CAdream

"The fact of the matter is - colleges can modify student behavior
by changing the standards of acceptance, so to speak."

Do you really think kids were going to be bad people, but now that
MIT says it wants "good people", they are going to change and try to
be good? Parents weren't trying to raise good kids all along?

Ben Golub

sakky says:
First, you're wrong. Harvard wins a majority of cross-admit battles with any given school. And only for undergrads! In some graduate departments they get whooped soundly some years, even in traditionally top programs like economics.

sakky says:
The other thing, dear sakky, you measure everything by prestige, but that's absurd and meaningless. If you pretend that nothing came out of Harvard after 1950, you wouldn't lose much, but if you had shut down MIT or Stanford in 1950, the world would be a much poorer place. Prestige is for navel-gazing fools. Serious people hate the nonsense way.

As for why Harvard keeps winning cross admit battles, it's simple. Prestige is a self-perpetuating thing. People who aren't sure which place is better for them, or even those who are only weakly committed elsewhere, let prestige break the tie, which perpetuates the cross-admit numbers. The effect is especially strong since most high school students really have no idea what they want, and so there are a lot on the margin. That nonsense isn't indicative of any true quality. I've thought about these issues carefully since I've now twice turned down the place.

Finally, popularity isn't everything, and the market isn't always right. Consider beta vs. VHS, silly sakky.

LauraN

I feel like I've said this often enough for it to be my motto, but it seems like no one has figured it out yet, so I'll just repeat it again:

There's more to life than test scores.

I'd go on, but ironically enough you'd just look down on me for being good at writing "long, wonky, political essays" which is exactly what every last one of you is doing right now. You must all suck pretty bad at science. Life's funny that way, huh?

sakky

When I say "all cross-admit battles", I meant that they win the majority against EVERY school. Not of course that they get 100% of every single person they ever admit (that would be ridiculous).

I think you can also tell that I am strictly talking about undergrad.

{In fact, this is one of the things that I dislike about posting on CC - that first of all people will complain that my posts are too long and too detailed, but then when I try to shorten my posts, other people start complaining that I didn't talk about a certain detail. So basically, I can't win.}

Wrong. I don't measure things by prestige. The market measures things by prestige. Prestige is basically a way to eliminate market information asymmetries, something that I'm sure you are well aware of.

Ah, so you bring up the beta vs. VHS case, eh? That is a case that is far less clear-cut than you imply. There is widespread disagreement within the literature regarding whether beta was in fact the 'superior' technology that supposedly lost to the better-marketed VHS standard, as the myth goes. The definitive work of the VHS Betamax story is probably Cusumano, Mylonadis, and Rosenbloom in Business History Review (1992). Consider the following quotes:

"Compared to Sony, Matsu****a
introduced both less and more expensive VCRs between 1978 and
1981 and manufactured about twice the number of model types
Sony produced during the same time period (see Appendixes B
and D). Other marketing measures helped VHS firms overcome
Sony's image for high quality and reliability; for example, RCA and Matsu****a (which marketed Panasonic and Quasar brands in the
United States) both offered an extended labor warranty for their
machines."

"JVC, which had less experience making VCRs than
Sony, paid special attention to making its VCR easy to manufacture
and service by creating a relatively simple, low-cost design
with fewer components and assembly steps than the Betamaxcharacteristics
that also appealed to companies wishing to license a
VCR for in-house manufacturing. In contrast, although Sony had
the manufacturing expertise to produce the Betamax economically,
potential licensees appeared concerned over their ability to mass
produce the Beta design."

"A large part of the VHS advantage came from the sheer ability
to deliver more VHS machines than Beta producers could make
early on in the competition."

Hence, the literature seems to reveal that betamax was not really the superior technology to VHS when you consider all of the dimensions of superiority, and if anything, it was actually VHS that was the 'superior' technology, at least on the dimensions that ultimately mattered - namely ease of manufacture and ease of licensing. Those advantages dwarfed whatever advantages betamax may have had in terms of picture quality. Essentially, the market tipped to VHS because manufacturers thought it would be simpler and cheaper to produce, ultimately causing more manufacturers to side with JVC and against Sony, which therefore caused more content manufacturers to encode in the VHS standard, which encouraged more manufacturers to support VHS, etc.

But the point is, silly Ben, you really shouldn't use the VHS vs. Beta example to illustrate a supposedly 'better' technology losing out, especially if you're going to become a business economist, because there is no clear evidence that Beta was really the overall 'better' technology.

pebbles

Well, to be fair, Ben, I don't think sakky is some champion of popular opinion. He's just trying to point out that prestige is indeed a factor and is a trickle-down effect of what, yes, each school HAS quite solidly produced. It's not completely measureless.

Sure, prestige-whoring is a silly thing, but so is doing the exact opposite: NOT going somewhere to prove a point. I mean, I didn't like the school so I didn't apply to it. If you hate what they do and speak out strongly against it and such, why apply to it just to turn it down?

sakky

I'm not entirely sure that Chicago is the best example of this, at least in relation to MIT, simply because I'm not sure that Chicago really is a more highly regarded school than MIT within the social sciences that both schools teach. What may make Chicago more highly regarded overall is simply that Chicago obviously teaches a broader selection of social sciences than MIT does. But of the social sciences that MIT does teach, the evidence seems to indicate that MIT is just as strong as Chicago is.

Consider the rankings. According to USNews graduate edition, I get the following rankings:

Economics
1) Chicago
1) MIT

Psychology (which MIT calls "Brain and Cognitive Sciences", but come on, it's psychology)
12) MIT
28) Chicago

Political science
8) Chicago
10) MIT

So the point is, I see no clear advantage that Chicago has over MIT in terms of the social sciences among the ones that both schools actually offer graduate programs in. So I'm not sure that Chicago should be considered a model for MIT to follow, in terms of improving existing programs (because MIT is actually considered to be better in psychology, only slightly behind in poli-sci, and the same in economics).

The only thing that MIT could "learn" from Chicago is that Chicago obviously offers social sciences that MIT doesn't offer. So if you want to say that MIT should broaden its social science offerings, that would be a suggestion worth considering. But I see no evidence to indicate that Chicago is better in those social sciences that MIT also offers grad programs in. If anything, MIT is actually better.

In fact, if you really want to talk about social sciences, both from a breadth and depth standpoint, then a school like Harvard is probably better than Chicago. So if MIT wants to improve its overall social science strength, the model to follow would be the Harvard model. Yet here in this thread, we have seen how MIT is starting to adopt a Harvard-esque model, and some people here don't like it.

Ben Golub

pebbles --

I hope you think better of me than to believe I would apply just to make a point. Undergrad admissions is basically disjoint from what I care about when choosing a grad school. Harvard is one of the best programs in economics, and I very seriously thought about it. I thought the faculty there were superb and I really enjoyed getting to know them, but there's a certain atmosphere which I knew just wouldn't fit me. My only point was that an honest assessment of quality for a given person is often at variance with what is most prestigious. (And in economics as in undergrad life, nothing beats the Harvard name.)

The other thing, though, is that when I visited MIT, I felt very much at home. There's a very strong techie/no-nonsense atmosphere that permeates everything (even the economics department!). People care about substance, not status, and really want to get to the bottom of everything intellectually. It's very different from the typical Ivy feel. I really enjoy that immensely and when I say mean things at MIT it's only out of love for this rare and precious thing which I hope MIT doesn't waste by becoming a second-rate Harvard.

Ben Golub

sakky -- we can argue about VCRs another day, but what you say about how doesn't make any sense as far as I can see, and I don't think any serious economist thinks this is so. The worst thing about prestige is that it perpetuates and exacerbates information asymmetries, with ignorants often herding on an inferior option. See Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer, and Welch (JPE 1992) and Banerjee (QJE 1992) for the definitive theoretical works on this subject.

pebbles

I was just pushing your buttons if you're not going to Harvard where are you going? Are you coming here?

Master0fBalances

To me, the MIT holistic approach seems to favor those who resorted to self-study above those who participated in high school class-oriented academics. I agree that a holistic approach is best for admissions; I opted out of an AP computer science course because I knew that I could take an independent study in programming with a much better teacher at the local vocational high school. I certainly don't want MIT to scroll to the number of AP classes and toss everyone with less then 6 (especially since my school only offers 4), but neither do I want them to ignore the possibility that some high school academic environments were adequate.

Ah, yes, please resort to stereotypes, make my side of this argument even easier. I can imagine that your CR score was rather low (if we're going to go along that road) if you somehow managed to glean from my post that I cared nothing about my education and wanted MIT because it looked shiny on my wall.

After spending months looking at the academic programs of various technical/scientific universities (and already having loved the idea of MIT as a frontrunner in research and development for years), MIT became my top choice for college because of its academic programs. To meet my goal of getting admitted, I thought that I would demonstrate my ability to work hard, study hard, and learn well by achieving in my current classes. In the interim, MIT admissions apparently decided that that somehow doesn't quite fit their criteria. This is what bothers me; the admissions process has become so unscientific, and it doesn't seem to fit with the school to which it is attached.

My comment here was referring to the ridiculous generalization that any rule with a few exceptions must be a bad rule.

Well, apparently making the most of a high school education doesn't tell them that. Also, do you expect me to believe that you value the MIT education so highly, and yet the prospect of not receiving it did not cause you any stress?

Honestly, I would have no problem if MIT changed to an Early Decision program so they'd know right away that they were my top choice. I'd also have no problem if they admitted more than 30% of the class early; it seems to me that being accepted to college in December provides much more of an opportunity to enjoy one's senior year, which is apparently a major goal of the MIT admissions office.

And, of course, I'd rather they just accept all deferred applicants rather than waitlist them.

The reason I seem to take it personally is that I see people posting here and elsewhere that they were admitted with applications that they admit were mediocre. I saw a person post that he had already been accepted to Cornell ED when he was admitted, and he just left his application in to see if he could get in. If these are the people that admissions are letting in, I have to question their "holistic" approach. While this is anecdotal, the number of spots are quite limited and each decision counts.

This is basically the case. My comments are directed towards MIT because it is my top choice school, so I care more about their decision. Also, the admissions office opened themselves to criticism as soon as they began describing the "holistic" process in blog entries and such; it's much easier to analyze and find fault with their policies than with the murky, cultish practices of the Ivies (and it's sad that the two types of policies are becoming more similar).

Olo

This is far, far, from the truth. There are far more people admitted who stick to the courseload offered by their school, and excel in it. There are a few who go the route of self-study, and they should not be punished for it. That was the point I was trying to make.

Wow, you've really just stopped reading, haven't you?

Emphasis added. I was trying to say people like me fall into the former category, people like you fall into the latter, and they're BOTH admitted, and there's nothing wrong with that. By the way, I have not been saying ANYTHING to the effect that your education is somehow inferior or inadequate, yet that's all you seem to be hearing. My entire argument revolves around the fact that people who AREN'T happy with their education should go and do something about it, and in fact, that doing something about it is just as indicative of caring about education as excelling in a good high school program. I am not saying one route is "better" than the other, please reread what I've written and quit being spiteful. There are multiple ways to assess a person's worth in coming here, yet you seem to think that the numerical way (your way) is the best. I'm saying there are multiple equally good ways, yet you seem to think I'm saying that numbers are somehow BAD or negative. That's not true. It also saddens me to see you've resorted to personal attacks.

Let me rephrase: re-read what I've written please. I did not glean from your post that you don't care about your education, nor was that the implication of what I've written.

Ah, and now I see what the problem is. You're turning your rejection into something personal. You had an awesome high school education. Great. You worked hard, studied hard, and achieved in your current classes. Awesome! And so did most of the people who got into MIT. MIT didn't feel that this "didn't fit the criteria", as most of the admitted students did precisely just that. You just weren't one of them, and that's what all this anger is about. Again: you make the mistake of thinking that numbers are the best measure of an applicant's worth. I (and other people here) are trying to inform you that they are a good way, but not the only way. In fact, MOST people who were admitted were like you, not like me.

You feel that hard work and great performance in classes demonstrates care and concern for education. I agree, and MIT agrees. In fact, most (the vast majority!) of the people MIT admits demonstrate their care and concern by this criteria (more than 60% of admitted students are valedictorians, IIRC). The incredible minority demonstrate it some other way. Both of these ways are valid. But there are far more people who demonstrate great care and concern for their education than there are slots for admitted students at MIT, so let go of your myopia and consider for a minute that even if you did everything academically right, so did most other applicants, and it's the OTHER factors (ASIDE from care for education) that made the difference in your decision.

So I ask you this: if two applicants BOTH demonstrate an incredible intellectual capability as well as concern for their education (as I'm sure you do), by what criteria will you choose one of the other? One got a B+ and the other an A-? One got a 690 on her Math SAT and the other a 720? These differences are incredibly minute to the point of being negligible, it's far wiser to look at other things.

I apologize for this misunderstanding. My initial comment was with regards to rules about admission specifically, not rules in general. "Heuristics", while useful in many cases, should not be what determines the next four years of a person's life, and the reputation of an Institute. Suggestions in this thread like "admit all USAMO qualifiers" are just plain idiotic.

You're absolutely right it doesn't. Getting straight A's and 4.0s says nothing about your social competence, your ability to isolate your own educational opportunities (research or otherwise), your willingness to work with other people, or even your own ingenuity. It's not as if self-study is intrinsically favored over high-school education, but it does demonstrate a lot of things that going the "classical" route doesn't. (Similarly, the high-school education demonstrates a lot of qualities that the self-study route can't.) Most students who go the "classical" route do many things in addition that demonstrate these additional qualities that self-study necessitates. These students are treated equally, and there are far, far more students here who got here the "typical" way than my way. I know I had to do a lot to make up for the fact that my self-study didn't demonstrate my capability to, say, pass my GIRs. I had to find some other way to demonstrate that, and I did. Rather than seeing the methods as desirable qualities, try thinking of them in terms of what qualities they are indicative of, and then have fun imaging the various other possible ways someone could demonstrate these qualities.

Most people who got into MIT were at the top of their class, but that's not why they got in, nor is there only one "why" behind someone getting in. I implore you, stop acting like there is.

I honestly don't expect you to believe it, no. Nor did I even ask you to believe it, nor did I even make that statement! Again, re-read what I wrote.

I didn't say it caused me no stress. I don't even know where you're getting what you're saying anymore; you obviously aren't getting it from what I've been writing. It did cause me stress... after all, there's a lot I knew I could-- and would-- do at MIT that most people wouldn't. Some people come here, expecting to be the ****, treating it like high school 2.0, and leave with their shiny MIT diplomas. They never take advantage of all of the unique opportunities being at a school like MIT presents. It made me sad to think I wouldn't get in and get to make use of those opportunities while someone who did nothing but sit in class all day has a better shot of getting accepted, despite the fact they'd likely never be able to use this place to it's full potential. Fortunately, I was wrong-- most of the people at MIT *did* do well in class and had great grades, etc, but they also did far more than that.

It definitely, definitely, made me far LESS stressful to know that there was a human being reading my application and evaluating it in a human manner. It made it far LESS stressful for me to know that just because I had poor grades, I wouldn't be automatically disqualified from the running. If I didn't get accepted, it would be because someone got accepted who is *fit* better for this place and would actually use it, rather than someone who can perform in a mindless math/science grind.

Before you jump on it, that last statement was NOT meant to imply that you were one of these people. Even if you were PERFECTLY fit for MIT, there are more fit students than admitted slots. The fact that you were waitlisted and not rejected indicates that you are capable of being here and that you wouldn't be some wart on the institute. MIT wanted you, it just didn't have enough slots. Quit yelling that the admissions is unfair because you didn't get in. The vast majority of decisions are handled by the criteria you wish them to be handled by, but somehow you seem to think the small minority that got in demonstrating their worth in another way stole your "rightful" spot.

Early Decision programs lock people into a game of statistics and turn college admissions into more of a gamble than they currently are. Do you apply early to one school and guarantee your admission or apply regular to two in hopes that you might get into a better one but risk getting into neither?

So would I. If you've been waitlisted, you have what it takes to be at MIT. But the school just isn't big enough to accommodate that many people.

I just want to go on the record that while I admit my grades were mediocre, I never meant to give the impression that my application was mediocre or that my accomplishments were mediocre. I do not know whether this statement applied to me, but definitely want to take this opportunity to make it clear.

(Editted as I hit post instead of preview on accident)

molliebatmit

This, I think, is a problem, as orbis_somnio said a few pages back -- you seem to feel that you did everything you needed to do to get into MIT, and therefore any fair admissions policy would be to admit you. When there are over 12,000 applications for a 1000-person freshman class, not everybody who "deserves" to be admitted can be admitted.

aw5k

I didn't read the whole thread (so long!), but I can somehow understand what the OP is trying to say. What I feel is unfair about the admission process in general (not only at MIT) is the fact that your personality as it appears in real life is most often different from your personality as it is conveyed in your application (sometimes it can be even _very_ different). Now, if you are a good writer and if you can excel in the essays, you certainly have an advantage over those who are more science-oriented, but probably academically more able. What I am trying to say is that the idea of assessing an applicant through merely a bunch of papers seems very dubious (forget the interview, it has no weight whatsoever and isn't academically oriented).

mootmom

I hope Mikalye will chime in here and verify that this statement is incorrect. Additionally, I have direct evidence that recommendations are checked very carefully (beyond just reading what the recommenders wrote) and also weigh strongly in the admissions decision. Someone who looks good on paper will get a careful read, but there is a lot of work put into seeing beyond the numbers and essays to seek out aspects of the person those numbers are one facet of.

pebbles

"he had already been accepted to Cornell ED when he was admitted, and he just left his application in to see if he could get in. If these are the people that admissions are letting in, I have to question their "holistic" approach. While this is anecdotal, the number of spots are quite limited and each decision counts."

I don't understand. That's a good thing. This kid will not take the spot offered to him and there will be one more waitlistee admitted. Each decision counts.

But I don't understand how MIT admissions is supposed to pick out the kids who got in ED elsewhere vs. the kids who did not. If the admissions department thought (based on the information they had- that he put on the application) that the kid deserved a spot, then they offered him a spot. They are not all-seeing and all-knowing.