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<p>Truer words were never spoken.</p>
<p>Some of these 17 year olds seem to be fantasizing about being the next Einstein and nothing less than going to MIT will do. It’s actually sad and a lot of ego seems to be tied up for some people in proving to the world just how brilliant they are. I don’t envy a kid who would be so miserable with being rejected by MIT that they would lose all focus. That type of person will probably have a tough road in life.</p>
<p>It’s not just that heads are in clouds. It feels like this whole thread is clouded by promoting random thoughts, unfiltered opinions, not based on any real knowledge, no real attempt to verify, because, after all, it’s just “I think.” I’ll spare the examples.</p>
<p>Speaking of “not based on any real knowledge,” why are people speaking authoritatively on issues in academia when they themselves never worked there? Or, for that matter, what qualities translate into success in academic fields?</p>
<p>By the way, Einstein himself had trouble securing a job initially in physics. That should tell you something right there. </p>
<p>“Einstein himself had trouble securing a job initially in physics. That should tell you something right there.” Yes, it t tells me I’m glad my older kid decided on engineering rather than physics. He may have had to go to graduate school if he had decided to major in physics. His uncle is an Ivy educated professor who has on more than one occasion lamented the stress and politics involved in academia so I am glad my kids dodged that bullet. I know academia is wonderful for some of you but it sounds like it is stressful and not for everyone. And for the most part the tenure track positions are just not there and the competition is fierce for the opportunities that do exist. </p>
<p>There’s a lot of truth in #864, sevmom. My niece who is an engineer is doing really well, although she faces some sexism that I thought died out in the 1960’s.</p>
<p>Re lookingforward, #862: I use “I think” a lot when I write. It doesn’t mean that what follows is just “cloud” thought.</p>
<p>I am concerned about a lot of different people, in a lot of different situations. In the context of college admissions of very talented scientists, I am concerned about some people I actually know, and about some people that collegealum314 mentioned (and I believe him, obviously). All of the dumping on them is pure speculation; and it is incorrect, in the case of the people that I know. Still, my concern for them does not prevent me from being concerned about many other people, too.</p>
<p>sevmom, if you go back through this thread, you will find that none of the “geniuses” I have been writing about are me. I suggested that some of the real geniuses might outgrow me as undergrads. I am not trying to prove to anyone that I am smart.</p>
<p>Quite a few people can recognize Einstein’s genius without being the next Einstein. I think I can recognize real genius when I encounter it, which is rarely. (This use of “I think” is again just the way I write.) </p>
<p>QM, I was not thinking of you in terms of that at all. I don’t recall you’ve ever held yourself out as a “genius.” I do think your concern is wonderful in terms of worrying about kids in the admissions process. But I’m wondering if some of that concern could be directed to helping kids understand that opportunities exist at many places, not just at places like MIT. And that being rejected from an elite college is not the end of the world and certainly not a reason to give up.</p>
<p>Hi sevmom, re #867: In fact, none of the students I know who were rejected by MIT gave up. Most of them had a few days of sharp disappointment, then they regrouped and became enthusiastic about the colleges they were attending. They didn’t need my advice to do this. This doesn’t make me think, “It’s all good.”</p>
<p>I am concerned about what happened with the students that collegealum314 mentioned. Maybe they went into finance or some other field, and they are happier than they would have been as scientists. But maybe science lost something, if they shifted. No way of telling. Maybe collegealum314 or other advisers of theirs got them bucked back up–that would be the ideal outcome.</p>
<p>I also think that the student who posted a comment along the lines of, “Is there something wrong with me?” after being rejected by MIT despite very, very impressive qualifications had been done a disservice, and it’s not just that the student thought, “MIT or bust.” Several of the CC posters I have been concerned about went to Harvard.</p>
<p>Another thing that I can only speculate about (sorry, lookingforward, no data, only questions) is whether the % of students converting out of math/science/engineering is greater at Harvard and similar schools than it is at MIT. I have only anecdotes to offer on this score. However, a friend of mine who was a student at Harvard remarked that she decided to get out of science after realizing that a lot of scientists were lower middle class. (The horror!) This kind of change happens other places, too, of course. A friend of mine who was a grad student of Stephen Hawking’s left grad school before finishing a Ph.D. because she was tired of “being poor.” </p>
<p>A lot of the shifts out of science are good–better for everyone. But sometimes it is a loss to science, and occasionally it is probably a loss to the students. </p>
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<p>How do you know some of us HAVEN’T worked in academia? Or have spouses or friends or adult children who do?</p>
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<p>For heaven’s sake, why are you "concerned’ about these people? Every single person on the planet has forks in the road and has to make a choice as to which way to go. For every “loss” to science caused by a person that chose playing in an orchestra or going into business, there’s someone else who went into science and thus left the world or music or industry without their talents.</p>
<p>It just astonishes me that we are 868 posts into this discussion and this is where it has been for at least the last 500.</p>
<p>Yes and sometimes people don’t tell the whole story when they abandon something. It has always been common for kids to transfer out of science and engineering majors. That is nothing new. If these MIT rejects you know went to Harvard , I just don’t get why you continue to wring your hands over this. Scientists, engineers, get pulled away into finance and things like that all the time. I’m not sure what can be done about that if a kid wants to be self sufficient and make a living. Getting a PhD takes a lot of time and missed income. </p>
<p>“also think that the student who posted a comment along the lines of, “Is there something wrong with me?” after being rejected by MIT despite very, very impressive qualifications had been done a disservice, and it’s not just that the student thought, “MIT or bust.” Several of the CC posters I have been concerned about went to Harvard.”</p>
<p>Any disservice that was done to them was by the person(s) who planted in their heads that MIT was the ultimate pinnacle of everything. And that you have to be such a special snowflake that only one college will do, and your destiny is shaped by where you’re accepted versus what you make of your opportunities. </p>
<p>In real life, people who think this way don’t get far at all. We should pity and indulge their fantasies why, again? </p>
<p>“Several of the CC posters I have been concerned about went to Harvard.” That is really absurd and frankly sounds like something a ■■■■■ would say. </p>
<p>And again… at the risk of boring all of you- MIT has never stated that it is the Institute of String Theory, and that it holds as its institutional mission the responsibility of identifying the top 20 physics wannabee HS students each and every admissions cycle. I realize that many of you believe that it should- but every institution has its stakeholders, and managing a complex set of priorities is why Provosts and Deans and Presidents and Department Chairs and heads of development/alumni relations get paid.</p>
<p>I am still hung up on the idea that a talented HS kid would reassess his passion for physics based on a rejection from MIT (since I’m going to bet the farm that this kid did NOT end up at Quinnipiac or Stonehill College after the MIT rejection). The likelihood that an MIT qualified, top caliber physics student ended up at a university without a top ranked Physics department seems to me to be pretty close to zero. And when you look at the list of physics Nobel winners… it also seems clear that the Nobel committee do not see themselves as an extended faculty club for MIT professors.</p>
<p>And QM- if you are expending calories worrying about kids who get rejected from MIT and sob- end up at Harvard- I think your own priorities are quite misplaced. As a society we should be worried about the kids graduating from HS who are reading at a six grade level. We should be worried about the kids who enter the work force unable to read an article about the mid-term elections in USA Today (edited to an 8th grade reading level) or understand a simple chart at work showing how to calculate your tax exemptions before you get your first paycheck. We should worry about the clerk at Macy’s who waited on me last week who couldn’t figure out what a 20 Percent discount should mean off a $100 item. (the register rang the item up at $120 dollars and the clerk was shocked that I could calculate that there was an error. She kept asking- with wonder, “how did you even know that?”)</p>
<p>A kid who ends up in an interdisciplinary neuroscience lab at Harvard instead of a physics lab at MIT. I lose no sleep here. This is life and it seems to me to be proof the the admissions process- as flawed as it is- works pretty well lots of the time for lots of the kids and institutions.</p>
<p>Carry on. Let’s see how thin we can slice the bologna now that we’ve identified that we’re only pissed off at MIT on account of the string theorists it rejects but Harvard accepts. A total pool of what- five kids a year? Three a year? One every other year??? </p>
<p>Well, before all the discussion about “more” was available on CC, a student who had top qualifications on an objective basis, and was rejected by MIT, and knew that people with significantly lower “stats” were admitted, might well wonder whether something was wrong with him/her. Lots of students cannot see the letters written on their behalf, and have no idea whether the writers “got” them or not. Lots of students have no idea what the interviewer said. Students don’t really know how their essays are being received. It would be totally logical for such a student to wonder whether something was wrong with him/her.</p>
<p>Obviously, I am not concerned in the long run about the students that Harvard took and MIT did not. </p>
<p>I’m quite concerned about all of those people you have mentioned, blossom. Fixing those problems takes a lot of money, in every case. In most cases, it takes also better ideas about how to educate people than we currently have. And it takes fixing the socioeconomic conditions that make it hard for a lot of students to concentrate on school. And it takes fixing the discrimination that is still problematic in the US. The last item requires more of a change of hearts than it requires money, but it’s still hard.</p>
<p>Something that I have suggested, but–like most of my suggestions, no one has rushed to adopt it :)–is that the “top” places hold some of their slots in abeyance, and take a second look at the “top stats” group that accidentally did not get into any of the places they would really like to go. There was one very hard-working and exceptionally accomplished young woman whose situation came up on CC a year or so ago, who struck out at most of the “top” places she applied. I did feel sorry for her. I think that there is a certain randomness in admissions, and have said so quite often. As a result of the randomness, there are some students who are genuinely excellent, and just have bad luck of the draw at every one of a comparatively small number of schools where they have applied. I don’t believe that these students are actually equally well served by their in-state flagship, in general, unless they are very lucky about their state of residence.</p>
<p>I feel that my ideas are sometimes being caricatured or taken to extremes, for the purpose of refutation. I will try to express more clearly what it is that I actually believe.</p>
<p>My goodness, are you now circling back to stats type stuff. again ? Very strange. Believe it or not, some very high STAT kids in math and physics have ZERO interest in MIT .</p>
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<p>QM, please! Why are these kids different from any others who don’t get into their top-choice school? Their lives are not over. They have options. They are (and should be) facing the same prospects of rejection that EVERYONE ELSE in the world does. Life is not fair, and no one gets what they want every single time. I honestly don’t know why you are so obsessed with this incredibly small group of kids.</p>
<p>Hey, I was 17 once and thought for a moment (delusional) I might be the next Joni Mitchell or Emily Dickinson. Or maybe the next cool classics professor. That is part of being a teenager. But reality bites and anyone who can’t deal with it is going to be at a disadvantage. I guess there are 17 year old science kids these days that want to be the next big thing. But the chances of being the next Hawking or Feynman , etc. are slim. There are celebrities in any field and for physics, Feynman seems to be a popular figure. So, I learned something new about that . Most people are not geniuses unless I’ve been misinformed. Gifted, yes, true geniuses that will transform the world, very rare.</p>
<p>Guess what? Lots of kids evolve in college/during the college years. And DH, a humanities prof, devoted as much time on his research as the science kids cited here. Maybe more, when you put the teaching prep, class time, mentoring, his own extensive research, dept obligations and then committee work together. (He did eval apps, at one point, too.) We can spend an eternity worrying about kids who may fall through the MIT cracks, getting conceptual, telling tales of some kid or prof or famous guy, bringing in parallels, diverting, citing hypothetical scores, worrying about the future of the world, worrying about their devastated egos or now-leashed potential - but it doesn’t get us far. </p>
<p>My money is on this: MIT puts the best class together it can, based on the pool, what they know the U is and is looking for, based on institutional knowledge of the sorts of students who thrive and contribute, in and out of class, earns its rep, and so much more. If it ain;t broke, don;t fix it. </p>
<p>It’s not they way some poster would manage admissions- yo, we get it. What have we learned in the past 50 pages?</p>