<p>@xiggi:</p>
<p>In sports, scrappy gymrat grinder-types are often spoken of approvingly as being hard-working players who make the most of their (perceived limited) athletic ability and being full of heart and fight. Those terms are also invariably only applied to white players.</p>
<p>Stereotypes are interesting, no?</p>
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<p>If you hate esoteric philosophy and you like beer, it isnât fair to your future roommate if you lie about it.</p>
<p>Stanford would be obliged to reject the student if it is from an 18 year old freshman applicant. Claiming that you enjoy drrinking would definitely be a no no.</p>
<p>Sorghum, the letter weâre talking about doesnât go to your real roommate. Itâs an emissions essay.</p>
<p>Gotta love auto correctâŠ</p>
<p>Of course I know that deceit is the practical way forward. But it would be funny if the essays were actually used to make roommate assignments.</p>
<p>I think a lot of essays sound like âemissions essays.â</p>
<p>My understanding has always been that at Stanford the essays ARE actually used (along with other things) to make roommate assignments. They are very proud of their âsecret sauceâ roommate matching process.</p>
<p>At Yale, in my day (which was many days ago), the class was first divided more or less randomly among the 12 residential colleges, then each college had its own process for assigning rooms. In my college, the college Deanâs secretary, who had been there at least 20 years, studied all of the applications and assembled the suites herself, and she was justifiably proud of her success (although, of course, not 100% perfect) in figuring out from the paper records who would go well with whom. There were only about 60 men and 40 women, and in my year the suites were all quads, so it wasnât an impossible project at all. She loved finding odd, highly diverse groupings that would work. And when a suite had personality conflicts (in which the college Dean would have to become involved), she usually knew what the problem was before anyone told her, because she had known it was a possibility all along.</p>
<p>^ schools I know, the result is computerized based on survey.</p>
<p><a href=âYou've requested a page that no longer exists | Stanford Newsâ>You've requested a page that no longer exists | Stanford News;
<p>The roommate essay is not part of roommate assignment anymore (could have been when giants roamed the earth :p).</p>
<p>@xiggiâ
Interesting.
Due to the video game definition of âgrindingâ (performing repetitive and often tedious tasks), I had assumed the term referred to kids who overworked themselves getting As in school but otherwise were fairly unimpressive, including low test scores. Thanks for clearing that up.</p>
<p>texaspg, I was basing my comment on that article. It says that the kids who make the assignments âread applicationsâ including a âshort essay about their living style.â I thought that meant that they use the roommate essay. If thereâs another essay Stanford applicants or accepted students write about their living style, maybe I was wrong.</p>
<p>@JHS - There is a questionnaire being filled out for first year assignments. If I remember right, it is reasonably long with some short descriptive answers. </p>
<p>Any few words about their interests tolerances/intolerances and living style would likely be from that housing questionnaire. Ime, a computer program spits out assignments, except where a few kids ask to be roomed together (S says they donât take these requests) or there is an exceptional need. There are a few major competing sw programs out there for all sorts of college administrative workings.</p>
<p>I know it says S lets there be some hand-picking, but I just doubt itâs entirely custom like that- itâs a big undertaking. In 2010, colleges were just working out the kinks in app downloads and many etceteras.</p>
<p>And, I donât see why âgrindâ has to relate to dubious quality or âhonors of questionable value.â You can have a top performer whose focus is so narrow, heâs perceived as a grind. Itâs one of those concepts dependent on the context. Old comment from MITChris: âI frequently saw kids with perfect SAT scores and perfect grades and a gazillion AP classes get rejected. Why? Because often these kids knew how to grind, but brought nothing else to the table.â</p>
<p>Urban Dictionary: When an individual pushes his/herself to attain a goal. </p>
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<p>To be clear, I wrote about the use of the word when it is MEANT to be pejorative, and how it is most often used on CC. I do not think we will see many âThe kid made it to Yale. Of course, he is such a grinder!â On the other hand, the expression surfaces when a student with great stats was rejected. </p>
<p>Note that I also added the lines about how Tiger Woods often describes his own play when the circumstances are not that great for him ⊠weather, injuries, etc.</p>
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<p>^ Agreed. But it might work in âsecretâ ways. For instance, if they can avoid it, they wonât place two athletes in the same. Twin brothers or sisters are usually separated. Inasmuch as they do place two recruited athletes in the same room, the roommate will be someone who understands the life of an athlete or might have been an athlete that did not get or accept a scholarship offer. They will try to avoid coupling a swimmer who wakes up at 4AM with a student who described working through the night. </p>
<p>Of course, it is based on the information they gather (be it essays or the questionaire) and it remains entirely possible that a student was not exactly truthful without being malicious about it. A very messy kid might have declared he loved a very organized room! </p>
<p>One of the great things about Stanford is that there is an aura of mystery surrounding the moving in, No previous contacts. Just a name stuck to the door of your freshman dorm! And if it does not work out, it is only for a short period of time. It is doubtful that it has a 100 percent efficiency! </p>
<p>lookingforward, the comment from the old MIT admissions web site about students who âknew how to grind, but brought nothing else to the tableâ was emphatically not a comment by MITChris.</p>
<p>It was a comment by Ben Jones, who no longer works for MIT admissions (no relation to Marilee Jones).</p>
<p>I think this comment shows a lot of insensitivity and rather limited experience. I have never met anyone who âbrought nothing else to the table,â aside from a strong work ethic and a lot of stamina.</p>
<p>I also think that you will find that the MIT website has been revised, and that most if not all of the negative commentary about students with 4.0 GPA, multiple 800âs and âa gazillion APâsâ have been removed. MITChris got the point that it is fine to reject students with those qualifications (and every top university does so), but it is not fine to make fun of them into the bargain. </p>
<p>I started âCelebrating Our Common Humanity Dayâ a year ago, held right after MIT regular admissions decisions were released, with the idea of reminding people that the students with high qualifications in terms of âstatsâ were not robots, but real human beings, with real feelings. I also wanted to remind people that students with Aspergerâs (now classified as high-functioning on the autism spectrum) are also fully human, as was an MIT interviewee once described by his interviewer in terms something like âonly vaguely human.â The students called âclonesâ by some on CC are also fully human, and have no replicas.</p>
<p>This year, I was very pleased to see none of those negative comments about rejected applicants, in the MIT Forum. If there were any, I missed them. So I didnât repeat the celebration. I am dismayed to see negative commentary about well-qualified students (even about hypothetical students) popping up back here in the Parents Forum.</p>
<p>Right, Ben. Still, an appropriate example of how a kid can be a âgrindâ (any way, any context, any sayer) and still have legit achievements. </p>
<p>Letâs try to keep this in perspective. </p>
<p>And, for anyoneâs reading pleasure, hereâs a great article on some great kids, doing more than schoolwork. <a href=âThe Most Impressive MIT Studentsâ>The Most Impressive MIT Students;
<p>The students that Ben Jones was deriding did have legitimate accomplishments, of course. What they didnât have, according to Ben, was anything else to âbring to the table.â I think this is flat out false. Perhaps Ben did not see what else they brought. That is different, and itâs really a comment on Ben, rather than on the applicants.</p>
<p>MITChris understood the impact of some of the earlier MIT admissions web site comments on a range of potentially desirable applicants, and those comments are now gone. I thanked MITChris for that by PM, and I think I may also have thanked him publicly on the MIT forum. </p>
<p>It does matter to me. </p>