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I'm mystified by all this comparison to Caltech. The OP talks about
the oddness of MIT admissions, not MIT in comparision to Caltech.
Schools don't live and die by their undergraduate student body. You
could admit baboons to Harvard and rational people would still want to
go there because their faculty is so amazing. I've heard when you come
up for tenure, they don't ask people in your field if you should get
tenure - they ask people in your field who is the best in the world at
what you do. If the letters don't come back with your name, they fire
you, and go out and hire that other person, if they can. If I could
be 18 again and had the chance to spend my days listening to Harvard
professors lecture, I would.
Same thing with MIT. It's an amazing place, independent of what
admissions does. The Open Courseware is a great advertisement for
MIT, too. My hs age son is watching Walter Lewin lecture in 8.01 and 8.02.
It's fantastic, and he's convinced MIT is full of stimulating, exciting
classes. And it is! Not to mention all the amazing research in so many
fields gathered at one institution.
How much can bad admissions decisions and off-putting rhetoric mess
this up? That is the question.
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