p>The student who views assessment as merely a useful piece of information about their progress, and not a part of their identity, will thrive whether their interest are narrow and deep or more broad (or broad and deep as some MIT students manage).</p>

<p>It’s not whether you also love fencing or musical theatre or beer drinking in addition to academics that will save you. It’s getting past the idea that there is some sort legitimate linear ranking that you should kow-tow to, and that determines your value.</p>

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<p>There seems to be a lot of faulty logic and false dichotomies being touted based on hearsay and opinion.</p>

<p>Most of you folks aren’t admissions officers. You may know the (incomplete) stories of a handful of applicants. That does not make you qualified to rant about who deserves to be accepted into a university.</p>

<p>College is a big business - MIT especially so. You can bet your ass that savvy and experienced people sort out who gets into the top universities. Keep in mind that they’re looking for people who they think will take top positions in the social hierarchy of the next generations. American politics indicate that those may not always be the most academically inclined people. Not to mention the rather prominent technology billionaires at Apple and Microsoft with limited academic credentials.</p>

<p>The bottom line is that MIT knows the type of person they want. Bitter complaints on this forum wont change their minds. It will do nothing but spread resentment and distrust through those applicants on both sides of the fence.</p>

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<p>I personally identify with geomom’s perspective actually. As always, I don’t claim to know what any specific school thinks, but I do think getting past the linear ranking bit is important, and rather different from having significant things valued outside of learning. After all, one could just as well stress about being “the smartest student around” and “the best at so and so outside of school.” And that is ultimately as bad. </p>

<p>Another thing that occurred to me is that it is significantly easier in my own opinion to get past an obsession with being the “best student” in a university, where educational opportunities are varied and bountiful, than in a high school atmosphere.</p>

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<p>In my experience, it is the rare person who is so hardened into this narrow achievement based perception of their value that they aren’t eager to drop it and be more genuine in a safe environment. I find with kids, especially, loosening the strait-jacket tends to unleash tremendous enthusiasm and energy.</p>

<p>I don’t mean this as a criticism of MIT, but just a thought… if there is an actually problem with large numbers of kids having an “identity crisis,” maybe MIT should do some soul searching about it’s own culture. I don’t know, I’m just throwing that out there.</p>

<p>Certainly your phrase “don’t transition well to the big time.” implies a sense that MIT thinks of itself as a sorting mechanism for whether you belong in the “big time.”</p>

<p>On the other hand, as a student there, a generation ago, I didn’t view it that way. It was a great opportunity to learn a lot of cool stuff, fast. Even more important, it was a place where you could talk about cool science and most people understood you instead of looking at you cross-wise (as they would at say, HYP). As for the “big time,” I don’t know, the academic part wasn’t actually THAT hard. It was a great education, not because things were hard, but because they were made clear.</p>

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<p>This is undoubtedly true, but also keep in mind that even among these universities, there are probably very different opinions on how to run their processes. Again, I don’t like examples of billionaires at Apple and Microsoft, because those are some extreme cases. If you’re telling me a school can read a high schooler’s application and predict all these things about them, that’s groundbreaking aptitude on some folks’ parts. I don’t even think admissions would claim that they have this aptitude to a full extent. There are limitations in how much one can predict about the future, and these certainly leave alone some debate as to what a good philosophy to deal with the limitations would be.</p>

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<p>I guess every sport has its Monday morning quarterbacks.</p>

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<p>I think there’s really nothing wrong with “going outside and play”. If I look back on my years studying I’d have told myself that same thing. In fact I wish I have had played around more. I know in either ways I probably won’t make it to MIT: but at least I won’t have hard feelings about it because the fond memories of “going outside [to] play” are certainties.</p>

<p>(I swear, there was once I was playing around with physics and I tripped the electricity in an entire block of my school. Ran like an athlete that day because I didn’t want to face the music. But it was fun, lol, and I learned something about transformers - I mean, not the kind you see in the movies, but just as fun as those.)</p>

<p>========================================================</p>

<p>Do you all know what’s the “poverty of stimulus argument”? It goes like this…</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Premise 1
Language acquisition can be innate, learned, or both.</p></li>
<li><p>Premise 2 (consists of 2 joint reasons):
There is a poverty of stimulus (factors leading to learned languages). Children still acquire languages.t</p></li>
<li><p>Conclusion
Therefore, at least some language acquisition is innate.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>What I’m saying is, most of the arguments here border on the same thing. Accepting minorities, high schoolers based on their circumstances etc. is grounded in the same argument. It means a lot about what’s inside to have focused on something despite a lack of stimulus, or any other unfavorable circumstances, in the environment.</p>

<p>Sure, a middle schooler who loves computer graphics; and the internet has helped him. But we should make sure we do not put the cart before the horse - would the same middle schooler have loved computer graphics if there were no internet, and if he/she couldn’t afford a computer? Possibly, yes. For a sustained period of time? Less possibly, but still yes. So you probably have valid reasons to argue that the POS is not a conclusive proof whatnot. A lot of people dispute the POS argument too, okay? But it’s still a strong argument. I don’t see what’s wrong with an admissions committee applying this reasoning.</p>

<p>P.S.: I forgot who came up with that argument. Probably some guy at some unknown university. You can read more if you’re interested in linguistics: <a href=“http://www.philosophy.dept.shef.ac.uk/papers/POS.pdf[/url]”>http://www.philosophy.dept.shef.ac.uk/papers/POS.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Merry x’mas. ^^</p>

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<p>You seem to have a knack for the pithy comment.</p>

<p>I don’t know why we should trust the competence of the MIT adcomms more than the people who actually went to MIT and/or actually have careers in science. (And I and others went to MIT, I’m not sure why we would be “bitter.”) I’ve seen adcoms say a number of stupid things IMO, things which are incongruent with MIT’s mission. Ivy adcoms are just as bad or worse, but its not as blatent because their mission is as cut-and-dry.</p>

<p>For the record, I have a lot of confidence in Stu Schmill based on my brief interactions with him, and he definitely seems more in line with traditional MIT values than Marilee Jones was. However, I wonder how much he will change the culture in the admissions office back to what it was before.</p>

<p>Part of the reason why I and others are vocal in disagreeing with things that MIT adcoms have said is so that high schoolers can see that someone that actually made it to MIT thinks diferently. So maybe the person who made it to MOSP and the other olympiads but was rejected by MIT doesn’t think he did something wrong and start to change his/her approach in college.</p>

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<p>I’d like to offer the perspective of a 4.0 2350+ student who breezed through an average high school.</p>

<p>I had always wanted to go to MIT. I did all I could and started clubs in my small school, played varsity sports, did a lot on my own but had the support of great friends and well-meaning teachers. Then I was deferred from MIT this year, and I fell into the self-doubt phase for a bit. My initial reaction was “Are you serious?” because I had no clue what else to do. I had done essentially everything I could. Apparently that wasn’t enough.</p>

<p>I realized, however, that this was not a true loss for me. I focused even more on my other apps, and changed my mind set a little. I had always felt that I would be lucky to get into a great school like MIT. The truth is, however, that students like me have MANY options, and personally, I feel that I have what it takes to be successful in life. I know that I’m going to get a solid education at a solid school, and when I do good in life, that school will benefit. If that school isn’t MIT, then that’s life I guess.</p>

<p>Sorry if this sounds condescending. I’m not trying to be cocky, but that’s honestly how I feel. If a strong student gets rejected from MIT or a similar school, they still have options at the other top-tier schools and will definitely do good.</p>

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<p>Let’s see:</p>

<p>1) Apparently only MIT alums are qualified to make MIT admissions decisions. Fortunately, the Dean of Admissions (now in his 2nd full admissions cycle as Dean after previously being Associate Dean), the Director of Recruitment (about 10 years in Admissions) and others on the staff are also MIT graduates, have experience in admissions and actually read the applications to make decisions that others here second guess based on even fewer data points that may not even be an accurate portrayal of the candidate.</p>

<p>2) The Dean of Admissions works in the university administration under the control and guidance of the President and Board. If they were not in accord with the strategies used there would be immediate changes. So far I see no evidence of that.</p>

<p>3) The faculty at a world-class university is a very powerful force. If they were unhappy with the quality of students being admitted there would be changes made. Again, I’ve heard nothing.</p>

<p>4) Who told any student that wasn’t admitted that they did anything wrong? Certainly not Admissions. The message there is one of respect generally pointing out that the candidate was very qualified and will do very well in college but there are limits on the number of students that can be admitted to MIT. The only destructive messages I’ve heard come from those (again, using at best minimal data points) that want to tell them, “You should have been admitted but your slot was taken by underqualified admits because of an agenda of the Admissions Office.” Notwithstanding the fact that no one outside the admissions process even knows if any particular rejected candidate was even close to being admitted, I don’t believe it’s healthy to pass along such messages. One rejected CC “superstar candidate” last year was also rejected by all but one of the schools to which he applied (he called it his “safety school” but it was still an outstanding university) but on this board he vented with the approval of other posters that he’d done everything right but was the victim of AA. Sometimes a little introspection actually is in order.</p>

<p>5) Where do you draw the line on automatic admission of “superstar candidates” because of their numerical or contest performance? One of collegealum’s posts threw out the number 1,500. In effect, that’s saying that no matter what the totality of the circumstances really is, MIT should admit all but about 100 or so per year based on some formulaic criteria defining an academic superstar. I don’t think such an institution would have nearly the energy, excitement or ability to change the world that I see at MIT. But that’s just my opinion as an MIT parent that went to one of those lesser engineering schools and grad school at one of those places with green stuff on the walls - thus making my opinion questionable.</p>

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<p>@An0maly,
I think your perspective is really healthy. Personally, I’ve sometimes been shocked by the students deferred/waitlisted by MIT. In the past 4 years, I know of 4 students from my daughter’s school who were deferred/waitlisted by MIT but admitted to Harvard. That’s where they all are now.</p>

<p>I’m sure you’ll land in a great spot; stay positive!</p>

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<p>I also agree with Padre13. If I were on an admissions committee and had to choose between the 45th MOSP applicant with musical talent and a valedictorian from Wyoming who grew up on a ranch and conducted biology experiments on the kitchen table, I’d definitely take the applicant from Wyoming. </p>

<p>But that’s probably because my values align pretty well with the mission and vision of MIT.
:-)</p>

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<p>I didn’t say that. I said if you rank in the top 50 in the country in math (and several other subjects as did one rejected candidate,) it is impossible to argue that such a person is not in the top 1500 of candidates. The top 1500 candidates are admitted.</p>

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<p>In his address to the freshman, Chuck Vest told us that we weren’t chosen because we were from North Dakota, a not so subtle shot at ivies who do everything they can to get people from every state.</p>

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<p>Seeing as how there aren’t 45 kids per grade at MOSP, I’m pretty sure MIT doesn’t get 45 MOSP applications, talented in music or not. Also, believe it or not, not all MOSP participants even apply to MIT, let alone have it as their first choice. MIT even gets less than 20% of the RSI participants, which is practically a six-week-long advertisement for MIT. More RSI kids go to Harvard. </p>

<p>In fact I’d guess MIT gets more applications from Wyoming valedictorians than they do from MOSP. So while, yes, a kid should be delighted and honored to get into MIT, I don’t think it does MIT any good to be cavalier about really smart applicants who have seriously applied themselves in math and science fields.</p>

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<p>“I also agree with Padre13. If I were on an admissions committee and had to choose between the 45th MOSP applicant with musical talent and a valedictorian from Wyoming who grew up on a ranch and conducted biology experiments on the kitchen table, I’d definitely take the applicant from Wyoming.” </p>

<p>I wouldn’t. Not even close. Now, I might admit both of them, but given a choice I’ll take the one who’s proven to be a genius. Not to mention… there aren’t 45 MOSP applicants per year because, for example, only 10 seniors made MOSP in 2008. I think MIT can and should (and usually does) make room for however many of the 10 or so who apply.</p>