<p>QM, Just like @JHS, I have two kids that had different math scores in high school . So, will add another anecdote. First son, 780 Math SAT (he was disappointed he did not get an 800 but, oh well) . 800 Math SAT ll. . Second son, 710 SAT Math, did not take SAT ll’s in anything. Both studied engineering in college, so took all the calculus, differential equations, etc. Both had A’s in all of that , despite S2’s lower math scores from high school.</p>
<p>I am confident that MIT and other schools of its ilk understand the leadership is more than being president of x club. But you know I don’t think it’s the end of the world if an MIT candidate isn’t savvy enough to realize he needs to bring more to the table than grades and scores. If they are that smart, they have to have done something else. Even if it’s just deep thinking, then they better write their essay about their brilliant thoughts. </p>
<p>I’ll be the first to say that my older son was very resistant to the whole application process. I knew that while he had the grades and scores and would get positive recommendations from his teachers, none of that showed what he really could do. All the comp sci stuff he did was outside school. He’s very shy and dragged his feet about getting outside recommendations from the people who could say things like. “None of my grad students could do this kind of programming so I hired mathson and his work gets acknowledged in scientific papers”, or “mathson saved our butts on a big project we did with the WHO”. His wake-up call was a couple of deferrals. Kids who don’t apply EA don’t get that help. But I can’t blame the colleges for not being able to read the tea leaves if the kids don’t provide any leaves to read.</p>
<p>Mathson got an 800 on the Math subject test first sitting, he took the SAT twice and got a 760 and 750. Due to really stupid mistakes. The last one was forgetting a step in a problem that involved figuring out how many tiles would cover a kitchen floor. 4th grade level, so I have a bit of a jaundiced eye about math SAT scores!</p>
<p>Right now, I don’t see how saying a kid “has nothing more to put on the table” versus “did not put anything more on the table” are operationally equivalent. One is speculation, the other is based on what’s there or not in the app. As I keep saying, adcoms, ime, don’t guess. I think some here are guessing.</p>
<p>The hs elected positions are viewed in some context. It’s not a negative. It’s just not automatically the tip many chance-me kids think it is. Nor the only thing adcoms look for.</p>
<p>Mathmom, I vaguely remember someone’s kid did gravestone rubbings- and some talk about how he got engaged with a historical society. Was that yours? If so, I would think that, with his other strengths, that would be quite an interesting combo. </p>
<p>"Unfortunately I do not know the answer to your question. I do not know of anyone who scored points on the USAMO and applied to Caltech, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, <em>and</em> Stanford. Those are rather different colleges.</p>
<p>However, a person could easily wind up with no admissions in that set come the end of March, if he/she applied to just three of them (+ other colleges, of course), and if the three from that set included MIT, but did not include Caltech. At least, this was so in the past."</p>
<p>Well, here’s the fundamental difference in worldview, QM.</p>
<p>QM’s Worldview: Bright kid doesn’t get into Caltech/HYPSM. Not a sensible outcome; in point of fact, quite a bad / senseless outcome, and something really ought to be done about it, because now look at poor Greg Genius, who is stuck someplace suboptimal. There’s something not right with a world that allows this. Greg’s destiny was unfairly circumscribed.</p>
<p>JHS’ Worldview (which I believe is relatively similar to mine): Bright kid doesn’t get into same set of schools, but goes onto Pitt Honors, whatever. Kid takes advantage of all the opportunities there, kicks butt, and goes to craft an awesome future for himself. The world is a great place to be, and we shape our own destinies.</p>
<p>QM, you’re about as INFP on Myers-Briggs as imaginable (and my BFF is one, so I do get them). But there are different components of emotional intelligence. Your strength is that you have incredible empathy towards people’s feelings. That’s a great thing! But there’s also a component of emotional intelligence which is the ability to see your own path and craft your own destiny instead of waiting for circumstances to arrange themselves to transport you there on a magic carpet. And I think that’s an important component of life as well. </p>
<p>There’s a passivity about your worldview - that if Greg doesn’t have just the right tools / teachers / mentors, all is lost. There’s an action orientation about JHS’ worldview – that you take what’s in front of you and you run with it.</p>
<p>And c’mon now! It’s not like Greg Genius is stuck at East Directional State U where the labs are made of popsicle sticks and the professors were brought in from the football field or something.</p>
<p>And in addition to the kids who apply to top schools, don’t get in and then go on to do great things at places like Honors colleges, there are also lots of kids that don’t even apply to the “elite” schools to begin with and can do quite well. I’ll bet there may even be an occasional Greg Genius that ends up at East Directional State U.</p>
<p>Oh just wanted to add, CMU and their ilk or the kids attending them may have a bit of a chip on their shoulders, but at CMU they were encouraged to be the Avis’s of the college world. “We try harder!” It’s the first time that kids who are superstars in their high schools haven’t been acknowledged for being the best. I think it’s good for them to get at least a rejection or two, but I can also understand their feelings that they are settling. And sometimes I agree with QM, that they may be missing out on the “bestest” fit for them. The math prof in their field, the guy who will finally figure out string theory or whatever. But most students are more resilient than that and will eventually find their way to where they belong.</p>
<p>Too much about math. I’d like to talk about poetry. What if Harvard, or some other top school, was really serious about admitting more poets? How would the school do that? Obviously, it’s not enough that an applicant has really high verbal SAT scores. A person with really high verbal scores (and top English grades in high school) can probably learn to write decent poetry, but may never be a genius poet. So we need to find people who are already writing poetry that shows genius, or at least promise. How are we going to do that? Publication in the high school literary magazine and a glowing LOR from an English teacher is probably not enough. There’s a “best poet” in every high school in the land. We have a couple of options. First–and this is what I think most colleges would do–we can look at whether the student has won prizes in reputable poetry competitions (like Scholastic, for example), and whether the student has had poetry published in magazines that apply critical standards. Second, we could ask the student to submit sample poems which we will have our English Department faculty examine. We might do both of these things. Following this approach, we will probably admit students with good prospects for being successful poets. Not all of them will pan out, of course, and we may make some mistakes in evaluating their work and/or achievements. Some of them may come to Harvard and never write another word of poetry.</p>
<p>But it seems to me that what we can’t do is identify people who have the potential to be genius poets among people who don’t write poetry at all now, or who write poetry that isn’t very good.</p>
<p>It just seems to me that the most selective colleges are already following practices like this for poetry, music, and math and science, and are doing a pretty good job of it. I think the mistakes are most likely at the bottom end of the talent pool in any discipline, not at the top. If you have room for, say, ten violin virtuosi, the person you’re going to reject is the person who seemed, based on analysis by experienced people, to be the eleventh-best. He probably really was the eleventh-best, and if he wasn’t, he’s probably not really in the top three. At least, he isn’t now. I don’t see why evaluation of math prowess is any different.</p>
<p>I think maybe some of this is a maximizer vs a satisficer orientation to life. I’m a satisficer, so I think - it’s all good! Maximizer think - what the heck, it’s not the very best, pout.</p>
<p>536 *IME it is hard for some of us to believe in our heart of hearts that a kid with stats like Greg Genius really could be “all that” and also have even more wonderful personal qualities. I think it must be very hard to be an Admissions person at one of these elite colleges. It’s probably even harder if the adcom (like MJ at MIT?) didn’t necessarily hit all those successes that characterize the school’s applicants.</p>
<p>Because of the desire to give kids more chances, some adcom readers might be looking for a reason that Betty Bright is a little bit better than Greg Genius, specifically <em>because</em> Greg’s stats are higher. Even without any personal empathy for Betty Bright, or personal resentment of Greg Genius. *</p>
<p>If I understand correctly, QM’s Greg/Ginny Genius isn’t your average very smart kid. These are the kids with almost unlimited potential to make a difference in the world. How many are we talking about? Less than a dozen in any admissions year? (am I understating, QM?) My takeaway from these various threads is that we don’t really see any need to nourish that potential. It is up to the individual to do what she can with her abilities, since she’s already staring out so far ahead in the game. If I accept that argument, why not give Betty Bright a boost in college admissions? And why not give Ava Average even more of a boost? Then we can talk about kids who never had the opportunity to learn to read. At what point should there be a cut-off? Since there is an argument to be made that the more disadvantaged a student is, the more she can benefit. Then what about the faculty? What is the best use of their time? Are they training the next generation to transmit and advance knowledge in their field, or is that an old fashioned idea whose time has come and gone?</p>
<p>It seems to me, back in 60s there was a sense that progress was almost unlimited. By this time we should have cured cancer and colonized space. What happened? Do universities have anything to do with the lack of expected progress? What do we prioritize in the way we used to prioritize medical research and space exploration?</p>
<p>Of course, Ava Average, with an MIT degree, may go on to make a huge difference in the world and maybe have more impact than Ginny Genius. Maybe a different kind of impact? I’ve just been thinking about all this since these threads began and I don’t really care that much about admissions anymore since my kids are done.</p>
<p>I do understand and concede the primary mission of the university is fundraising. That keeps them in business.</p>
<h1>546 Hooray! I would love to talk about poetry, but have to go do some other things now : )</h1>
<p>How the heck do you know this kid has “almost unlimited potential to make a difference in the world?” That’s the thing- how do you know? Along with presuming he can save the world and would make higher scores, if such grading existed, if he’s not now doing anything beyond his academics (or can’t get whatever it is on his app,) why are you so all-fired sure?</p>
<p>And, why don’t you send him to a special program, instead of trying to move aside other kids who did produce what the college does look for? Or are you thinking, somewhere in the backs of your minds, that kids shouldn’t apply to colleges, their mentors should, on their behalf?</p>
<p>Admissions isn’t reaching down and asking “us” to nominate a few kids at each hs in the country that we think have the potential. It’s your college app, use it wisely. </p>
<p>Maybe some need to stop being hypothetical. </p>
<p>Hunt, I think that colleges could do a better job of finding promising writers. The ones which have (or had) those infamous questions on their applications do give kids a chance to be creative. Just for example: My younger son picked the “How did you get caught?” Chicago essay, by reusing his Georgetown essay (which was already a pretty whacky bit of creative writing, and then ending it with a question to the admissions committee. “So, did you catch me?” (I don’t know if they got the joke, but they let him in!) Tufts that year had an optional prompt to imagine the history of the USA if the Americans had lost at Lexington, My kid put together a story that was a series of headlines, diary excerpts and textbook quotations. It showed his creative writing chops and not just his interest in history. I thought it was a great prompt - there was a lot of room to go the extra mile on that one. My son spent days putting it together. He got all the voices right.</p>
<p>By the way, I only want to enable somebody with potential to make a difference in the world if I have some reason to believe that person will use his powers for good. I will note, for the record, that Columbia accepted both Reed Richards and Victor Von Doom. One could wish they had applied more holistic criteria in that case.</p>
<p>I don’t get that either. How do you really truly know at 17 who has "almost unlimited potential? " Some kids peak early, some kids are late bloomers. I really don’t think you can tell everything from tests scores and have no problem with schools looking at things beyond academics to choose a class.</p>
<p>@Pizzagirl - what is your M-B personality type, since you mentioned what you think QM’s is? As an ENT/FJ myself, I love the whole M-B process though I don’t diagnose others :)</p>
<p>
Well, if I were a college looking for promising writers, I would probably discount admissions essays quite a bit if there was nothing else in the application suggesting the kid was a good writer and interested in writing. This is kind of my point in my previous post–you may be looking for diamonds in the rough, but there needs to be some diamond showing.</p>
<p>This may sound harsh, but most kids who want to be writers don’t have much to show. They say things like, I wrote a novel and got it self published. Or I wrote 50k words for national writing month. The poets (rare) may have gone to a nationally well known summer writing program that vets applicants- good. (Notice, they’re vetted.) Some at least pursue the hs lit mag, but most just "tell"of this passion. Then, if the LoR skips the whole point, no one knows anything.</p>
<p>So, do we get excited about their “potential?” </p>
<p>This is my point, lookingforward. It seems to me that the kid who is really interested in and talented at math/science often has much MORE to show than the humanities kids. Which is why I can’t buy into this idea that MIT can’t tell who the future math geniuses are. Really?</p>
<p>You want a real challenge? Try to identify the future genius architects.</p>
<p>Was an x-post and I think we agree. Engineering kids (and other STEM) should in math-sci activities. Pre-meds should be doing something that’s health related (not forming a pre-med club or singing at a nursing home.) They don’t have to cure cancer, get research credit, but they can choose to put themselves into the environment, learn from that. And then they can branch outin some ways- the eng kid who performs in pays or is on tech crew. Humanities kids don’t always have parallel pre-professional opps, but they can go pursue this interest. Or, through what they do pursue, they can show that get up and go. </p>
<p>Btw, I think between my two, there was one elected position, something lowly. But on balance, so much more in their EC sections. </p>
<p>As a matter of fact, I think colleges do a pretty good job of looking for poets. Obviously, it’s tough to identify poets who haven’t written any poetry before 12th grade, and the number of people who have written really, really good poetry by 12th grade is essentially 0. But, as the father of an erstwhile serious writer, I can testify that there is a significant, fairly well-defined world out there for aspiring poets and writers of fiction, with lots of opportunity for independent expert validation. It’s not as easy or objective as an AIME or USAMO score, but it’s there. Plus, there isn’t a single kid who’s serious about writing who doesn’t have a significant portfolio at 17, and colleges are happy to take a sample of it with the application. </p>
<p>The summer writing program my kid attended before 12th grade had an acceptance rate similar to Harvard’s at the time – over 400 applicants for 20 slots. There was a three-stage selection process, run by faculty at Pitt and CMU, that involved submission of a portfolio, an exam-style handwritten response to a prompt to see what a kid could do without “help,” and an in-person interview with three university creative writing faculty. The people in that program who wanted to go to selective colleges tended to get in (though of course not everywhere).</p>
<p>Plus – writing is the one thing where admissions committees have access to an applicant’s actual performance, rather than relying on third party opinions. An aspiring writer who can’t do a good job with a college essay is not much of a writer.</p>