<p>Regarding post 447 (and other similar posts) - It is a bit late I think to stop parents from pushing their kids to try to qualify for USAMO. Even though USAMO doesn’t result in an automatic acceptance at MIT, it is already well “known” that qualification will increase chances at getting into college. There is a whole industry geared towards preparing students for math competitions, seemingly without much concern for generating a genuine interest in math. </p>
<p>3togo, I object to people being described as “having no personality,” because it is false, and also offensive.</p>
<p>I dislike the use of the term “grind,” because to me “grinding” includes joylessness in the work. The scientists I know work essentially all of the time. They are not “grinding” in my sense of the term (Added later: well, I should amend this to say not in any sense of the term that I use).</p>
<p>In case it got buried in my verbosity, I objected more to the idea that the students who “knew how to grind” had “nothing else to bring to the table,” than I objected to the “grinding” part of the statement itself. That seems to me to be a false assessment of every human being I have known, regardless of talent level. I think it is dismissive of human individuality and personal contributions.</p>
<p>When it comes to “grade grubbers,” to the best of my knowledge, I have never labeled anyone a “grade grubber.” However, among pre-medical students, I have observed behaviors that might fit that label, much more than the claim that someone has “no personality” fits any person whatever. There are many students who opt for the lower-level, less-challenging offerings of introductory courses, in order to maximize the GPA’s. This in itself I do not consider “grade grubbing.” I have more in mind the students who want more partial credit for wrong answers on every exam. I suggested “grade-o-centric” as an alternative designation. Regrettably, I think that med school admissions policies promote this approach to undergraduate work. Perhaps they do give extra consideration for the rigor of the curriculum, but I think that quite a few med schools are purely numbers-driven.</p>
<p>It would be as if Olympic diving were scored exclusively on the execution of the dives attempted, with no difficulty factor. In the Olympics, doing a very difficult dive poorly does not help an athlete at all. But doing a very difficult dive well gives the athlete a lot more points than executing an easy dive quite well.</p>
<p>I seem to work in a kinder, gentler environment than you do, 3togo. I have certainly heard very, very few of these negative categorizations of applicants at any level. Perhaps really zero. I have worked here for a long time, and while my memory is excellent, it is not perfect.</p>
<p>I have certainly never labeled anyone a “grade grubber” in the context of admissions, scholarship, or fellowship considerations. At the level of hiring post-docs or faculty, grades are largely irrelevant, so it would be a total non-issue.</p>
<p>But the quote wasn’t equating grinds as bringing nothing. It referred to the subset that didn’t. You can look at the quote- and see the many different defs in urban dictionary. While there, look at grade grubbing- which, on one of their pages. they suggest is synonymous with grade whore. Not pretty. </p>
<p>lookingforward, the quotation from Ben Jones also contained both “often” and “frequently,” in the context of students who “knew how to grind” but had nothing else to “bring to the table.”</p>
<p>I categorically deny that any human being, no matter how single-mindedly he/she has been working, has “nothing else to bring to the table.” As I mentioned above, it’s that more than the “grinding,” that really bothers me.</p>
<p>And my goodness! I would never use the synonym for “grade grubber” that you took from the urban dictionary! Not ever! I hope you will edit it back out of this discussion.</p>
<p>"My view that I have expressed on this thread is that the admissions officers have a hard time telling those kids apart from the kids who are actually interested in what they are doing. I admit, at the high school level this is hard and it’s made harder by the fact that interviews are not as rigorous as they could be. "</p>
<p>Right. It’s subtle. And … SUBJECTIVE. And HOLISTIC. Things that many on this thread have issues with</p>
<p>You really want to make interviews count more? And then we’re going to get the complaining that the brilliant kid who gets nervous, isn’t able to look the interviewer in the eye or give a firm handshake, is going to get dinged compared to the less brilliant but able to charm kid who is able to look the interviewer in the eye and give a pleasant and thorough and thoughtful reply as to why she wants to be a doctor.</p>
<p>It’s pretty self evident that what might impress me in an interview doesn’t impress you, and vice versa. That’s even more random. </p>
<p>So, the problem in college admissions can be solved by more subjective, holistic assessments of people’s fit and readiness and passion! </p>
<p>Often and frequently remain imprecise.<br>
QM, it’s an app. Not all kids know how to suggest what they bring beyond quantitative. You (meaning QM) can see they offer more but the vehicle is the app, which the kid fills out, based on his understanding and the self presentation he wants to make. We see this all the time on the chance-me threads. We need to explain to them that there is a “more.” </p>
<p>The synonym shows the severity of the term GG, while grinder at least has some reference to hard work-- “When an individual pushes his/herself to attain a goal.” Which I find neutral. Look at both expressions and see the difference.</p>
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<p>I believe you are misrepresenting what I said. Just so we are clear, I am suggesting that more humanities students should choose to apply to Stanford over #NAMEYOURSCHOOL which might be perceived better than Stanford for humanities when they are genuinely interested in those majors. It is one man’s opinion that a humanities person has better odds than CS oriented person at S and I don’t care whether people consider this is a way to game the system. Someone who has a genuine application will be admitted based on their credentials over others.</p>
<p>At 5% admit rate, I wonder who would give a rodent’s behind for my opinions to try faking an app is beyond me. </p>
<p>On a side note, I tell many that a woman applying to MIT has twice the odds of making it in compared to a man - would you postulate that I am advocating boys pretend to be girls to get into MIT?</p>
<p>"Just so we are clear, I am suggesting that more humanities students should choose to apply to Stanford over #NAMEYOURSCHOOL which might be perceived better than Stanford for humanities when they are genuinely interested in those majors. It is one man’s opinion that a humanities person has better odds than CS oriented person at S and I don’t care whether people consider this is a way to game the system. "</p>
<p>How about people just apply where they want to go, instead of contorting themselves because they need to wear a certain sweatshirt?</p>
<p>They don’t all know where they want to go. Not everyone is privileged enough to tour a bunch of schools and form an opinion.</p>
<p>I went to a Vanderbilt presentation yesterday and listened to a local kid who completed his freshman year there. His ringing endorsement as to why he applied to Vanderbilt - “I had 4 schools on my list, counselor said you need 5, pick Vanderbilt”.</p>
<p>It’s the phrase has “nothing more to bring to the table” that I really objected to in the MIT blog quotation, and not so much the “grinding,” per se. (I’ve written this about 4 times now.) “Often” and “frequently” do indeed remain imprecise. The comment does refer to a proper subset of the students with “top stats” and not to the entire set. But the word choice was not “occasionally” nor “rarely.” </p>
<p>Marilee Jones reportedly referred to “yet another textureless math grind” in a comment cited in Daniel Golden’s The Price of Admissions, and also cited in the MIT student newspaper The Tech on 3/9/2007. Perhaps she did not say this. I can’t confirm it independently, although I think that the comment was reported in the Wall Street Journal, too. (Golden may have also been the reporter of the WSJ article.) However, it’s pretty clear that the term is not being used in a neutral sense there, if she did say it.</p>
<p>I certainly understand that students may have difficulty in communicating their other attributes. That is something for everyone to work on. Perhaps the MIT admissions staff member was just sloppy in saying that the students “had nothing more to bring to the table.” That sounds to me like a judgment of the student, though, and not simply a statement that the student didn’t put together a compelling admissions package. As a judgment of any student, it is categorically false. </p>
<p>It’s my general impression that most folks consider Stanford pretty good in the humanities. And I tend to hang out in heavily academic circles.</p>
<p>I have only used the urban dictionary once. I found it very coarse. I did look up a term in it one time, when QMP was complaining about the vulgarity of songs being played over the loudspeaker in the high school cafeteria at lunch, and I had no idea what one of the words meant. I might use terms that have synonyms listed in the urban dictionary, but their usage does not conform to mine . . . although they do have a really derisory definition of CC, which comes up when you Google college confidential. By our continued postings on CC, I think it is clear that we do not subscribe to the urban dictionary definition.</p>
<p>So we are at an impasse. Can’t agree on what a word means, so how do we judge its use?</p>
<p>How do they know a kid brings more to the table if it’s not in the app? Assume, because all kids do offer something? Then what about the kids that displaces? The ones whose bell rang through loud and clear? Oops. You can’t rely on LoRs. Even with great kids they often fall short. It’s still a self presentation, a request to be admitted… That doesn’t imply you fake anything. Just put you best and relevant foot forward. Don’t make them guess.</p>
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<p>Forget about my perception of what you wrote. It might be my own fault to take your words too literally. So let me ask you if you … agree with me on the points I raised, namely that Stanford does not have major-specific admissions and that applicants should present themselves honestly, and thus provide a truthful insight into their past activities and future plans? </p>
<p>For the record, and perhaps because of my “misunderstanding” of what you were actually sharing, I was rather surprise your comments described Stanford’s admissions. For what it is worth, despite its success in bridging academia and the new “CS” world, it is hardly a school that considers the liberal arts as an afterthought, or has become technological institute cum some leftover courses. </p>
<p>Please note that I fully understood the quotations and links you posted, It is clear that Stanford is intent to preserve the balance by introducing more “integrated” majors to satisfy the diversified interests of its students. After all, Stanford might be in the enviable position to understand that coders and techies still need how to learn how to think and communicate at a high level. </p>
<p>Not to mention the enviable position to be able to AFFORD the right mix of science and humanities and overcome the enormous imbalance in outside funding that afflicts most colleges in the nation. And perhaps offering a voice of reason in a sea of journalistic claims that people with a degree in the humanities are none other than the future Walmart and Applebee’s workers. </p>
<p>QM, although I prefer to stay on the sidelines of the “grinder” debate, here is an article to kindle the fire and support your recollection. </p>
<p><a href=“The Harvard Crimson”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/11/15/fighting-for-depth-peipei-x-zhang/</a></p>
<p>or </p>
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<p>Fwiw, the story about Henry Park earned quite a few pixels right here on CC when those stories still appeared worthy of a large debate. From Groton’s Park to Jian Li, it is prettty obvious that the people who made the ultimate decisions did find the need to be overly diplomatic or PC. They did consider them to be … exactly how they described them, </p>
<p>And this with the benefit of their application in front of them! </p>
<p>PS Golden, for all its credentials and journalistic prowesses, was not above making research mistakes. His entire sections on discrimination were build on sketchy and incomplete documentation, For instance, he did cling on the preliminary “findings” based on allegations presented to the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights but never bothered reporting that those claims were found … to be baseless in the final analysis. And, obviously, the conclusions were not supporting the needed sensationalism of the chapters. </p>
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<p>TPG, you ought to google to find the You Tube presentations by the admission “jefes” at Vanderbilt. They represent arguably the very best in the genre! </p>
<p>xiggi, #496: Well, I don’t know. Either Marilee was quoted correctly, or she wasn’t. It might be possible to find evidence that she denied saying anything like what she was quoted as saying. That would be useful.</p>
<p>It is very possible that common English words such as “cup,” tank," “glass,” “thud,” “crumple,” and “tree” have synonyms given on urban dictionary. That doesn’t mean that I am alluding to them (if they exist) in this post. Nor am I going to check words I use against the possibility of a vulgar definition on urban dictionary. </p>
<p>Do you equate the two terms that refer to someone who pursues high grades, lookingforward? Did you know the second term before you looked at urban dictionary? I can honestly say I never heard it.</p>