phuriku

I actually hold my passionate views on affirmative action for a reason. I think it hurts the qualified minorities and women a lot because they don't get the respect they deserve. I also think it gives them excuses that they'll use later in life to justify their failures. For example, if you follow the news closely, you probably noticed that a black professor at MIT was going on a hunger strike because he didn't get tenure. He blamed the fact that he didn't get tenure on his ethnicity. You think MIT would really racially discriminate against someone (besides whites and asians)? Of course not... it would be suicide. But he's able to hide behind his race and say that that was the reason for him not getting tenure... not a personal failure at all.

The few minority students I'm acquainted with are well aware that their admissions into "elite" institutions was because of affirmative action. It almost seems like they brag about it. In the future, I'm almost sure that these people will use their ethnicity as a way to get anything they want without actually achieving anything. MIT's affirmative action policy encourages this. "It's okay to not be on par with the average student, because YOU'RE BLACK. And black people are stupid, right? So we have to give them advantages in admissions. Women, too. Hah. They couldn't even survive on their own without our help." The sad thing is, some of the smartest people I know are women and minorities. It's unfortunate that MIT gives them an excuse for failure, though, because once someone has such an excuse, he'll take it. (I also believe schools shouldn't give advantage to first-generation students (I'm one myself) and people in poverty (I'm one too). This gives an excuse for failure as well.)

I don't feel sorry for the people who are victims of it in the sense that they don't get in because a minority takes their place. They can get just as good an education somewhere else or by independent study.

pebbles

"But he's able to hide behind his race and say that that was the reason for him not getting tenure... not a personal failure at all."

I was highly skeptical of him at first as well, but the issue is a lot more complicated than that... he's objecting to the review procedure he was put under (and some racial tension that resulted from it) not just to the discrimination he believed he suffered.

and sorry if I messed with your emotions. i'm a very emotional person myself. I KNOW WHAT THATS LIKE AND IT'S NOT EASY

molliebatmit

Ah, but I'm one of those women everyone likes to fulminate about -- 690 on the SAT in math, not even valedictorian of my piteous Midwestern public high school, never took (nor heard of) the AMC, extracurricular involvement in fluffy things like band, choir, and theatre. I even got a B in a math class once.

By my high school record, lots of happily judgmental people on the internet would conclude that I wasn't worthy to be admitted to MIT. By my college record, I was.

I would add that I have a problem with the numbers, anyway -- do you really think there are twenty-five million people in this country who are smarter than the women and minorities at MIT? That's mind-boggling. Think about all the people in the US who don't even have the ability to succeed at any college.

As KirbusPrime said earlier in this thread,
Once you're at MIT, your SAT score ceases to be a predictive factor in your success. SATs and other crude indicators of what's in your head pale in comparison to your sheer force of will.

InquilineKea

On a side note, perhaps those students with few opportunities might benefit more from getting into MIT (as opposed to say, going to a mediocre state college - and state colleges in the midwest aren't UMichigan/Berkeley quality) than those students with many opportunities who wouldn't benefit as much from going to MIT per se, as opposed to say, another institution where these students can carry on their research activities.

Speaking of which, looks like someone who turned down Caltech for UWashington just won a Goldwater Scholarship...

That being said, while it's clear the SAT score ceases to be a predictive factor in student success - then what of the Intel Semifinalists/those who take post-calculus math classes/those who get super high scores on the AMC tests? Are these factors ever measured?

pebbles

is it you?

phuriku

"Ah, but I'm one of those women everyone likes to fulminate about -- 690 on the SAT in math, not even valedictorian of my piteous Midwestern public high school, never took (nor heard of) the AMC, extracurricular involvement in fluffy things like band, choir, and theatre. I even got a B in a math class once."

I would say that you got in because of the fact that you're a female, but you deserved to be there anyway. SATs are never very accurate, and contest math isn't real math. I probably hold that opinion the strongest around here.

(Hell, I got denied by Caltech for that very same reason. My profs thought it was a shoo-in because who the hell takes prob. theory, diff. eq, number theory, calc 3, linear algebra, and discrete math in high school? Well, I don't give a crap for the SATs or the AMC, so I didn't get admitted.)

"I would add that I have a problem with the numbers, anyway -- do you really think there are twenty-five million people in this country who are smarter than the women and minorities at MIT? That's mind-boggling. Think about all the people in the US who don't even have the ability to succeed at any college."

I never said that women and minorities at MIT are dumb. I don't think so at all. I just think that on average, they're less intelligent than the men at MIT. But averages are never things to judge by, and there are people like yourself who prove that you can't judge people by putting them into groups. But I think that's one thing that MIT's affirmative action polices do: place people into groups and admit them by what group they belong to.

And InquilineKea, you got into Caltech? Wow. I never knew that.

InquilineKea

Uh, no, I was talking about Pavan Vaswani (his name is on the list of scholars anyways, so there's no privacy issue here). Did you remember that I went early entrance to UWashington after 10th grade, instead of going through the entire process of submitting applications? (I'm kind of glad I did, after realizing how much BS I'd have to go through in an IB school, and after realizing that self-initiative means a whole lot more to education than what institution you go to)

Anyways, let's see if tetrahedr0n, who turned down Caltech for UMichigan, will see the same thing.

==

molliebatmit

I tend to agree with this -- I think the really superstar kids can do just fine for themselves given a certain baseline level of resources. (Of course, those kinds of kids like to come to the MITs and Caltechs of the world so they can swim in a sea of smart kids.) In my personal experience, I believe strongly that, had I gone to Ohio State instead of MIT, I would not be in the PhD program I am in now.

The problem, as I see it, is that it's difficult to tell when you're picking a college whether you are a superstar or not.

sakky

Phuriku, you've turned the debate into a debate about AA. If you're going to do that, why pick on MIT specifically, when the fact is, the vast majority of private universities use AA?

Again, this gets back to what I've been saying in this thread all along - why single out MIT for what the Ivies and Stanford have been doing for decades? Rationally speaking, if you don't like AA, one should draw fire upon all of these schools , not just MIT.

sakky

"Intelligence" is a rather loaded word, don't you think?

Yet, I am aware of the studies that demonstrate that men occupy a disproportionate percentage of the 'geniuses' (however that is defined) in the world, compared to women. Of course, on the flip side, men tend to occupy a disproportionate percentage of the mentally retarded. In other words, men seem to have a wider distribution of intelligence compared to women.

But, frankly, what college-age women tend to have over college-age men is maturity. Let's face it. Women mature faster than men and tend to be more dedicated towards education, at least at the HS and undergraduate level. It has been demonstrated that a higher percentage of women nationwide complete high school and complete college than do men, to the point that many universities are seriously contemplating AA for men (and some of the LAC's already do).

http://www.iserp.columbia.edu/news/a...e_college.html

I don't know what the male/female graduation rate is at MIT or Caltech, but I would contend that a lot of what it takes to successfully graduate from any college is not really 'intelligence', but maturity. There are a lot of brilliant but immature men out there who just don't want to do the necessary, albiet boring, blocking-and-tackling activities necessary to complete their degrees, i.e. handing in assignments on time, attending class, and so forth. One of the most brilliant men that I know once did little more than stay in his room and play computer games for months straight and not studying, and as a result nearly flunked out of college (he did turn himself around).

InquilineKea

What school did he go to? Did he fail courses?

phuriku

"Phuriku, you've turned the debate into a debate about AA. If you're going to do that, why pick on MIT specifically, when the fact is, the vast majority of private universities use AA?

Again, this gets back to what I've been saying in this thread all along - why single out MIT for what the Ivies and Stanford have been doing for decades? Rationally speaking, if you don't like AA, one should draw fire upon all of these schools , not just MIT."

Yeah, I think this came up in the past on this thread. I sure talked about this with someone who participated in this thread on AIM.

I have no particular reason to pick on MIT. Other schools, especially the Ivies, Stanford, and UMichigan, are guilty as well. I think I tried to justify Harvard using it when I was speaking with my friend about it, but now that I think about it, Harvard has no excuse, either. However, we were talking specifically about MIT, so it didn't occur to me to criticize any other colleges. Like I said in a few other Caltech threads, I've tutored people who got into Stanford and some of the Ivies, which really makes me mad because I know the intelligence levels of these people were not up to par with the intelligence level of the average student there. Not even close.

I know someone like this too, actually, except he DID flunk out. It was Georgia Tech.

I'd say you're definitely right about women being generally more mature than men at the undergraduate age, but I don't really know if you can use that in the admissions process (for either side -- affirmative action for males and for benefitting females). I think the admissions process should evaluate every person equally, and the maturity of the applicant often can't be seen clearly from an application, due to the nature of college applications in general. I suppose it could be used in some cases, though, for dismissing supposely intelligent people because their applicants showed their immaturity. I think such a case is rare, however.

Maybe it's just because I woke up, but I don't know how that's pertinent, though.

Big Brother 1984

^I just woke up too phuriku. Lol.

phuriku, recount to me the story of how one academically qualified URM was rejected by MIT because he wasn't "URM-like." Oh yeah! And do enlighten me with the other URM you tutored that got into Stanford because he was "like a URM!"

sakky, regarding phuriku "picking on MIT," we've been through this before. And I don't feel like going through old arguments, so I'm just going to say that phuriku's posts are not completely unfounded.

pebbles? From your sarcastic tone, UChicago < MIT? Excuse me. Maybe you should've used a better example than Chicago. I know a girl who turned down MIT for UChicago because it was a better fit - she definitely has my respect, and she's definitely come across as mature for that. I hope one day you can shake those silly little stars above your head and come to realize that there's really no point prestige wh*ring over MIT after you've been accepted. Which it seems like you've been doing. Just to throw it out there.

InquilineKea

After how long of a nap? It should be like 10/11 PM for you guys

phuriku

"pebbles? From your sarcastic tone, UChicago < MIT? Excuse me. Maybe you should've used a better example than Chicago. I know a girl who turned down MIT for UChicago because it was a better fit - she definitely has my respect, and she's definitely come across as mature for that. I hope one day you can shake those silly little stars above your head and come to realize that there's really no point prestige wh*ring over MIT after you've been accepted. Which it seems like you've been doing. Just to throw it out there."

http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~const/209.html

This is Honors Analyis, Spring quarter, what I'll most likely be entering into next year if I do well on the placement test. Download "midterm solutions" on the bottom. I want to talk to anyone who still thinks MIT is better than UChicago in math after looking through that. My Calc 3 prof took one look at that and said, "this looks like a graduate measure theory course." MIT's just better at contest math. Whereas MIT has classes dedicated just for the Putnam, we have no such thing, so MIT's going to naturally be better. I'm sure Chicago and MIT just have different styles, though, and are about equal in overall quality.

But I didn't see what she said as an attack. But maybe it was? I dont know.

Oh, yeah. I have this one Hispanic friend who's probably the smartest person I know in my age group. Last year, he took 7 APs, and got 5s on all of them. He also got perfect scores on all his SAT IIs and near perfect on his SAT Is. So this should be a shoo-in at MIT, right? Wrong. He got deferred, then rejected.

And moreover, I have no idea why. You always hear of those minorities who are nearly perfect in every aspect but get denied by MIT. I rarely hear stories of any other minorities (except extremely extremely underqualified minorities) getting rejected, so this always comes off odd. Although it's an odd hypothesis that will probably get blown away, I sometimes think "maybe they do these things so that whenever someone brings up affirmative action policies, they can always be knocked down with 'so and so got rejected even though he's a minority and is nearly perfect in every way'". I don't know, though.

Perhaps he also wrote against affirmative action somewhere in his application and MIT saw this as a turnoff? Perhaps he decided that he didn't want to get in off of affirmative action and didn't even mention that he was Hispanic? I don't know. I'd have to talk to him about it.

Yeah, he wasn't qualified at all. AT ALL. He was the one I mentioned above. He knew that he got in off of affirmative action. He was almost proud of it.

I sleep from 8:00pm - 10:30pm and 4:00am - 7:00am on a regular night/day. Due to all the REM stuff (that's why Uberman works), this compensates for 8 hours of one period of sleep and is probably even more healthy.