simfish

sakky, I edited my post since you quoted it. Um, it's kind of funny because I edited it in a way that resembled your reply to it. The Axline is a signal to the applicants that they would be able to handle the Caltech core - so then it's a question of what the students want.

Even then, is Caltech's top priority the happiness of its own students? Or is it the fulfillment of its mission goals, which may make some students happier, at the cost of the happiness of some other students? A substantial portion of Caltech students are discontent with the institution, but a substantial amount of them also feel that Caltech is the perfect place for them. I think one of Caltech's main problems is how to make life better for the students discontent with their current situation (given its high transfer-out rate), while retaining the rigor it allows for those who feel that it's ideal for them.

Now, Marilee Jones says that 15% of the MIT acceptance pool would not be admitted under previous MIT admissions policies.

Now, the question is, when was the last time that MIT has increased the number of undergraduates?

Even if it hasn't increased the number of undergraduates in recent years, MIT's educational policies have obviously broadened, and it seems that it doesn't seem to feel a loss to its top level science and engineering programs despite the change in admissions policies, perhaps because of the increasing calibre of the top levels of the applicant pool at large.

sakky

Now we're getting somewhere. I agree that MIT is probaly changing its goals. And what's necessarily wrong with that? MIT has changed goals in the past. Again, MIT used to be little more than just a trade school, and didn't become a fully-fledged research dynamo until the 1940's. I would argue that that's a quite strong reorientation of goals, and I suspect there were some people back then who disliked that reorientation.

Or, like I said in my previous post, MIT has made a strong push into less technical subjects such as philosophy, linguistics, poli-sci, urban planning, and so forth. The Sloan School has become a far more holistic business school as opposed to just an industrial management boutique. Again, that's a rather strong reorientation of goals.

Look, we live in a competitive world and schools have to evolve with the times if they want to maintain relevance.

So I agree that MIT is probably evolving in response to the competition 'up the river'. And it should. You can't ignore customer demand. You can't be like BMW and refuse to provide cupholders even when your customers consistently demand them.

Hence, if MIT is changing goals, I think it's fair that it should be judged according to its new goals. Nobody now seriously attempts to judge MIT on the goals of its old trade-school past. Similarly, nobody nowadays seems to judge Harvard based on its past as a religious school - but that's precisely what it was in the old days.

Hence, it seems to me that the real problem is not really about MIT's admissions policies, because like I said, MIT is still more meritocratic than the Ivies or Stanford, but just that some people just don't like that MIT is changing its goals. Well, if that's the case, then why not just come out and say that's the real reason?

Well, I'm not quite so deterministic as that. Look, you don't need to go to MIT to get a "top level" science/engineering education. The truth is, any of the top 50-100 schools probably has the tools to provide you with an elite-level science/engineering education. Nothing is stopping you from taking a slew of graduate courses and piecing together an education that is just as rigorous as anything you might find at MIT or Caltech.

milki

Actually an increased (by ~80) is planned (very) soon.

Big Brother 1984

Thank you sakky for actually responding to my posts with more than just one-liners. It's been a real pleasure.

"It doesn't really matter who you admit . It only matters who you matriculate . You can admit all of the meritocratic people you want, but if they don't actually come, who cares?"

I actually disagree with this. Caltech admissions is on the whole, more meritocratic than MIT's is. The fact that most admittees choose to matriculate elsewhere is completely immaterial to the concept of what meritocratic admissions is.

It is true that people on the whole prefer HYPSM over Caltech. But don't you think there are examples of the reverse? A good Intel STS Semis + USAMO + USPhO friend of mine (mind the awards :-)) applied to Caltech EA 2 years ago and opted to matriculate without applying to other schools RD. The Caltech experience is not your typical college experience you'd get at HYPS - it's for certain people.

I would also actually say that Caltech is doing fine with its admissions. And plenty of "meritocratic people" choose Caltech - more than enough. What's the deficiency here?

I'm not saying the Ivies should get a "free pass." I'm just asking - why are people overall not as ticked off about getting rejected from an Ivy than getting rejected from say...MIT? Without a doubt, Ivy League admissions are more pleasing than MIT's - from rejectees' PoVs of course. We have to ask ourselves - why?

CAdream's answer above might be it. MIT admissions strives to be something of a somebody to everybody. When the institution was originally intended for something different, and MIT admissions tries to cater to every single Ivy-like application - then yeah...a lot of people are not going to be pleased with that.

I think it's also pretty clear that the average Caltech admittee is > the average MIT admittee. This is also most likely true for matriculants as well. Caltech is probably less appealing because of its small size, hardcore curriculum, 7:3 ratio, etc. etc. But once again, Caltech is for certain people...some of them who were only accepted by Caltech as you've stated.

But why does it matter if other people choose HYPSM over Caltech? Ben Golub has stated that Caltech doesn't care about yield. The class each year that matriculates to Caltech and graduates with probably the highest %tage grad school placement, doesn't care about yield. The people getting the best science education there is because the institution doesn't have to cater to lower-quality admits, doesn't care about yield.

What we're focusing on is admissions - not matriculation.

sakky

That's my point exactly. First off, I don't find MIT admissions any more odd than the admissions of the Ivies or Stanford. So why single out MIT?

Secondly, the OP doesn't bring up Caltech. But clearly other people have. Which is why we ought to talk about it. Is Caltech really as "pure" as others have implied?

Actually, this gets to an entirely different subject, but I wouldn't necessarily listen to Harvard professors lecture, or the profs of any other prominent research university. That's simply because just because you're a brilliant and prominent researcher who makes breakthrough discoveries doesn't mean that you actually know how to teach . Teaching is a skill that is quite orthogonal to your ability to research. Research is all about producing groundbreaking insights. But teaching has to do with the ability to verbally communicate clearly and to a level calibrated to your audience such that you don't perenially talk over their heads. It's also about being able to convey enthusiasm about a subject to an audience who are not necessarily going to major in your field, and illustrating why your subject should be interesting to them.

As a case in point, I was "taught" (if that is the right word) college mathematics by a number of world-famous math profs. Yet the teaching was terrible , so much so that plenty of students concluded that they would learn more by not going to lecture, but instead by just sitting at home, reading the book. Those guys were poor teachers. I remember sitting in lecture wishing that my old high school math teacher was giving the lectures instead. Sure, my old HS teacher was no "brilliant" math researcher. But hey, at least he had the ability to teach math in a way that made it fun and interesting, something that these famous profs surely did not have. I could partly understand why these profs were such poor teachers too. After all, if you're a world famous math prof researching advanced topology (or whatever it was), you're probably bored teaching basic linear algebra and calculus to a bunch of 18-19 year olds.

Well, actually this is a slightly different topic than the one at hand. The notion of Caltech unhappiness actually elicits an ex-ante response - in that, like I said, the majority of people admitted to Caltech choose not to go, again, probably because they've heard of the dissatisfaction of some of the student body and they don't want to take the risk that that might happen to them.

But it still leaves as an open issue that it doesn't really matter what sorts of admissions policies Caltech chooses to run. It only matters who Caltech actually able to matriculate . You can run the most meritocratic admissions policies in the world, but if many of your best admittees choose not to go (as evidenced by the strikingly low yield of the scholarship winners), then that obviates much of your meritocratic character.

simfish

(1)Axline-level people: MIT and Caltech take nearly all
(2)People capable of handling Caltech core, but not exceptional: MIT rejects many that Caltech accepts
(3)People not really capable of handling Caltech core: MIT accepts some, Caltech rejects nearly all (it makes some mistakes)

Caltech tries the best it can to get the best student body for its educational system. It at least works. But if it desires to get people from category (3), then it must modify its educational system (and this would be bad for many students who feel that the institution is their perfect fit). At least enough people place in category (2) for Caltech admissions to work fine the way it is.

I definitely agree.

When it comes to education, an interesting question is - how much does peer group really matter? How much does teaching really matter? What matters in the end, is the connections (and research) you get with your professors.

==
Anyways, I think we've all brought up interesting points.

sakky

See above. It is ENTIRELY material.

Let me give you an example. I would argue that Berkeley runs highly meritocratic admissions. After all, much admissions, while supposedly based on a 'comprehensive admissions policy' is still very largely numbers driven. Berkeley, by law, cannot use AA. Granted, Berkeley does admit scholarship athletes, but they are a quite small percentage of the overall population. In fact, I would argue that Berkeley probably runs a more meritocratic admissions system than does Harvard or Stanford, in the sense that if you have the numbers, you can be pretty assured that you're going to get into Berkeley. But ultimately does that mean that Berkeley is a more meritocratic university than Harvard or Stanford? I wouldn't say so - because, again, a lot of Berkeley admittees, especially the best ones, choose to go elsewhere.

Of course there are such people. In fact, I already gave one such example - my brother. He went to Caltech and he freely admits that he did so because Caltech gave him money. If Caltech didn't do that, he would have gone elsewhere.

But more to the point, I also agree that some people would still prefer Caltech even if they didnt' get money. Any statistical analysis will always find some outliers. What is interesting is not where the outliers are, but where the data points converge. The truth is, the majority of Caltech admittees choose to go somewhere else.

The deficiency is that the majority of the top "meritocratic people" (as proxied by the scholarships) choose to go elsewhere. So evidently, the data points seem to converge upon the notion that even the majority of meritocratic people don't really want to go to Caltech.

And this gets down to what I said above. People just don't like change. I'm sure that when MIT changed from a trade school to a research school, some people didn't like it. In particular, I strongly suspect that those people with strong trade skills but with weak theory/research skills who were now being rejected hated the change. Similarly, now that MIT is broadening into less technical subjects like poli-sci or general management, that necessarily means that some people on the margins with strong technical skills but weaker soft skills are not getting into MIT. That's what happens when organizations change. Surely no one here is seriously advocating that MIT should never change.

Because I have always agreed with what I said above - that it's a matter of emotion. You might expect to be rejected from the Ivies because the Ivies have a strong reputation of not providing entirely meritocratic admissions. But then you get rejected from MIT, and that surprises you, at an emotional level.

But that's an emotional response, not a rational response. When an academic superstar gets rejected from Harvard, little emotional response is elicited because psychologically you already "know" that Harvard's admissions are unmeritocratic. But when an academic superstar gets rejected from MIT, that elicits an emotional response. But the rational response is to ask why aren't you just as angry at Harvard as you are at MIT? Why has Harvard been able to play with your mind to set that psychological expectation of being unmeritocratic? That's the proper rational response.

And that's where Ben Golub and I fundamentally disagree about Caltech. Don't get me wrong. Caltech is great for the students who did well. My brother did well. Ben Golub is obviously doing well. Good for them.

But what's always been interesting to me and my brother is - what about those Caltech students who don't do well? Many of these students are obviously deeply dissatisfied, and would have almost certainly been better off if they had gone to some other school. The presence of these dissatisfied students deters future prospectives, ex-ante, from attending, because they're afraid they will end up the same way.

Admissions and matriculation are intimately linked. Again, consider the Berkeley example. Berkeley's admissions are clearly highly meritocratic in that if you have top numbers, you're going to get in. But that doesn't do that much to help the school because many of those students with the top numbers will usually choose to go somewhere else. So at the end of the day, Berkeley ends up with a student body that is far less meritocratic than its admissions policy would imply.

This is all about the issue of emotional response. I would argue that it doesn't really matter if you got rejected from a school that you should have gotten into, if you weren't going to go there anyway. To give you an example, I know a guy who was rejected from what he thought was a safety school. Yet he was actually laughing about the situation. Why? Because he got into Harvard, which is where he ended up going. Hence, his reasoning was that, after getting into Harvard, he wasn't going to go to matriculate at that safety school anyway, so who cares if they rejected him?

That is why I see admissions and matriculation to be deeply linked. If a school rejects you, but you weren't going to matriculate there anyway (possibly because you got better offers elsewhere), then who cares?

simfish

Anyways, here's an interesting thread from *********. I'll leave it to to the others to discuss this:

http://www.auto admit.com/thread.php?thread_id=600663&mc=88&forum_id=1#78044 87

sakky

Yeah, but that begs the question - why does MIT take so many of them. After all, MIT doesn't give out merit money. Hence, a lot of people are taking MIT over Caltech even when Caltech is offering money. That just seems to indicate that Caltech is really not as desirable to these particular people as MIT is that even money can't compensate.

Actually, I would argue that there's a category (4), comprised of people who have the ability to handle Caltech, but who don't even apply to Caltech at all because they're afraid of the legendary rigor, and who figure that they wouldn't go even if they got in, so why even apply? Instead, they strongly prefer 'safer' schools like HYPS. You can say that these are risk-averse people - people who don't want to take the risk of hurting their future marketability for future careers (i.e. for GPA-intensive criteria like law school or medical school). They can probably complete Caltech, and might even do well there, but they just don't want to take the risk that they won't do well. Let's face it - a lot of people (probably most) are risk averse.

So the real question is, does Caltech want to pull people in from category (4)? Look, just because you're psychologically risk averse doesn't mean that you're not brilliant. Being a brilliant scientist or engineer doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be a career daredevil. I know many extraordinarily intelligent and hard-working people who are also highly risk averse when it comes to their own personal and professional lives. Nothing wrong with that, they just place high premium on safety. Heck, I know a girl at Harvard who's a genius in physics and probably could have done very well at Caltech. But she's also a very risk-averse person, which is why she didn't even apply to Caltech for undergrad (although, ironically, she has now decided to go to Caltech for her physics PhD - but that's because going to Caltech for physics grad school is no riskier than going to any of the other top physics grad programs).

But the point is, I don't see why Caltech has to wrap risk into rigor as a package deal. Just because you enjoy and are good at technical subjects doesn't also mean that you enjoy risk. This girl evidently did very well for herself in the 'safe' environment at Harvard - so well that Caltech admitted her for graduate school. That implicitly dictates that you don't need to be a risk-taker to be a top science candidate. If you did, then why exactly would Caltech have admitted her for grad school? Was Caltech being dumb in admitting her?

simfish

I like your analysis on risk-averse types, sakky. I wish I had thought about this earlier. I'm learning a lot from this thread.

Master0fBalances

I certainly did not mean to imply that grades and scores were the only indicators of potential to succeed (if I was one of those who did). Certainly, I know that I have been lucky as far as high school teachers go, and many extremely intelligent, motivated students are not as lucky. My problem is not that students from this latter category are admitted; I could have very easily been in this category in different circumstances.

In theory, it's a very good thing that MIT admissions will try to look beyond some poorer grades or scores to see if the student really is motivated and willing to learn. However, the impression that I get from MIT admissions at this point is that they not only do this for students who have issues with grades and/or scores, but that they ignore good grades and/or scores as an indicator of motivation for students who do have them. A student fortunate enough to find a supportive academic environment within his/her high school should not be forced to do needless self-studying in order to have an application that can compete with students who have used self-study as an alternative to a poor academic environment.

Exactly.

molliebatmit

Well, no doubt. And it's a consequence of there being a larger number of qualified people in MIT's applicant pool -- twenty years ago, MIT might have had to make more sacrifices to get a class hailing from diverse parts of the country. Now more smart kids across the country are aware that they have options other than a scholarship to State U, and MIT's applicant pool and admit pool benefit.

But if the students today are more qualified on average than students twenty years ago, which they appear to be in terms of SAT scores (modestly) and graduation rates (less modestly), then what of all of those "unqualified" people who were let in twenty years ago under the more "meritocratic" policies? Perhaps we ought to take away their diplomas.

EDIT: And as for criticizing admissions officers for being friendly and trying to explain what they do, give me a break. The reality is that there are a lot of really qualified kids in the applicant pool, and decisions are not ultimately made because Applicant X is 0.001% smarter than Applicant Y. There aren't firm criteria; that's the nature of holistic admissions. Just wait until you have to start fretting about graduate school -- graduate school admissions criteria are even less clear. (And yet nobody complains.)

adellaid

Just my two cents, because this thread is mildly interesting sometimes and I've just gotten through the college admissions processes of both Caltech and MIT.

Somebody up there said that there are 'outliers' who would prefer Caltech over MIT -- I'd suggest it might be more like 'clusters.' What I'm starting to see more and more, looking closely at both schools, is that many of their aspects will appeal to different categories of people. And I think it's often hard to decide into which cluster, if you will, you'll fall.

At the same time, I think it's worthwhile to point out that it's not surprising that Caltech has a lower yield than MIT, since it doesn't do nearly as much advertising before May 1st. Plus, there aren't that many 18-year-old kids out there who are confident enough in their interests to rule out any real possibility of studies outside of pure math/science and some engineering.

From Caltech's approach to admissions, I get the feeling that it doesn't really mind the relatively low yield -- it seems like a lot more people going there would be miserable if they had matriculated because of a mistaken impressions of well-roundedness/whatever other easy-going cliches.

CAdream

"And as for criticizing admissions officers for being friendly and trying to explain what they do, give me a break."

I'm sure the admissions officers are nice people. It's just that I don't
know them, and I'm not going to know them, and when if and when
my kid applies, it won't be because he wants to know them, either.
The blogs create this wierd false intimacy, kind of like reality TV. Maybe
this is a generational thing and I just can't understand because I'm
over 40.

The question has come up, why do people complain so much about MIT
admission and not about Caltech, or the Ivys. Maybe it's because the tone
of the admissions relationship is just a little bit ...inappropriate? I don't
know, but think about it, I'm an alum and I'm actually trying to be helpful.

As for complaining about graduate school admissions, people usually save
their complaining for about 3 1/2 years into the program, LOL.

PwnzDeLeOwnz

Simfish thank you for posting that ********* thread, it's really making me take another look at Caltech.