Advantage to be a URM?

snipersas
Sun, 02 Oct 2011 15:19:18 +0000

We don’t admit anyone to MIT who is not sufficiently prepared to succeed at MIT. And anyone who was admitted to MIT presented a compelling reason to admit them. Marginally higher test scores - that is, differences in test scores beyond the point of sufficient academic preparation - are not compelling reasons for admission, period.



I don’t think that anyone disputes that all MIT admits are well qualified - with the current borderline-insane admit rates it (you?) could tailor the class to fit any number of priorities and still have a brilliant group of students every year. The question comes when choosing among qualified candidates, who will you pick, and what is the relative probability of any given decision? The original poster asked for help because he is a URM and because there isn’t much in the way of guidance for people in his situation - posts on the results threads by White & Asian applicants here on CC will not reflect his own experience with admissions and as mollie has noted, the “URM” responses to those threads here on CC are mostly ■■■■■■, so there’s no accurate information from that side. Quantification of the URM bonus allows for an apples-to-apples comparison between previous decisions and between ethnic groups, which is helpful.

By the way - the study posted earlier did not calculate admissions advantage based upon an individual’s score on the SAT - it was calculated from admissions probabilities for a pair of otherwise identical students of varying ethnicity. The numbers were just converted to SAT scores since that’s a simple metric of comparison.