MIT Admissions Have Become A Complete Joke - Page 7

collegealum314 · 04-11-2007, 01:31 AM

My question is, are high school students really the best judge of talent of high school students? One poster here said that none of the kids who got accepted to MIT from his/her school could hold a candle to the ones rejected from his/her school -- that the accepted kids were never described as the smartest.

Your point?

Maybe they showed something to MIT that they don't show to their fellow students. Maybe you're a bad judge. Maybe most of their potential is inside of them, whereas "the smartest kids" leave it on the surface. Maybe their potential runs deeper. You can't know. Einstein and John Nash are two examples of people that you would've thought were nothing compared to "the smartest kids" if you'd known them when they were young.
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if someone with enormous potential does not use it for whatever reason, then they won't be crushed if they don't get in an ivy...however, if someone with enormous potential fully taps their potential and has everything you could imagine (perfect grades, test scores, recs, national awards), that person could be devastated.

In the bio of a recent Nobel Laureate in physics, he tells the story of how he would really focus on solving problems he was interested in and forgot about some of his classes. As a consequence, he got spotty grades in high school and was rejected by every ivy. (He went to Rochester.) His brother, on the other hand, got the highest average in the history of his high school.

When at Rochester, he really started tapping his potential academically and consequently got into a top 5 grad school in physics (Berkeley,) and the rest is history. The point is that this guy really wasn't that disappointed when he didn't get into his top choices for undergrad because he really wasn't trying. If he had exerted himself to turn in a perfect performance in school like his brother and then got shut out of the top ivies, he may have been devastated. This disappointment could conceivably make it less likely to exert himself in college when it really counted.

simfish · 04-11-2007, 07:49 AM

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In the bio of a recent Nobel Laureate in physics, he tells the story of how he would really focus on solving problems he was interested in and forgot about some of his classes. As a consequence, he got spotty grades in high school and was rejected by every ivy. (He went to Rochester.) His brother, on the other hand, got the highest average in the history of his high school.

Yay, I love Steven Chu!

anitaw · 04-11-2007, 10:31 AM

As an alum I was not impressed with the picture of MIT portrayed at their information sessions or much of the admissions material, it was all 'gee whiz' fun and don't worry about your SATs. I felt it did not represent the rigor of the experience or what is special about being someone for whom the rigor is at the heart of the 'right' college experience. In balance I support Ms. Jones' articulated vision and concerns, but I feel it is too little, too late. Unless parents of 5th and 6th graders start getting the message then it is not relevant.

As for the 'change' in admissions, I very distinctly remember similar complaints from alums 30+years ago when I was a freshperson. I took it personally since the suggestion was that the admissions of more and more women was a reflection of 'changing priorities.' Some things never change.

electron5 · 04-11-2007, 07:20 PM

I really like your point-people always will be complaining about the admissions process. I think it has a little to do with insecurity, but not fully. Reading this thread, I try not to take it personally. I have been accepted to 5 out of 6 schools to which I applied. Are admissions "a complete joke" at every one of them now?

barfdog17 · 04-11-2007, 08:16 PM

It's interesting seeing threads like this, people say all the time how admissions are a crapshoot and such. When my dad was a freshman at MIT he nearly flunked out, cause in high school he was the ****: captain of track team, salutatorian, all that bull. When he got to MIT he just started taking it like high school all over again except it was a hell of a lot harder.

The moral of the story is when he went to talk to the academic and admissions counselors about whether his admittance was a mistake and whether he should be at MIT or not they said the following: We don't make mistakes, you are here because you deserve to be.

He graduated with honors and was accepted for their masters program, but couldn't afford it so took Stanford's acceptance on Lockheed Martin's tab.

If you got in, Lockheed saw you as a fit for them. If you didn't just read the rejection letter, it's no judgement on you as a person, it's just who they could and couldn't take, and they took those that fit the school best.

sakky · 04-11-2007, 09:07 PM

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Actually, the very best top math superstars are NOT at MIT, there are more Putham math winners from MIT simply bacause there are more math students from MIT ( MIT math is about 10 times bigger than Harvard, Princeton, Caltech

I would like to know more about this, specifically as it relates to Harvard. Where is the information that shows that Harvard math is really "10 times bigger" than is MIT?

sakky · 04-11-2007, 09:11 PM

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didn't apply...the school doesn't appeal to my interests, but from what I've seen, their admissions process is ludicrous.

First of all, there's this Marilee Jones character who goes around telling everyone "don't stress out...there's no need," and emphasizes the fairness of the MIT system. Then she and her adcomm consistently reject a huge chunck of the most qualified applicants in favor of much weaker ones who they deem "more interesting" (aka tons of URM's, favoritism towards girls, athletes like crazy)

Seriously, out of the 5 students admitted from my school over the last 2 years, I can say, without any doubt, that not one of them was one of the 10 most qualified applicants from our school.

All but one were hooked...they got in via MIT's unjustly magnified Affirmative Action. These kids were basically, slightly above average math/sci students who couldn't hold a candle to our school's top performers.
That said, from what I've seen, MIT isn't even consistent with it's Affirmative Action....I hear of tons of 1800's/1900's getting in because of URM status, but occasionally they'll reject a 2300+ URM just to prove that they don't accept all URM's.

There was one other candidate accepted from my school, and honestly, it came out of nowhere. He was top 20%, in moderately hard classes, and had an SAT in the low 2000's. Nothing to brag about, but somehow, MIT deemed him interesting and admitted him. He himself admitted that of the 8 applicants from our school that year, he felt 6 of them were better suited for MIT than he was.

Honestly, I saw someone refer to Marilee Jones' new system on the Caltech forum as openly "caring less and less about academics each year," and MIT alumni even agreed. It seems they don't care where you are on the spectrum: as long as MIT deems you "qualified" (which I think they define, for example, as a 650+ on math), it doesn't seem to matter where you are, you're chances of getting in are no better with a 2350 than with a 2000. I'm not saying kids with 2000's shouldn't get in entirely, but that the acceptance rate should obviously be higher for kids with excellent academic records than for kids with "good" academic records. Yes MIT does maintain a high SAT range, but that's much more because of the applicant pool than it is the adcomm.

I'm honestly shocked. A student from my school last year, who everyone refers to as "the smartest kid we've ever met," was rejected. It's one thing to reject qualified applicants in favor of lesser applicants, but it's another thing to reject kids who are like Nobel potential: just flat out brilliant.
The kids that will be attending MIT from my school this year are never mentioned when someone is listing smart kids, for example, they're simply above average, but nothing special, nothing to talk about. At the world's most prestigious Math/Science University, the students SHOULD be something to talk about.

Ivyaccepted, don't you find what you're saying a bit ironic? By your moniker, I assume that you were actually admitted to an Ivy. I don't see MIT admissions to be run any worse than are the Ivies. You complain that certain people with 'hooks' get into MIT over people who are more qualified. Uh, don't you think the same thing is happening with the Ivies? In fact, if anything, I would argue that this probably happens more so at the Ivies

So it begs the question of why is it so wrong for MIT to do what the Ivies are doing?

sakky · 04-11-2007, 09:13 PM

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^But a fairer admissions process has lead to a smarter class, which certainly is a large part of Caltech's long-deserved rise in prestige.

Oh, I don't know about that. Specifically, I don't know if Caltech is necessarily any more prestigious than it was in the past. Caltech has always been prestigious among the technical community. I am not aware of any reason to believe that Caltech has been increasing in prestige lately.

sakky · 04-11-2007, 09:24 PM

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What a nice silly thread to come back to.

Obviously MIT is becoming more Harvard-like and silly in its admissions. They still admit the very top academic superstars to sweep the Putnam, but also admit a whole bunch of academically weak students (by Caltech standards) for balance reasons. That's not bad but it's true. Let's swallow that and get over it. In between those academically weak admitted students and the Putnam superstars, there are lots of good and sometimes even superb kids who get rejected while academically weaker kids get in. That makes people mad and drives threads like this one.

To pebbles -- it is possible to rank people at least coarsely by intelligence in a way that splits MIT students into a few distinct groups. Take off the debating hat for a second -- do you really disagree with me? Do you think the average URM admit is intellectually at the level of the Putnam winners?

I thought the same thing that molliebatmit thought - which is that the average student at MIT or Caltech or any other school, whether URM or not, is not at the level of a Putnam winner.

But anyway, there is a larger point here, which is that, whether you want to call Harvard/MIT admissions silly, it has worked. Like it or not, it works. I agree that Caltech admissions are probably more strictly meritocratic than are the admissions at Harvard or MIT. But be honest, Ben, which school of the 3 has the least prestige? Come on, you know it's true. Similarly, I would say that Stanford, Princeton, Yale, and even Berkeley are probably more prestigious than is Caltech despite being easier from a meritocratic sense to get into.

Look, what can I say? Like it or not, prestige is not highly correlated with meritocratic admissions. Harvard doesn't exactly run the most meritocratic process yet has clearly run away with the top crown for prestige. Life is not fair, like it or not. I continually run into people, even who are technically oriented, who have never heard of Caltech. But I practically never meet anybody who has never heard of Harvard. I have practically never met anybody who is technical who has never heard of MIT. Maybe unfair, but it's true.

PwnzDeLeOwnz · 04-11-2007, 09:28 PM

Wow this thread has grown big!

I always thought Caltech's relative lack prestige was a result of it's small size compared to HYPS and B.

pebbles · 04-11-2007, 09:48 PM

how many faculty members are at Caltech? They have grad schools and such. They are not TINY.

PwnzDeLeOwnz · 04-11-2007, 10:27 PM

I'm not arguing

, I was just saying what I was under the impression of. If you have links and data I'd like to see them since I'm curious and considering Caltech for college.

*Edit* I just looked for some numbers, if anyone's interested Wikipedia has them for each uni.

collegealum314 · 04-11-2007, 11:19 PM

Harvard was founded in 1636; it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. This is a big reason why it is the most well-known university in the United States. Same goes for Yale and Princeton, which are almost as old. It is not the whole reason, but I'm guessing if CalTech was 400 years old instead of 100 than it would be well-known.

Especially in non-technical fields, meritocratic policies don't always augment prestige. But that doesn't mean they aren't right. If Harvard takes the son of all senators no matter how dumb they are and then they end up being president because they have all the connections, then this augments the prestige. It is the smart bet. However, to make way for that senator's son, they may have turned away a smarter person who had better leadership potential.

However, issues like this should not concern MIT and CalTech because they ARE technical colleges. You cannot become a leader in math and science without the raw intelligence and motivation. Now there is no doubt that no matter how quirky admissions at MIT have become, they haven't descended to the level of absurdity of the top ivy leagues. Marilee Jones suggested that 15% of the admitted class wouldn't have gotten in under previous standards. There is no doubt that this number of people "unqualified" under previous MIT standards would be much higher at an ivy league.

Also, a big reason MIT has carved out its own, separate identity is that when you talk to an MIT guy, you know that you are talking to someone who was at valedictorian level or smarter. You can't say that with other colleges. MIT is THE most prestigious engineering school in the world. We don't want to sacrifice that identity. Also, I would venture to say that on a worldwide level MIT is probably more prestigious than Harvard.

Dirt McGirt · 04-12-2007, 01:07 AM

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He graduated with honors

I thought no one graduates MIT with honors, with the idea being that the degree itself is prestigious enough.

pebbles · 04-12-2007, 01:11 AM

I dunno... Harvard is pretty prestigious. :P