5 Little Known Tips for Getting In

QuantMech · August 12, 2014, 10:34pm

If the official MIT admissions blog had said, “Often the students [with top stats] didn’t manage to put a compelling package together,” I would buy that. The stats cited [4.0 UW GPA, all 800’s on the SAT I and SAT II, “a gazillion” AP’s] are nowhere near enough to place the student among the group I have been writing about.

But the blog didn’t say that. It said that the writer frequently saw applicants with such stats rejected, because often they knew how to grind, but did not have anything more to bring to the table. [Paraphrase, maybe frequently and often are interchanged or in slightly different positions in the actual quotation, perhaps other errors of memory]

This is false. They had more to bring to the table, whether it was evident to BJ or not. Fault the students, perhaps, for not making what they had to offer plain as day to him. But I am inclined to think that he often saw this because before better advice about college admissions was out there, students imagined that they were principally about academics. Students attempting to present an academic focus in their applications were under-informed. This probably happens less frequently now.

Pizzagirl · August 12, 2014, 10:43pm

To me, the Marilee Jones quote was cringeworthy but it would have been less so if she had just said textureless math grind. Linking it to ethnicity made it worse.

Pizzagirl · August 12, 2014, 10:49pm

"said that the writer frequently saw applicants with such stats rejected, because often they knew how to grind, but did not have anything more to bring to the table. "

They did not DEMONSTRATE they could bring anything more to the table. Was MIT admissions supposed to be clairvoyant? They can only evaluate based on what’s presented to them.

xiggi · August 12, 2014, 10:51pm

QM, the problem with explaining or justifying rejections is that there are no good ways to satisfy everyone, Does it it make an applicant feel better when the letter said that the class was the most competitive ever and that they had to take the best candidates, In the end, it all means they picked a bunch of people they liked better than you!

The same goes for “splaining” the rejection through a indirect quote such as the “bringing to the table” or through some more syrupy one.

There is simply no winning formula for the adcoms. Since they cannot point to an exact formula with cutoffs, they have to come up with degrees of niceness or directness. They probably could easily say:

My take is that it would be better for them to simply state that they took the best class possible and make no apologies for their choices. And acknowledge that they also make mistakes!

lookingforward · August 12, 2014, 10:55pm

I remember tpg asking we not reach back to a woman long gone from her role.

This thread is advocating so much nicey-nicey.

Pizzagirl · August 12, 2014, 11:08pm

"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”

I don’t see what the big deal is. Kids aren’t born knowing about schools. If a GC suggested Vanderbilt and it turned out to be a choice kid liked and was suited for, normally one calls that a positive thing.

JHS · August 12, 2014, 11:12pm

QuantMech – I agree with others that, at least as far as I can tell, you are considerably overstating (a) the effect of non-academic material in elite college admissions compared to academic material, and (b) the number of people applying to such institutions for whom academic interests are paramount.

As to the first: I agree with you completely that 100% of the applicants unfortunately characterized as “grinders” DO in fact have more to bring to the table, and that the fault (most likely) is in their application strategies, not themselves. But I don’t think that fault is in imagining that applications were principally about academics, or presenting an academic focus. I think the fault(s) consist of equating academics with grades and test scores, of not having any idea what an academic focus is and how to present it, and of failing to understand – here I think Asian vs. Western values sometimes come into play, although plenty of non-Asian kids have this problem, too – that conformity is not considered a particularly attractive quality in college admissions.

As to the second: Honestly, I love high school kids, and I live my life in a community with some truly great high schools that send quite a number of students to the colleges we are talking about. And a kid with a real academic focus is pretty rare. They jump out at you when you see them, and they have all kinds of success in college admissions. They don’t all go to Harvard or MIT – some aren’t that smart, some haven’t built the records that qualify them for serious consideration – but they punch way above their weight. The dozens of kids on CC with 2400 SATs, four-point-whatever GPAs, and a “passion for finance and consulting” do NOT, as far as I can tell, have any kind of academic focus.

If colleges, even elite colleges, limited themselves to kids with any kind of real academic focus, the pickings would be awfully slim. I had a real academic focus in high school, and it was a pretty lonely experience. Getting to college was wonderful because there were lots of other people with an academic focus, but we were still far less than a majority. (Things might have been different if I had gone to the University of Chicago.) Colleges need and want to accept kids who are smart as whips and willing to learn, but who have no academic focus whatsoever besides figuring out how to do something they like that pays OK. Or get themselves admitted to medical school or law school. (Which, by the way, is the ultimate fate of plenty of those with an academic focus, too.) Or run the newspaper or investment club as a path to jobs in those industries.

Now, of course, some of the kids who spend high school doing their homework, getting good grades, and preparing for standardized tests, without any academic focus whatsoever, will mature and blossom in college, and become wonderful scholars. And I firmly believe that if any admissions department could figure out which ones those were, they would all be admitted everywhere. I think they DO admit students they think will be like that. But it’s really hard to tell, and the further up the food chain you get, the more files they have with students who offer something really clear and attractive, academically and otherwise, some of which are still going to be rejected. And it’s hard to reject a lot more of them to make room for some bets that this or that disheveled duckling will turn out to be a swan.

PurpleTitan · August 12, 2014, 11:23pm

You know, there is an MIT-like place for those kids who score on the USAMO but get rejected by MIT. It’s called CalTech. Also, Harvard likes those kinds of kids as well (so long as they have a modicum of social skills). For that matter, I believe that MIT would take 90% of those kids as well.

Also, I don’t see why CalTech has to practice affirmative action if it goes against their beliefs when MIT, Harvard, and pretty much everyone else (who are not forbidden to by law) practices affirmative action. A talented, smart, hard-working URM with good numbers simply isn’t going to get shut out of all elite universities these days. That just doesn’t happen. So who does it hurt if CalTech doesn’t practice affirmative action or if MIT wants a more well-rounded student body? Any one kid can only attend any one school, after all.

I don’t understand this fixation on a One True Admissions Policy. The diversity of the higher educational system in the US is a strength, because all sorts of people with different types of intelligence and characteristics can go to a school that fits them and maximize their potential (contrast with the admission requirements and higher educational systems of many other countries, which are much more one-size-fits-all).

texaspg · August 12, 2014, 11:36pm

PG - These are two quotes from you. My input was in reference to your input about applying where they want to go.

Many have no clue where they want to go. The fact that he applied and got in, went to admitted days, liked it and joined Vanderbilt seems to be sheer dumb luck.

He made it sound like counselor decided he needs to apply to at least 5 schools and chose a school at random. Lets say he already had 5 schools on the list, the odds were he wouldn’t have been talking for Vanderbilt at a Vanderbilt college presentation?

xiggi - I don’t agree with your view of admissions process at S in terms of not being based on specific majors but I don’t have a need to win an argument. I concede!

bookworm · August 12, 2014, 11:43pm

People are writing about Caltech as though they know the thinking. What I have heard is that they lose the talented/brainy AA kids to the other elite colleges.

For the record, it is Caltech, not CalTech.

Pizzagirl · August 12, 2014, 11:45pm

It’s funny that you mention Vanderbilt, because that’s exactly how it landed on the radar screen of a very bright young lady I know - she had all the usual suspects, didn’t really know about Vanderbilt, her GC suggested it, she wound up applying, being accepted, and basically kicked butt and took names and took advantage of everything it had to offer and then some. She now has an awesome job and she has amazing leadership skills. I still don’t see why it’s so damning in your eyes that this kid first heard about from a GC. Kids have to hear about schools from somewhere, and if their parents don’t know, what’s the big deal if they use another source?

Was your kid born knowing about Stanford (which I’m gathering is Stanford::Texaspg as MIT::QuantMech)?

Poeme · August 12, 2014, 11:52pm

Honestly I think the overall message that posters are agreeing is that it is very hard to tell how a kid will turn out in college with the information presented in undergrad applications. No matter how carefully the applications are read, mistakes will be made. Also people mature at later times.

For example my cousin was just an average student in some APS during high school but became an outstanding student once she started college. She transferred to a top 25 school (a school she definitely would have been denied from out of high school) after her freshman year and graduated in the very top of her class.

I also have noticed being rejected from places like HYPSM for undergrad often just further motivates students to get in for grad school. A large number of them do since in my view, grad school admissions are much more transparent and do a much better job of gauging ones ability.

xiggi · August 13, 2014, 12:04am

Haha, TPG. There is neither need for concessions nor winning an argument. For two persons who understand the process of Stanford rather well, we seem to talk past each other. Fwiw, I mentioned applications and you now talk about admissions processes.

In the meantime, we both know what strategy worked at the Farm!

texaspg · August 13, 2014, 12:18am

I don’t believe in one school or bust for any kid which is why I attend every school’s presentations with my second kid, go visiting schools instead of taking vacations, etc. not knowing where the kid will make the cut eventually which was the same case when the first one applied.

I have nothing against Vanderbilt, tried to get the older one to apply but she claimed it is conservative for her taste (interpreted Fiske guide’s definition of moderate as being code for downsouth conservative). Now I am trying to get the second one to think about applying next year but it might be harder after yesterday. I would have thought the college reps would have found better representatives to speak on their behalf, may be recent alums or something who would have never had to mention their reason for applying.

xiggi · August 13, 2014, 12:18am

Agreeing that individual mistakes might be made is easy. Agreeing that it does happens very rarely or often is a lot different.

Exceptions to the rule are just that. Exceptions!

QuantMech · August 13, 2014, 2:55am

JHS: We’ve had a similar discussion before, on other threads. In your experience, things worked out sensibly for all of the applicants you knew. That is good. I don’t know exactly why it worked out for all of them. I might have had the same view that you do, if admissions had gone sensibly for QMP’s cohort locally.

I appreciate your comment that 100% of the applicants DO have more to bring to the table. Thank you. I think that should be regarded as an axiomatic statement about human nature.

When someone writes that any set of people had “nothing more to bring to the table,” I think he is making a statement contrary to fact. I also think the person is revealing his point of view, perhaps inadvertently. Saying that the applicants didn’t put it on the table–okay, and helpful to future applicants. Saying that they didn’t have anything more–not okay with me. I will try not to belabor this point further.

Not many people in our area want to go into investment banking. Perhaps my view would be different if more did. I have had a couple of post-docs who went into banking or finance. But if the academic job market had been better, they would have opted for academics.

When it comes to the effect of non-academic material vs. academic material in the application, you mentioned that you think I am over-stating the impact of the non-academic material. Well, that depends. I don’t think that any of the top schools deliberately admit students if they don’t think the students can graduate. This still allows for quite a wide range in the level of difficulty that different students can choose at the same university.

But it seems to me that the message is pretty clear on the MIT forum that 700 on any section of the SAT is enough [Clarification: by which I mean that 700 on each section is enough, not that 700 on any single section is enough]. I think that someone with a 750 on the SAT Math I might actually be better at mathematics than another student with an 800 on the SAT Math I. So I don’t think a rigid ranking by scores makes sense. However, I think that if one is comparing two students, one with 800 on the SAT Math I and one with 700, it is overwhelmingly likely that the one with the 800 is actually better academically in mathematics. On the SAT Math II, I don’t think even a 750 is equivalent to 800–there is so much leeway to miss questions and still score 800. I don’t think 700 is equivalent to 800 on the Critical Reading, nor on the Writing (though I would be willing to grant that both are less important for MIT). The MIT bar for “qualified” ensures that students who are regarded as academically unqualified are not admitted. [Sorry, tangled syntax before–a triple negative, which is not what I meant!] But the bar pretty low, really. Perhaps they pick up really good biologists as a result of not over-emphasizing math and/or physics? That could make sense.

So academics is determinative, in the sense that an applicant must be academically qualified. But it appears to me that once a student has cleared the “qualified” hurdle, there are no additional “points” to be scored with academics. There are some students identified as academic “stars,” but MIT takes only half of them. Harvard’s statement is ambiguous as to what fraction of the students they have identified as the “most promising scholars of their generation” they actually take.

QuantMech · August 13, 2014, 3:05am

lookingforward, you asked whether the MIT admissions staff was supposed to be clairvoyant that the group of students we have been talking about had something more to bring to the table, if they didn’t demonstrate it.

My viewpoint is that they should automatically assume that each person has something more than simple academics to bring to the table. Claiming that they “have nothing more” is really dismissive. Saying that they didn’t put it on the table–I could believe that, but it is different.

If I look at this with a broader perspective, are the two statements (“have nothing more” and “didn’t put anything more” actually equivalent? I could see that they might be viewed as equivalent from an operational point of view. But I don’t see them as genuinely equivalent.

Well, I guess I have already belabored the point further, only a few minutes after saying I wouldn’t! [Oh, bleah!] But I think the distinction between the “operational” point of view and the “underlying reality” point of view might have been worth making. It is something I haven’t posted before.

QuantMech · August 13, 2014, 3:11am

In post #515, I attempted to edit it to say “The bar is pretty low, really.” I missed the editing cut-off by a matter of seconds. Sorry.

shravas · August 13, 2014, 3:13am

I don’t understand how saying that a 700 on the SAT is enough translates into saying that MIT doesn’t care about academic factors. There’s more to academics than the SAT (consider USAMO, for instance). Also, I bet a very large portion of the academic stars that get rejected are internationals.

QuantMech · August 13, 2014, 3:54am

Although I think that there may be one or two USAMO participants who missed a question or two on the SAT Math I, I doubt that any of them have just a 700 on the SAT Math I (unless they last took it at age 11, and didn’t bother to retake).

I don’t say that MIT does not care about academic factors. They will not admit someone they consider unqualified. But once a student has met the “qualified” bar for academics, as they describe their process on their web site, the remaining decision factors seem to me at least to be non-academic. That is not to say that persistence, for example, is irrelevant to academics. Just that persistence is not an academic characteristic, per se.

I don’t know whether MIT puts any of the international students into the “stars” category. I would imagine that international students are treated separately. Maybe not. That issue doesn’t seem to be addressed on the MIT forum (or any other forums) other than to say that international admissions are extremely competitive.

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