<p>@ MeSsIaH.</p>
<p>Impressive :)</p>
<p>MeSsIaH, I haven’t been ■■■■■■■ yet. Try harder.</p>
<p>Considering the socially stunted misanthropes that roam around most of College Confidential, I don’t think MeSsIaH is ■■■■■■■■. Though he may explain why males with math awards have a lower-than-expected acceptance rate at MIT. What with being crazy and all.</p>
<p>@MeSsIaH: Do you ever check your facts before you draw conclusions?</p>
<p>Melanie Wood was on the USAMO in 1998 and 1999, and in 2003 she won the Putnam Competition. Sherry Gong was on the USAMO in 2005, 2006, and in 2007, when she won a gold medal. In 1990, no females scored above 10 on the AIME; in 2009, 40 females scored above 10 on the AIME. The proportion of females among top scorers in the AIME has increased significantly over the past ten years, largely because more young women are enrolling in higher-level math classes in U.S. high schools.</p>
<p>Last year the American Mathematics Society published a paper that analyzes the differing rates of participation of females across countries, because in some countries outside the U.S., the proportion of females is much higher: See Titu Andreescu, Joseph A. Gallian, Jonathan M. Kane, and Janet E. Mertz, “Cross-Cultural Analysis of Students with Exceptional Talent in Mathematical Problem Solving.” Notices of the American Mathematics Society, 55 (10): 1248-1260.</p>
<p>@CalAlum</p>
<p>Messiah was mostly referring to recent years.</p>
<p>^^Djokovic, the data I refer to is from recent years, including 2009.</p>
<p>the simple fact of the matter is that MIT has a commitment to minority and female representation [25% and approx 50%, respectively]. Those admissions have to come from somewhere and that somewhere is an applicant pool that is decidely smaller for these applicants than it is for the rest . Sorry those are the facts. Explain or rationalize them anyway that is consistent with your self-interest and/or socio-political point of view.</p>
<p>So why does MIT accept the students it accepts?</p>
<p>If a student is clearly academically qualified to handle the work, it’s all about the match, as so many bloggers and alums here have pointed out over the years. You can read about it here: [MIT</a> Admissions: The Match Between You And MIT](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/the_match_between_you_and_mit/index.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/the_match_between_you_and_mit/index.shtml).</p>
<p>Every highly selective college and university looks for indicators the applicant is a “good fit.” The Dean of Admissions at Whitman College put it this way: One of the tests for me is, would I want to live with this person in Lyman Hall. (Whitman Pioneer, Dec. 7, 2009).</p>
<p>My son received all the big mailings from MIT (“apply”!), and his sister is a junior at MIT, but in the end, he applied ED to Whitman, which I’d characterize as a “match” school for him, not a reach. Of all the schools we took him to, this was his favorite school. Not Stanford, not Duke, not Pomona, etc. We support him in this decision, because having visited the school, we can also see why he chose it. </p>
<p>Everyone on this board, like my daughter several years ago, is applying (or thinking of applying) to a high-reach school. The test scores and GPA are just the foundation; they will gain the applicant consideration. Beyond that, it’s about the kind of person you are, the potential you have for the future, and it’s also — let’s admit it — about luck.</p>
<p>@mia305 I was definitely under this impression before, and in a way I felt I was right when an african american female from our school had gotten accepted into MIT. That fact alone wasn’t really it - it was the fact that she constantly came to school late, either slept through classes or cut classes, didn’t have a competitive GPA, and was simply an unmotivated individual. Many of my classmates had sworn that this was affirmative action at work.</p>
<p>However, upon doing some research articles like [Gender</a> Affirmation: MIT Still Uninformed on Affirmative Action - The Tech](<a href=“http://tech.mit.edu/V117/N40/hove.40c.html]Gender”>http://tech.mit.edu/V117/N40/hove.40c.html) seem to indicate that “affirmative action” simply refers to special attention towards RECRUITING, and not during the application process itself. </p>
<p>My own conclusion? It’s probably a mixture in the middle - being a female does not get you placed into a special pool, but it might be just enough of a nudge to make your application look better. Even if it’s not the mere fact that you’re a female, it might just be that you’ve managed to succeed despite the oh-so-infamous prejudice that female scientists have had to deal with.</p>
<p>From MIT’s admissions website:</p>
<p>“MIT is committed to admitting ALL minorities who we feel are academically qualified to attend the Institute.”</p>
<p>Emphasis on “ALL” mine. Interpret that however you wish.</p>
<p>The quote can be found on the admission home page, under tab 11,
choose “Info For Schools & Counselors: What We Look For In Applicants”
the quote is about halfway down the page.</p>
<p>haha maruhan could not be more wrong.</p>
<p>@CalAlum, I didn’t feel like checking stats and stuff. Still, all of these “check out these individuals” arguments are rather counterproductive, as they in fact show that the large majority of the top math people are male.</p>
<p>I’m going to go off in a somewhat different direction here.</p>
<p>I’m currently a freshman at MIT. During admissions season, the question of who was admitted or rejected and why was a bit of a mystery. As I’ve gone though this semester, it’s become obvious that the admissions committee does a very good job of picking people who will thrive here. MIT’s campus is incredibly alive and vibrant. Students work incredibly hard not because the work is incredibly difficult but because they devote their time to… everything else. Orchestra, community service, club sports, varsity sports, random trips, spontaneous late-night baking adventures, hacking*<em>, work, research, odd hobbies. I hate to imagine what it would be like if people devoted themselves single-mindedly to academics or the things that seem like they’ll help one advance in life, the way some</em> College Confidential denizens seem to. </p>
<p>To this end it seems sensible that MIT picks people who aren’t one-dimensional but have true passion for what they do. I thought I applied with an academically strong but somewhat boring-looking application, but I’m thriving here not because I’m incredibly brilliant but because I love my classes, I like my job, I did a sport for a while and loved it, and I love the living group I hang out at and cook for. Being so happy leaves me willing to help others with their schoolwork and generally have fun. Somehow, the admissions committee is pretty good at picking out the sort of people who have the passion to thrive on MIT’s environment.</p>
<p>Incidentally, almost everyone I’ve met here is extremely nice.</p>
<p>Another thing – not everyone comes from the same background. Living in the suburbs without means of getting anywhere farther than walking distance, I never had an opportunity to do research or even knew that research was a thing people under thirty could do, and the first lab I did in 8.022 was sort of “Ooh this is weird hey RSI friend what’s this button do? AAAH THIS IS SOO COOL!” I’m sure my app looked less impressive it would’ve if I’d gone to a prep or magnet school and taken linear algebra at age five, but people for the most part catch up after a semester or two.</p>
<p><em>some! just some! don’t complain that you’re not like that.
*</em>Not me, I like to sleep. And it’s illegal.</p>
<p>^ Epic post. </p>
<p>I love this part: “Students work incredibly hard not because the work is incredibly difficult but because they devote their time to… everything else. Orchestra, community service, club sports, varsity sports, random trips, spontaneous late-night baking adventures, hacking**, work, research, odd hobbies.” This sounds like an amplified version of my life.
It kills me when people ask “what SHOULD I do to get in?” Do what you want, dude! Life’s too short to live your life for an admissions committee. Do the things you like, and if your life fits with a university, then you’ll get in. If not, then you probably wouldn’t be happy there. </p>
<p>Anyways, I really, really feel like I belong there. I’m hoping that the admissions committee can see that through my application.</p>
<p>Ps. Hacking. Hehehe… ^_^</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Most recent studies have attributed the difference to socio-cultural effects not any difference in ability. In some countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Denmark and Iceland, there are more top scoring females than males. Even in the United States, the variance ratio of males and females is much smaller among certain ethnic groups especially Asian Americans, who as a group also tend to do better than whites in mathematics. </p>
<p>Even if it was were true what does have to do with admissions to MIT? AFIK MIT is not a mathematical institute. MIT is not IIT, where admission is controlled by a single test. Over 60% of MIT students major in some engineering discipline and an increasingly larger share in fields related to the life sciences. What is the relevancy of the USAMO in those fields? I would even argue that many of the top mathematicians never participated in competitions such as the USAMO or IMO. Even the IMO competition does not even require any knowledge of mathematical analysis, the foundation of calculus. At MIT, many students who participate in the Putnam are not even math majors. They enjoy the competition and the challenge but have no plans to become mathematicians. </p>
<p>If you want to be admitted to MIT solely on your aptitude for mathematics, whether male or female, you would need to do a lot better than simply be a USAMO qualifier. MIT aggressively recruits the IMO medalists from around the world and increasingly the top talent comes from China, Korea, India or Russia. The US has not won the IMO since 1994. So if MIT was admitting students based on their success at the IMO, there would be few Americans, male or female.</p>
<p>@Mia
So what if MIT strives for some gender balance? The ratio of women admitted to MIT has oscillated between 45 and 48% in recent years. There is certainly no gender quota. If it wanted to, MIT could admit an entire class composed strictly of males or strictly of females without hurting the institute’s reputation or quality. Nobody is contending that female math or EECS majors at MIT are inferior to their male counterparts. If anything, females as a group perform at least as well as men across all departments at MIT. There has been no watering down of the curriculum. The quality of the student body, according to the faculty’s annual review, has never been stronger. </p>
<p>The fact is that MIT, just like Harvard, Stanford and other top universities, received far more highly qualified applications than it can admit. So if MIT or Harvard want to craft a class that is very diverse by gender, economic background or interest, that is their absolute prerogative. Many top candidates would not want to attend a university that was overwhelmingly of a single gender. MIT has more than twice the yield of any of its nearest competitors among men, women and minorities. MIT has become an increasingly attractive destination for top female candidates who would not have considered a technically oriented university a decade ago.</p>
<p>I would like each male applicant who feels that women are being admitted to MIT at an unfair rate to join me in a little thought experiment.</p>
<p>Imagine, for a minute, that it happens that women who get into MIT are grossly underqualified when compared to their male counterparts, and that the adcoms decide that they should practice gender-blind admissions. Now, since males are SO MUCH MORE QUALIFIED than females, according to our thought experiment and you, apparently, they end up admitting a class that’s nearly 80% male.</p>
<p>Imagine what parties would be like, what classes would be like, what your dorm would look like, what your everyday life would be like. And answer this question: in the end, do you <em>really</em> want MIT to admit fewer women?</p>
<p>And, of course, I would like to brag for a minute that I had a higher cumulative point total than all but one of my male friends in 6.004.</p>
<p>I figured it out!!!</p>
<p>[RANDOM.ORG</a> - True Random Number Service](<a href=“http://www.random.org/]RANDOM.ORG”>http://www.random.org/)</p>
<p>that’s how MIT figures it out after all… it makes sense now!
Pick the 1-10 option-rumor has it that this year the lucky number is “6”</p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>I got a 2</p>
<p>■■■</p>
<p>Don’t give up yet! 2 is included in the “defferal” range which includes 1,2,3,4,5,7,8, and 9</p>
<p>10 is rejected</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t think that failure is necessarily prized, however, I do think that it is an integral part of science and engineering. Edison famously said “I haven’t failed, I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” There is a lot of finding ways that do not work, and one needs to have a little bit of resilience to cope with that. The difference seems to be a change in educational priorities over the past decade or so. I am aware of a number of schools in my region who are deeply concerned about their students self-confidence and self-esteem, and so have crafted an educational culture where as Lewis Carroll Dodo observed “everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”</p>
<p>This is by no means limited to “poor academic schools” or the like. In 2001 the Economist reported that at Harvard university: “About half of Harvard’s students get an A-minus or above. Only 6% receive a C-plus or lower.” This grading system is not particularly true at MIT, but it raises an interesting question.</p>
<p>Certainly I never really had to work particularly hard (or occasionally at all) to exceed in my secondary school classes and got to MIT with mostly A’s in HS. MIT was a shock to me. We now regularly meet MIT candidates who have always gotten A’s and were often the top kids in their High Schools. Now you do not need an advanced understanding of Mathematics to work out that fully half of these people will end up in the bottom half of their class at MIT. Some people have NEVER actually experienced failure before and a small percentage of these just cannot cope. </p>
<p>When I am interviewing candidates, I tend to ask questions based on where I am wondering if they can cope. So candidates who talk about how much they value their family and how supportive the family is around the dinner table, are likely to hear me ask questions about trips away, summer programs and the like, as I try to work out “Will this person before me be able to cope without the nightly pep rallies around the dinner table.” Usually the answer is yes, but sometimes, I need to push harder to be comfortable that that is in fact the case.</p>
<p>So it goes with failure. Asking about failure at an interview from my perspective is less about how much I “value” failure than about eliminating a question mark that might hang over those who have never experienced it. Assuming that you get in, you are extremely likely to meet folks at MIT who are a lot brighter than you are. If not amongst your fellow students then at least amongst the faculty. Are you going to be thrown by this? Is your self image deeply tied to being the brightest in the room? If so, expect to talk about failure a lot at my interviews, because knowing how to come second (or sixth, or six hundredth) is very important, and knowing how to smile when you have found your ten thousandth way that does not work, is even more important, if you wish to progress in the sciences.</p>