<p>I think need blind means need blind, usually even from the waitlist. I know there are exceptions, though. I think a couple of years ago Reed notified students on the waitlist of something to the effect that there would be little or no FA for students on the waitlist (honestly can’t remember the exact details, but maybe someone else does). But I do not think need-blind schools normally use that info even for the waitlist.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, that’s the irony. They don’t really understand social skills so they they attribute it to certain activities rather than how you interact with people. And they end up accusing other people of being robots if they don’t have those activities. At a university which shall remain nameless, I remember frat people i knew making fun of the “nerds with no social skills” that lived in the dorms.</p>
1 Like
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t want to speak for Qmech, but it seems like sort of a lost cause to suggest that the singlemindedness, precision towards detail, and intellectual rigor and critical thinking required for science are also invaluable to most careers. So instead I make the easier case that it is critically important to approach school with these traits when one is to become a scientist. Also, I can speak from more authority because this is my field.</p>
<p>Usually, it is non-scientists who suggests the traits which make someone a good scientist have no bearing in the real world. </p>
<p>Different colleges have different policies about how they choose from the waitlist. That can include need blind schools. So, yes, some will use aid/need considerations. But you can still be proud they liked and accepted him. They sometimes state their policy in FAQ or elsewhere.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d like to see more scientific reasoning applied to these discussions, than emotional. More logic and critical thinking.</p>
<p>@Quantmech: there are actually a decent number of undergrad programs as rigorous as MIT in engineering and the sciences (and grad schools and employers know that) that are easier to enter. Granted, your fellow students may not have as good stats/ECs/well-roundedness/whatever, and more of them will drop out of the program, but if you are targeting MIT because of its rigor, you can definitely find that in other schools that are easier to enter.</p>
<p>I’m still a bit confused here. If colleges accept students that they think are interesting and reject students that they think are boring, is it better for the college to reveal this or to keep it a secret?</p>
<p>I think painting them as interesting vs boring is severe Think of it as cherry-picking from a vast pool of academically qualified kids. Some kids offer different combinations of energies or personal attributes. Ultimately, the private colleges are trying to form a group, a community that suits them. Since none are cinder-block, academics-only institutions, more than academic strengths and interests comes into play. </p>
<p>The transparency is still selective. But every elite we mention can be “read” to some extent, if folk are willing. When the one we’re focusing on right now openly says we want some rounding, some varied interests, etc, kids should be able to recognize that, as part of their self-matching. </p>
<p>Many kids tend to think of college in yea-nay terms- can I get into Harvard? They talk about “passions” as something you simply state. When there is a huge swarm of candidates, obviously admissions is a complex process. </p>
<p>Nm</p>
<p>So, all applicants are interesting; it’s just that some are more interesting than others. Personally, I think there’s too much hand-wringing over the simple fact that schools look at more than stats.</p>
<p>Hunt is right: all applicants, especially at the tippy-top, are interesting. </p>
<p>What kids don’t get is that the schools want a whole lot of different kinds of interesting so that the school itself will be an interesting place to be. And the problem for a lot of these kids is that their version of “interesting” looks
a lot like everyone else’s version.</p>
<p>So if a school is going through a pile of academically well-qualified applications, sometimes the applicants who randomly are on the top of the pile have already filled the slots for a particular version of “interesting” by the time they get to your application, with the same version of interesting–and so your application gets put on the wait list or deny pile.</p>
<p>In other words, the school might have already accepted a good number of sword-fighting thespians who volunteer at a hospice, and a good number of cancer researchers who play piano at the nursing home every week, and the first chair violins who tutor Hispanic children in English and math–so the kid who bags groceries to pay for acrobatics lessons looks different and refreshing. Unless they already have some of those. So then the kid who backpacked the Appalachian trail looks fresh. Or the kid who is involved with the community garden. Or the kid with the widowed father and two younger sibs who keeps the house going while dad holds down two jobs.</p>
<p>Also, a lot of times applicants have a very narrow view of the ‘academically qualified" thinking each additional point trumps all–they don’t realize that at the upper end of the scoring scale, there really isn’t much of a difference in applicants’ qualifications. Jonny might have gotten a 750, trumping Bobby’s 730–but at most, it’s a difference of only a question or two, and doesn’t mean much–so schools don’t put a whole lot of emphasis on it. So then Jonny is shocked and disappointed if Bobby gets in to “ivy” ahead of him.</p>
<p>I think what QM worries about is that there is a case to be made that some portion of an MIT (or any other elite institution) class should be made of people whose interests are purely academic. A while back Harvard said that they pick a couple of hundred kids that they perceive as the top minds of their generation. For those kids ECs probably don’t matter, or at least their ECs can be all in the area of their interests. (My oldest was of this type and got into Harvard and not MIT in the era we were discussing earlier BTW.) </p>
<p>I do think it behooves the top academic kids to present themselves as interesting in some other way if they can. My oldest could have done a better job of this than he did. </p>
<p>If MIT felt their admissions policy needed changing, they’d do so, but obviously they don’t feel that giving automatic guarantees to winners of certain competitions is worth it. They’re the best judges of their own institutional needs, not QM or me or anyone else. </p>
<p>It’s kind of self serving, though, to pretend that the thing YOU excel in is what someone else should value. To extend JHS’ metaphor about Scarlett Johansson on another thread, it’s like Scarlett Johansson saying she wants someone who is dashingly handsome,well dressed, and fun, and someone who offers none of those things but has a 2400 SAT tells her that she really oughta value high SATs as she chooses who to date. Nice try, but no. You don’t get to decide for an institution what they do and do not value, as long as they are within the law. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Who is “they”? “MIT” is not one monolithic group. I think you don’t understand how university politics work, particularly with something which is not viewed as one of the priorities of administration – which is bringing in research funds. </p>
<p>In the 80’s, there was talk of how MIT students should select for more well-rounded people. That was nixed after some big shot from Kodak came in and gave a speech on how that was a stupid idea. </p>
<p>People on the faculty have told me stories about where a small cadre of people pushed through some kind of directive which much of the faculty was not consulted on.<br>
Also, universities aren’t like companies which have one boss who can fire everybody. Faculty think of themselves as their own bosses, which may be one reason why politics there is so messy–everyone has their own fiefdom and they don’t take orders. So your insistence on comparing it to what happens at a company is incorrect.</p>
<p>
I had plenty of other things on my resume’, even things which I feel were overvalued by admissions.</p>
<p>Secondly, you are making the same kind of cardinal mistake that many techies make, which is thinking that anything out of the realm of math and physics has no right or wrong answer. A painting or essay can be put together poorly, the color composition or words may have been poor choices or inconsistent with other choices, or these small choices may be incongruent with the larger stated mission statement. </p>
<p>“People on the faculty have told me stories about where a small cadre of people pushed through some kind of directive which much of the faculty was not consulted on.”</p>
<p>So did they a) sit there and steam about it, or b) band together and approach the powers that be and present their concerns? </p>
<p>I find it very hard to believe that if the collective faculty at MIT really wNted to ensure everyone who won X competition was granted auto admit, they couldn’t make it happen. </p>
<p>Or maybe, despite all their brains, they aren’t good at negotiating and dealing in the real world and with other people, which is a fatal flaw even if you’ve won every competition in the land. </p>
<p>Since some of my tax dollars support MIT (and other universities) I do think I get to express an opinion about their policies, including admissions. </p>
<p>Thanks to QM for pointing out the “othering” which continues to really bother me on these threads, along with the idea it’s okay for admissions committees tell us how to raise our kids: how to structure their academics and what they should do with their “free” time.</p>
<p>Are there really right and wrong answers in math and physics? : )<br>
I don’t know the answer. : (</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I would say there are… we just don’t know them all yet. :)</p>
<p>“hanks to QM for pointing out the “othering” which continues to really bother me on these threads, along with the idea it’s okay for admissions committees tell us how to raise our kids: how to structure their academics and what they should do with their “free” time.”</p>
<p>Oh my. How on earth do adcoms “tell you how to raise your kids”? Is there a gun pointed to your head that mandates that your kid apply to elite schools, or any school for that matter? Raise your kid however you like. No adcom is stopping you. Sheesh, talk about giving them the power. They have NO power unless you let them. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The obvious rebuttal to this is that people are free to go to another university which reflects your value system, and that the amount of success you have is not limited by going to the #15 school vs. the #1 school. I still think you have a valid point, and I’ll respond to this rebuttal later.</p>
<p>“Since some of my tax dollars support MIT (and other universities) I do think I get to express an opinion about their policies, including admissions.”</p>
<p>Fair enough, but personally if we want to talk about travesties in college admission, it’s state schools letting in and passing through kids who are basically illiterate just because they can throw a football - not the travesty that Johnny 2400 had to slum it at CMU instead of MIT. You’ll forgive me if I suggest that first problem is 200x worse and far more widespread than the second. </p>
<p>PG: I don’t have time to go back through the thread right now, but did you really accuse QM of being too literal?
; )</p>