<p>How’s this for a breakfast-related analogy. The “recipe” is like a smoothie in a blender. It’s not precise at all, but after years of making them you have a very high rate of success. You add some ice, yogurt, maybe a little protein powder if you are into that. Some juice or almond milk if it is too thick. Then you start dropping in the best fruit you have available until the blender can hold no more. Sadly, you may not be able to squeeze in those last few strawberries, or have any room at all for a gorgeous nectarine. When you are done, the mix you have is as good as you can get it. The fruit that didn’t make the cut is still wonderful and delicious. It will just be enjoyed somewhere else.</p>
<p>I haven’t even been away from this thread for that long, and too many issues have already cropped up for me to handle.</p>
<p>It’s ok, PG, you did not actually hurt my feelings, although I have to admit I was a bit taken aback by your question about my being on the spectrum. </p>
<p>fretfulmother, I think you joined the forum after I posted quite a lot of numbers in support of a suggestion that MIT should admit everyone with a non-zero USAMO score, achieved by the junior year in high school (excluding only students with disqualifying aspects of character). It wouldn’t strain their admissions, if my numbers are right. This suggestion met with the same level of enthusiasm that my suggestions are encountering on this thread. 
Later on, I will try to locate the thread and send you a private message so you can read it if you are interested.</p>
<p>alh is right that my posts about MIT aren’t exclusively about MIT–and maybe is charitable in extending me a bit more credit about that than I deserve. Partly, my comments have focused on MIT quite a lot, precisely because they have been more transparent about their admissions process than most. So one has a pretty clear idea what it was/is. Partly, my comments have featured MIT, because they have a different mission from Harvard’s, Yale’s, Princeton’s, Stanford’s, Columbia’s, Chicago’s, Duke’s, Northwestern’s, Vanderbilt’s, UC Berkeley’s . . . (not intending to slight anyone with the accidental omission of their favorite top school). So my remarks are more applicable to MIT, I think. </p>
<p>Caltech has a mission that is fairly similar to MIT’s, but their admissions philosophy is quite different from MIT’s. It’s scientific potential all the way down. I have criticized Caltech’s policy too, though. I believe they should think harder about affirmative action, and that they should practice it in some form. I don’t think it would be doing an underprepared student a favor to admit the student to Caltech without any extra preparation. If I were the President of Caltech, I would think about various ways to offer extra preparation to students with potential. Caltech does run a 2/3 program with some other universities, where the student spends 2 years at the other college, and then spends 3 more years at Caltech. I don’t know whether there is any affirmative action impact of this arrangement.</p>
<p>Finally, I do not place STEM above the humanities, in any sense. I don’t imagine that the geniuses are concentrated in STEM. Some are, more aren’t. </p>
<p>Some of the posters have argued that Harvard already does what I have suggested, with regard to the admission of super-bright applicants. Others seem to think that this is unnecessary, or even that there is something wrong with a super-bright applicant who cannot flourish equally well at any of a reasonably large number of schools. I think some people think that it would be just plain wrong to adopt my suggestion, or that it would interfere with the best composition of the class as a whole.</p>
<p>I don’t know what Harvard does. They might well be doing as I have suggested. I have close-read their statement about admitting the 200-300 students each year who are among the most promising scholars of their generation (paraphrased, might not be precisely what the Dean of Admissions said). I find it ambiguous. It is consistent with doing as I have suggested but it allows the room not to do it (by use of the word “among”).</p>
<p>I like Helen Vendler’s suggestion that Harvard should admit more poets. I don’t think you will necessarily find them among the winners of student literary contests (“how public, like a frog”).</p>
<p>Texaspg, you are asking the right questions, imo. Representing yourself authentically, xiggi’s note, doesn’t mean without filters or savvy. And “show, not tell” is important. An issue that can come up with undecided is how to weigh the choices the kid did make, the picture it’s presenting. When the kid is nicely rounded, math-sci and humanities rigor/performance, it’s easier to see the wider prep. But they’re also looking at ECs.</p>
<p>Most kids can’t artificially manufacture the right “picture” because they haven’t explored deeply enough, they don’t know the components, only what others think. The recipe analogy might be that they don’t realize bread needs yeast, having only used boxed mixes. Stanford used to say they like kids who have been entrepreneurial about their educations (I don’t find the quote now.) It doesn’t mean be an entrepreneur or try to look like one. It means showing that desire to expand academically, having recognized the value in that and taken some risks. </p>
<p>Alh, the registered adcoms speak for their schools. I don’t. I speak for my observations. I’m not an adcom but part of the team. If someone needs to know, needs to test all this to see why I take the stand I do, PM me. I won’t name the school. </p>
<p>And QM, you must have gagged over “grade grubbers.” It helps me see your reaction to the other words you have mentioned. :)</p>
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<p>Not really. They all have a cake. They all don’t have the right ingredients in the right quantities with the correct type of baking that specific school adcoms find tasty enough. I agree that it is not a single recipe at each school but a cake can be made appealing enough in whatever category you want to submit to. </p>
<p>There is also more than one school which is looking for similar high quality cakes and one or more of them can find it appealing. If one has a list of schools that are willing to attend and they have submitted samples, there will be a place somewhere for them.</p>
<p>“fretfulmother, I think you joined the forum after I posted quite a lot of numbers in support of a suggestion that MIT should admit everyone with a non-zero USAMO score, achieved by the junior year in high school (excluding only students with disqualifying aspects of character). It wouldn’t strain their admissions, if my numbers are right.”</p>
<p>Let’s say your policy was implemented and MIT announced it tomorrow.</p>
<p>I agree with you it wouldn’t strain their admissions – it is not that I believe that there would be such a drastic change in the # of people who would get the automatic in that I think would make a meaningful difference.</p>
<p>But here’s the rub …</p>
<p>To alh’s lament of "what does it mean to chase after top 20 schools and define your life by conforming to what adcoms want…"well, you’ve just EXACERBATED that problem by telling them “here’s precisely the hurdle you must jump.” </p>
<p>To all the students on CC who complain that their parents have told that they have to get into an Ivy or the shame of the family will be upon them and they won’t have accounted for anything if they don’t … well, you’ve just guaranteed these students will be forced at emotional gunpoint to spend their time chasing after USAMO, even if they’d rather be (and would be better at being) playwrights or historians.</p>
<p>Do you really think it’s going to entice more people to want to study math at high levels? Or is it going to result in EVEN MORE pressure on students?</p>
<p>That’s why, conceptually, I don’t think it’s a good thing. It is not that I don’t believe USAMO scores don’t indicate high proficiency in math. It is that an auto-admission ticket, however well-meaning, will be perverted by the system.</p>
<p>I kind of suspect, though I have no way of knowing, that MIT (et al) already know this, and that’s why they still want their applicants to be the best they can be in their own universes, rather than defining a universe for them.</p>
<p>lookingforward, I don’t gag over “grade grubbers” because no scientist I know fits that mold. Many scientists I know work long enough hours and intensely enough that they might be said to “grind.” (Apologies for making this term explicit again.)</p>
<p>I think the “grade grubber” as a type does exist. It’s perhaps an unfortunate term, because it doesn’t describe precisely what the students are doing. I would call the person “grade focused” or perhaps “grade-o-centric.” I think that a lot of this behavior could be eliminated if medical schools paid more attention to the quality of a student’s course choices, and less to the numerical GPA.</p>
<p>That’s kind of an ironic thing to say, QM, because in essence you’re advocating that MIT become more “grade-o-centric” - with the grade simply being USAMO scores as opposed to what you got in Calc BC at Sweet Valley High.
Your proposal would <em>create</em> USAMO “grade-grubbers.” </p>
<p>QM, much has been made of Vendler and I think Harvard itself calls her beloved or esteemed or some such. But her words/ideas, still have to fit within the college’s broader goals. It’s tough to identify a “promising” kid without the evidence he or she has already flexed some might. And will fit, in ways the U wants and needs. </p>
<p>And then why the fuss over “robots” if grade grubbing isn’t pretty much the same thing? If the former paints an unpleasant picture, denigrates the kid, why not the latter?</p>
<p>And the point is, imo, the institutions aren’t as swayed by unilateral (a much better word) as many think they are or should be. The ability to focus is as important as the ability to climb out of your own little box and the ability to see and do a bit more than just what the hs offers you.</p>
<p>I just don’t understand the naming of multiple valedictorians at schools. It cheapens the whole process. Our local high school names just one, along with a salutatorian, to tie you must have the exact same average out to the thousandth of a point. The rest of the class is not ranked. Therefore. my D with the 4.0 will be neither, and thats just fine. As has been mentioned before, the top rankings can be the result of gamesmanship - taking that extra weighted course in schools that weight, or avoiding the more difficult classes in schools that don’t. It’s a nice accomplishment, but not necessarily as meaningful as people think. </p>
<h1>424 Alh, the registered adcoms speak for their schools. I don’t. I speak for my observations. I’m not an adcom but part of the team. If someone needs to know, needs to test all this to see why I take the stand I do, PM me. I won’t name the school.</h1>
<p>I really don’t care what school it is. My issue is whether your behavior on the board is professional. If it isn’t, that kind of impacts (for me) the value of the advice you give. Would the others on your team regard posting as an anonymous admissions officer (as opposed to yet another concerned parent, which you also seem to be) as appropriate professional conduct?</p>
<h1>421 *alh is right that my posts about MIT aren’t exclusively about MIT–and maybe is charitable in extending me a bit more credit about that than I deserve. *</h1>
<p>At this point I’m reading this never ending discussion as a metaphor for contemporary life, so I’m giving you almost unlimited credit. </p>
<p>Oh, for goodness sake. And if LF didn’t reveal her “status,” her credibility would be attacked. Can’t win for losing.</p>
<p>"That’s kind of an ironic thing to say, QM, because in essence you’re advocating that MIT become more “grade-o-centric” - with the grade simply being USAMO scores as opposed to what you got in Calc BC at Sweet Valley High.
Your proposal would <em>create</em> USAMO “grade-grubbers.” "</p>
<p>I’m not sure I agree with this. It’s incredibly hard even for brilliant, mathy kids, to get to the USAMO, let alone get a non-zero. My suspicion is that to have this be the MIT hurdle would be analogous to having a 3.5-minute mile or something similar. Sure, some kids could devote their lives to it and maybe get close, but it actually takes innate ability plus years of work to achieve that.</p>
<p>You might get math-preparation-academies springing up like mushrooms even more than they do already - but actually, Art of Problem Solving currently offers courses open to everyone to prepare for the USAMO, they get one might say the most dedicated/talented students to join, and it’s <em>still</em> nearly impossible to get a non-zero.</p>
<h1>434 That is a good point PG, but doesn’t really deal with the issue of professional conduct. I honestly don’t know the answer to that question. But it has been bothering me for a while.</h1>
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<p>It’s the product of the “everyone gets a trophy” generation. I don’t think we’d be having this discussion if not for that.</p>
<p>I agree that that it’s incredibly hard even for brilliant mathy kids to get to the USAMO/ get the non-zero, so it’s not that I think there will be “winners” who don’t “deserve” it - it’s that I think even more kids will be pressured into a path that isn’t the right path for them because there’s a Golden Ticket to MIT being waved over it. </p>
<p>The stories of kids on CC whose parents pressure them to pursue select EC’s, majors, interests, etc. are already disheartening enough. I don’t think we need to add to it by now telling the parents there is a Golden Ticket.</p>
<p>Look what’s happened to youth sports - what used to be fun-in-the-sun play is now Taken Seriously by legions of obnoxious pushy parents because they think there is a golden scholarship and / or admissions ticket waiting at the back end, so by golly Johnny’s going to get out there and practice soccer even more, even though Johnny would be better served by doing something different. I think QM’s proposal, while certainly well-intentioned, would create / exacerbate the same kind of thing. </p>
<p>I want kids who do USAMO to be doing it because they love math, it’s fun, this is cool, I love solving these problems - not because there’s a golden ticket attached to it. </p>
<p>*"That’s kind of an ironic thing to say, QM, because in essence you’re advocating that MIT become more “grade-o-centric” - with the grade simply being USAMO scores as opposed to what you got in Calc BC at Sweet Valley High.
Your proposal would <em>create</em> USAMO “grade-grubbers.” *</p>
<p>We really do bring very different POVs to this discussion. PG, I am pretty sure on a “tiger mom” thread you said the real problem with that sort of parenting is that it doesn’t even work… which seemed perfectly true to me.</p>
<p>On yet another thread, a parent wrote something to the effect “the point of college is to get a diploma and education is sort of a by-product” I am paraphrasing here. </p>
<p>Obviously there are families where the point is the credential and the point of parenting is to get kids that credential.</p>
<p>There are other approaches. There are families who think the point of college is the educational opportunities. They are only impressed with schools that provide certain opportunities. If they are highly ranked schools, that is pretty much coincidental. They think some highly ranked schools aren’t worth the money. It really isn’t about USNEWS and World Report for these folks. (Does this sound like Ripley’s Believe It Or Not? - maybe it is, but I still believe it) The kids in those families aren’t going to start lining up to do USAMO to increase their chances at certain schools. And those are the sort of kids I am thinking about when it is argued some kids may be in a position to make best use of resources at certain schools.</p>
<p>It is a hard idea to tease out, The motivations behind super achievers. I am just playing around with the idea above.</p>