Angry over the college admissions process

[Beliavsky]

<p>

@QuantMech

Second, the observations of MIT faculty I know do not square with MITChris’s comment. Please note that this is not (emphatically not) an anti-AA comment. The people I know at MIT support AA, as do I. If the students about whom they were complaining were preponderantly in the AA category, they would never have brought it up. I have no reason to assume that the demographics of the group are significantly different from MIT’s overall demographics (at least with regard to the majority group).

</p>

<p>[MIT</a> Office of the Provost, Institutional Research](<a href=“MIT Institutional Research”>MIT Institutional Research)
The graduation rates by ethnic group, averaging over the 2004 and 2005 years and rounding up, were</p>

<p>Asian 97%
White 94%
Hispanic 86%
Black 78%</p>

<p>Most students of all races graduate, but the failure rates of blacks and Hispanics are much higher than that of whites and Asians.</p>

[texaspg]

<p>^ What professors think about specific students is irrelevant. Every school has crappy professors who can’t teach if their life depended on it including MIT. The performance of a class in my opinion is directly attributable to the caliber of their teaching and they have failed if their students have failed.</p>

<p>Are 15% of MIT students flunking out?</p>

<p>Beliasky - one other important number.</p>

<p>Recipients of a Federal Pell Grant 82% 87%</p>

[shravas]

<p>

Yes, I did mean that I’ve never seen groundbreaking math research done in high school by someone who didn’t also make MOSP.

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<p>If by “groundbreaking,” you mean good enough to do well at a contest like Intel, then there are many such examples.</p>

[chashaobao]

<p>

Yes, I did mean that I’ve never seen groundbreaking math research done in high school by someone who didn’t also make MOSP.

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<p>Just a little bit of nitpicking. Micheal Viscardi’s work (intel final, Westinghouse winning) should rank pretty high for high school students. I think that he made USAMO but not MOSP. And I can think of another Intel final math project, the student involved did not even make USAMO.</p>

[chashaobao]

<p>

… The performance of a class in my opinion is directly attributable to the caliber of their teaching and they have failed if their students have failed.</p>

<p>Are 15% of MIT students flunking out?</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>It is very easy to not fail anyone, even for the worst professor in the world.</p>

<p>I am pretty certain more than 15% of MIT students drop out of Math and physics tracks after 2 years.</p>

[unicameral2013]

<p>“Just a little bit of nitpicking. Micheal Viscardi’s work (intel final, Westinghouse winning) should rank pretty high for high school students. I think that he made USAMO but not MOSP. And I can think of another Intel final math project, the student involved did not even make USAMO.”</p>

<p>Exactly. Filling in bubbles is not the only or the best way to demonstrate mathematical prowess. Some students are more interested in tackling real world problems. ALL students are sick of standardized testing by the time they get out of high school, so I don’t understand why it needs so much encouragement.</p>

[muckdogs07]

<p>Beliavsky,</p>

<p>“the failure rates of blacks and Hispanics are much higher than that of whites and Asians” </p>

<p>Are those students failing or not graduating and perhaps leaving for financial reasons, transferring etc?</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>^Yes, some students take off time to work.</p>

[lake42ks]

<p>^ “Some college” is also good education.</p>

<p>If USAMO 1 is auto-admit, more kids would qualify, probably not significantly more. It seems that AMC/AIME/USAMO is less accessible is not because it’s less available but not reachable. I thought mathematicians were the smartest but was told that physicists came first.</p>

[PCHope]

<p>“Yes, I did mean that I’ve never seen groundbreaking math research done in high school by someone who didn’t also make MOSP.”</p>

<p>Thanks for the clarification. This makes more sense. </p>

<p>Are there any concrete examples of groundbreaking math research done by HS students? It is hard for me to find any.</p>

[YZamyatin]

<h1>2259</h1>

<p>The competition for physics Olympiad is much less intense than the competition for USAMO. It is not unusual for kids to make the semis for physics Olympiad with less than two years exposure to physics. There are non-magnet high schools that frequently get multiple kids to the semis so it is hardly possible that these kids all have some profound gifted-ness. I don’t think you can say the same for contest math. Not many are making USAMO with so little exposure to contest math without being profoundly gifted.</p>

<p>Making the cutoff for the final 20 in physics is almost always a case of having a head start. The only local person I know of to do so was the daughter of two college professors, one of which taught… physics! Easy to look her up for anyone who doesn’t believe me. Although it might be difficult to identify her amongst all the other professors’ kids!</p>

<p>Auto-admit indeed.</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>

Are there any concrete examples of groundbreaking math research done by HS students? It is hard for me to find any.

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<p>I don’t know. I haven’t followed it rigorously, but the 4 or 5 times I read about the top 5 at intel the math project winners seem to have gotten MOSP or higher. </p>

<p>There are some people without MOSP qualification who do mathematical projects that did quite well in Intel but these are more modeling or computer sciency than pure math. </p>

<p>Off the top of my head, Lenny Ng, Jacob Lurie, Evan O’Dorney, and a couple of others whose names escape me made the top 5 of Intel with a math project and also had MOSP qualification. </p>

<p>Of course, I could be overlooking people because the projects of the intel finalists aren’t as publicized as the top 5, and I haven’t read about it every year. </p>

<p>It’s tough to do “groundbreaking” mathematical research because you have to be pretty advanced to do it in this field.</p>

[YZamyatin]

<p>collegealum314, #2209</p>

<p>

That surprises me, since the individual science olympiad classes are more easily self-studied from textbooks. I wouldn’t think you would need a college prof.

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<p>I sort or responded to this already out of order. I would add that you can’t study out of a textbook for a test you don’t know exists. Also, making semis seems to be a different ballgame than making the final 20.</p>

<p>

Right, but I assume if someone was interested in doing math outside of class, they probably would show up to math team practice once. Or at least ask the coach if they weren’t interested in team competitions.

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<p>Most USAMO qualifiers started with contest math in middle school. Pretty much none of these kids would have looked to “do math outside of class” without parental influence. The vast majority of parents have no idea that these opportunities exist. Therefore the vast majority of kids have no chance at making USAMO, independent of ‘ability’. That is my position anyway.</p>

[YZamyatin]

<p>QM, #2215</p>

<p>

I estimate that there are 18 people who meet my auto-admit criterion, and would not have been admitted to MIT already. That’s 1% of the admitted pool. I think there is plenty of room for the students who have never heard of any of the Olympiads.

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<p>I disagree with you on principal, not on scale. By the numbers there is nothing unreasonable about your proposal. There is no numerical or mathematical way for you to change my mind.</p>

<p>I’ll say it a different way. If, 5 years ago, all 3 million 6th graders were made to study contest math for several hours a week for 5 years, the number of kids “able” to score points on the USAMO this year (holding difficulty of the test constant) would be in the tens of thousands. That is my position. </p>

<p>The vast majority of those who actually achieve USAMO, as opposed to my speculated total potential, have their parental circumstances to thank more than any other factor. This is not an advisable foundation on which to build a case for auto-admit in my opinion.</p>

[YZamyatin]

<p>collegealum314, #2261</p>

<p>

As it appears, 1/5 of high schools participate in the AMC. If 100 students graduating a year have USAMO designation, then at most 500 students had the ability to do so.

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<p>Can you remind me where that 1/5 come from? I am struggling to keep up with you guys. I hope we are not just dividing that 5100 number by the number of high schools out there. AMC 8 is given in many middle/grade schools.</p>

<p>Even so, I do not conflate availability with awareness. In most schools, only the helicopter/tiger parents know about these tests and what they lead to.</p>

<p>As far as the 500 number goes, I obviously (previous post) disagree with your logic and math. The test is dynamic. There is a notional limit on access, it is dependent on the strength of competition. Your 500 # is based on that limited access. If all 12 million high school students studied contest math topics starting in 6th grade there would still be a fixed # of USAMO slots, but I assure you the AMC/AIME score to qualify would go through the roof. If you kept the AMC/AIME qualifying score constant, those 12 million students with years of contest math practice would provide considerably more than 400 additional qualifying scores. I say, 10s of thousands.</p>

[YZamyatin]

<p>xiggi, #2300</p>

<p>

Yes, that is very true. And that is why removing the entire admission component will help separate the … truly passionate kids from the ones who are part of high schools that have an excessive focus on the competition (read the type of HS with a 30,000 printer) and are “inheriting” research projects pushed by adults for their own purposes. But again, removing the gamesmanship and padding of resumes would simply decapitate the competition as most would … stay away. Would a competition for the truly passionate not be better?

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<p>Hear, hear.</p>

<p>Although I would argue that these competitions have jumped the shark as far as conveying advantage in college admissions is concerned; the jig has been up for a few years now.</p>

<p>At least the mathletes are taking their own tests…</p>

[YZamyatin]

<p>A word on community service after reading the various comments on this thread.</p>

<p>I have broad exposure to a lot of different groups, much due to my involvement with scouting. The number of high school kids milling around the various food banks/shelters/etc. cannot be understated. I am obviously daft because it wasn’t until my kids were older and I discovered the world of cc that I realized why these kids were always around in such abundance.</p>

<p>Now, you will have a hard time finding anyone as cynical as I am am as far as college admission/application gamesmanship goes. But I say bring them on, we need them. Even if only a small percentage carry their service beyond the confines of application window dressing, it is worth it. At least they are doing something productive for the wrong reason as opposed to all the competitions/clubs/ECs that produce nothing for the wrong reasons.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>"
Here is a proposition: when everyone hired by Marilee Jones has left MIT admissions, and only people hired by Stu Schmill or his successor remain, they could drop the auto-admit for “my” 18."</p>

<p>It’s already been shown to you that Marilee Jones didn’t “ruin” the caliber of admitted student by dipping low in the SAT pool as you had hypothesized. You didn’t go to MIT, you’re not on the faculty. Why is this so important to you? Why do you fetishize them so much? They are one school. And why so much hate for Marilee Jones? I am not excusing her behavior, but you seem to take it personally.</p>

[Bay]

<p>There is some irony (or is it hypocrisy?) in colleges needing students who will pay $55k for less than 9 months of education, a dreary shared room and crappy food, and at the same time judging unworthy those applicants who may have spent $10k to get an education about the world, done something nice for people while at it, but had the gall to write about it.</p>

[poetgrl]

<p>

there is some irony (or is it hypocrisy?) in colleges needing students who will pay $55k for less than 9 months of education, a dreary shared room and crappy food, and at the same time judging unworthy those applicants who may have spent $10k to get an education about the world, done something nice for people while at it, but had the gall to write about it.

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<p>+5 …</p>