rofl Big Brother, and now you contribute what we discussed over phone. ^_^
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"Reading from a prepared statement, [Caltech physics professor Leverett] Davis said, "the senior members of the committee felt that our policy should be to admit some Jewish students but not to admit enough of them so that it made a substantial contribution to the student population." As Davis recalled, "They just did not want the place to get a reputation as having significantly more Jewish students than other corresponding universities," adding: "In the general climate of things at that time, that would discourage some substantial fraction of non-Jewish parents from sending their children here." In practice, if the committee had two applicants who were more or less equal, the older members of the committee chose the non-Jewish applicant."
"T.H. Morgan's goal was to put together a good diversified staff for the Caltech Biology Dept. Good Jewish biologists were plentiful, but good Gentiles were in short supply.""
"An eyewitness later reported that Morgan made it his business to tell everyone that he wanted to find a physiologist "who is not Jewish, if possible.""
"Morgan's assistant was Albert Tyler who was also my teacher in a couple of courses. Once when Morgan and I were alone he made an entirely gratuitous rather snide remark to the effect that you could always tell a Jew by the way he walked. That was stimulated by hearing Albert Tyler approach down the hall"
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/Special_.../goodstei.html
So you did bring up the issue of Caltech staying true to its principles, and after reading the above, I now wonder - what principles would those be exactly? Do those principles include discriminating against Jews? Or about the notion of not wanting Caltech to be seen as having too many Jews relative to other schools - wouldn't that be a case of Caltech doing the 'demographically convenient thing'?
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Perhaps Caltech was discriminatory against Jews in the past, just like other universities. Today, such comments would be so politically incorrect that they would never be made.
Leverett Davis, Jr., 1914-2003
Thomas Hunt Morgan (September 25, 1866 – December 4, 1945)
Even so, these statements are purely statements of faculty members (who can have whatever political views that they're entitled to). They do not say anything about the admissions office itself.
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But the point is this. Even if MIT's standards have declined from a meritocratic standpoint, like I said above, they are still better than that of the Ivies. Which is why I find it so ironic that somebody using the handle "ivyaccepted" would complain only about MIT's admissions policies.
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It's fairly simple, as Big Brother 1984 explained above. MIT is
perceived as becoming less "meritocratic" (one quote I had from soneone: "MIT is losing its roots") than it was in the past, whereas the Ivies never had to encounter such an accusation - since they always had legacy and athlete admissions. From the viewpoint of a random person who knows a little bit about admissions, "if Bush got into Yale in the past, well, you can't complain about admissions standards of Ivies declining...."
(note that I'm talking about the popular conception of Ivies and MIT, not stating my own views)
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Originally Posted by Olo The problem with going to whole numerocentric route is that it neglects those of us who are more than intelligent enough to do well at MIT, who did not see it fit to waste our potential with high school grades. Believe it or not, people exist who do great at MIT who did not do great in high school, for one reason or another.
What you need to measure in admissions is a person's ability to succeed. Grades and scores are some indicators, but far from the only ones. Yes, I'm speaking from personal bias, but I assure everyone, I'm not making MIT look bad. In fact, I'm kicking ass. Does it really bother you that much that people like me get in, who make MIT seem less "genius-y", even if only from a purely statistical measure of valedictorians admitted? |
I have to agree - but the problem comes in roots deeper than any admission office per se. There are many students who apply with subpar GPA and SAT scores, who for whatever reason didn't 4.0 their high school load (this is perfectly understandable, as in the case of Steven Chu above - high school is often an impediment to those who want to learn on their own). The question is, how to differentiate those who will excel in college from those who will merely "get through". Self-motivation and self-initiative are usually measures that help determine this. But it's very difficult to quantify self-motivation/self-initiative. Sure, the person can gun for independent research, but it appears that most Intel STS semifinalists have 4.0 GPAs (and independent research is often difficult to pursue in the first place). The self-studier has a very difficult position to prove his self-motivation, for teachers may not appreciate the student's self-studying in their recommendations. It is then up to the student to put such self-studying in his essays, and anyone can lie about that.
There is only one objective way to quantify self-motivation beyond the normal route (one that is accessible to all self-studiers). That is college final-like exams to test proficiency for subjects like abstract algebra, real analysis, etc (colleges have their finals too, there is no cultural bias that is worse than what a college has on its test). Some self-motivated students can take college courses in such subjects, but the key word here is
some. Some of them have parents who can't afford the tuition, or who just won't pay for the distance education. Besides, what's the purpose of taking a course if you can self-study it? The only purpose is to show the college that you covered the material of a course on your own - and for just that - you've just shelled out $$$ (keep in mind, of course, that Caltech and MIT don't accept credits from most distance learning institutions like EPGY).
And check out the case of phuriku. He had outstanding recs (that supplemented his essays on his self-studying), and still got rejected from Caltech + MIT. He had the additional complication of disclosing Asperger's Syndrome.