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Would this be surprising? <em>Men</em> typically like to try to “quantify” their women for attractiveness as well - Bo Derek is a 10, so and so is a 34-26-34. When was the last time you saw a beautiful hunk guy with a dumpy balding woman? Women view the package more holistically, as it were ;). </p>
<p>No offense guys…</p>
<p>There is no value in 25-35k apps. These schools did fine; society did fine; people succeeded just fine, 20 years ago. The common app (internet) changed it. Selectivity as a prestige indicator, drove it. Reputation reinforced it. And the gambling mentality (take a shot) contributed to it. All the schools can do, is try and manage it. But them picking students is like a financial planner picking stocks. How many times have we heard the “monkey throwing darts” analogy for stock picking? You think adcom’s are any better? Hardly.</p>
<p>Which, by the way, strengthens my “might as well take a shot” position. If there were actual verifiable and observable metrics and rationale that people (kids) could witness, touch and feel? then there would be fewer taking the shot. As long as it remains arguably subjective? it will grow and grow. And the colleges look at app revenue as a profit center now.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I fought “an old guy network” but I did fight old guys, to the point of my dissertation committee claiming in dissertation was plagiarized (no one could ever find any source because it wasn’t), it having to be adjudicated by a dean and the University Microfiche awarding it best dissertation in the US in any field for 1987.</p>
<p>Since I wrote on Pynchon, it did require a thorough understand of rocket technology and physics in general. I guess I should have gone to MIT. (See smiley face.) I <em>do</em> think that’s why they thought it plagiarized.</p>
<p>I did score the 100% in NYS on the Chemistry Regents the year I took it. Hm. Perhaps I should have gone to MIT.</p>
<p>"When was the last time you saw a beautiful hunk guy with a dumpy balding woman? "</p>
<p>I thought it happens all the time when a woman is rich and old. They are all hanging out at the french riviera may be?</p>
<p>Not sure why we are having such a major discussion about MIT SAT scores when they are freely available through google. Is there any better evidence showing SAT math score may not matter to MIT as much as people would like to believe?</p>
<p>MIT 2012 admissions</p>
<p>Distribution of SAT Reasoning Test Scores (Math)
Applicants Admits Admit rate
750-800 7,805 1,071 14%
700-740 3,123 290 9%
650-690 1,700 68 4%
600-640 793 2 0%</p>
<p>Gourmetmom’s S got into Harvard and turned down by MIT. It happens. Harvard does have more seats to fill too.</p>
<p>Our DD got in to Brown (turned them down), and was rejected (not wait listed, flat out denied) at ND and NU.</p>
<p>There is no sense to this process</p>
<p>…and I’ll add - she is extremely challenged and happy where she ended up. It was 100% her choice.</p>
<p>
I had noticed this. There was also one in the “mismatch caused by racial preferences” thread. Men are more likely to want to quantify everything. As data becomes cheaper to store and transmit, there is more material for quants to work with.</p>
<p>giterdone: If it’s not too personal, which school was that? Just curious.</p>
<p>My S also turned down Brown. He was wait listed and accepted off the wait list. He also turned down U of Chicago. Rejected at Tufts and Cornell. He didn’t want to go to either of them so I thought the adcoms brilliant in deducing that! (I’m only half kidding.)</p>
<p>" Is there any better evidence showing SAT math score may not matter to MIT as much as people would like to believe?</p>
<p>MIT 2012 admissions</p>
<p>Distribution of SAT Reasoning Test Scores (Math)
Applicants Admits Admit rate
750-800 7,805 1,071 14%
700-740 3,123 290 9%
650-690 1,700 68 4%
600-640 793 2 0%
"</p>
<p>Which MIT is free to change at any time. So all the whining about what MIT “should” value is pointless. George Clooney “should” value me for my mind, too, but he probably picks his women on other criteria. Oh well.</p>
<p>Stop whining about what they shouldn’t do.</p>
<p>Neither the MIT faculty nor the alumni wanted the changes to admissions. One person decided to change it.</p>
<p>Scary to think that MIT “allowed” one person to change things. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Since that person is no longer at MIT wouldn’t admissions standards revert to those before her tenure? If not, why not?</p>
<p>Giterdone 1264: bad form to quote michealangelo without attribution. Verbatim. Plagiarism. Carry on.</p>
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<p>A person who explicitly desires to change the direction of a previous policy will hire and promote others who agree with that new policy. Those individuals will, in turn, hire and promote others who are in line with their thinking. When the original policy changer leaves, the others put into place will still remain, as will, in large part, the newer policy. In the absence of a widely-annouced change in that more recent policy, the previous method will tend to remain, in part due to inertia and in part due to the seniority and influence of those put in place by the previous administration. Formally reverting to the old policy would amount to a public admission of the failure of that policy – things have to be pretty drastic for that to happen, given most organizations’ desire to hide their dirty laundry.</p>
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<p>This can be a problem for unorthodox or deep thinkers with little standardized test-taking experience. Learning to underestimate the complexity of a test question can be an acquired skill. However, by the time they take the SAT, most advanced test-takers have had plenty of experience with standardized tests and have figured out the “least worst answer” rule.</p>
<p>^ But an admissions dean is very much beholden to the U, itself. Generally driven by goals set by the U, it’s board and top dogs. There has to be an alignment between corporate goals and admissions “productivity.” As the narrow end of the funnel, their work is critical to the welfare and productivity (and image/identity) of the institution. Not an independent fiefdom. Does that affect your view?</p>
<p>Re the post by sally305, back at #1188 and the post by Pizzagirl at #1191:</p>
<p>I agree that it is “better for the country” for the subset of students who happen to be in STEM fields to go to the top places, generally speaking.</p>
<p>The years between 18 and 22 are years of tremendous intellectual growth. From observations of my colleagues, I have noticed that the significance of the research problems that people select is influenced to a certain extent by the faculty at their undergraduate institution–maybe about equal in extent to the influence of their graduate research mentor. Of course, one isn’t “done” at 22, and the brighter young scientists are probably better able to overcome a weaker background than others, but I think there is a residual effect still. I also think that science is advanced much further by ground-breaking work than by stack-it-up-to-make-a-large-stack-of-results work. The country is better off if really bright young scientists have early examples of thinking big.</p>
<p>College admissions and the investment in college education are viewed by a lot of people on CC as a private good, I think: beneficial to the student who is admitted but with zero or negative effect on society. In STEM fields, I don’t think this is true. One of my semi-crack-pot theories about the de-emphasis on sheerly academic qualities at places like MIT is “the end of the cold war.” In an earlier era, I think that the importance of having a group of intellectually deep scientists who were well educated may have been better recognized. </p>
<p>I teach at a large public research university. There are some reasons that people stay put here, but several of my really accomplished colleagues have been lured away by the HYPSM+C schools. On the whole, to face reality, the faculty at any of those places is more distinguished than I and my colleagues. Can a really strong student still do very well where I am, and continue to do well in science research post-graduation? No doubt of it. On the other hand, might the same student have done better by going to one of HYPSM+C as an undergrad? Maybe. If the student is strongly committed to science, that probably increases the odds.</p>
<p>I do see a hazard with the HYPS component of HYPSM+C for a STEM-inclined student who is not strongly committed–the siren call of fields that offer substantially better compensation can be very hard for a 22-year-old to resist.</p>
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<p>From what I have seen in larger organizations, there are frequently well-entrenched fiefdoms who do their own thing, often with plenty of internal support, no matter what the new guy on top decides. It’s not as easy to dislodge such people in civil service or educational environments as it is in business, as many “reformers” have discovered over the years.</p>
<p>*“better for the country” for the subset of students who happen to be in STEM fields to go to the top places, *</p>
<p>Mostly agree but it’s not the current culture surrounding colleges in the US. Does that mean MIT has to mold itself to be more excusively for topmost STEM kids? Apparently, they think not. And what about the vast percentage of kids for whom there simply is no seat? Should MIT be charged with expanding?</p>
<p>LI, admissions doesn’t exactly compare to the corporate world. It really does liken to a funnel- and the determining goals are per decisions from outside that dept- eg, a decision to expand female STEM would be made by the U. Unlike, say, a research dept that chooses, based on its own expertise, the next trend to tackle, then sells the concept and budget.</p>
<p>Still catching up. In post #1275, collegealum314 has already made a point that I would have made about Feynman’s IQ. There were plenty of pre-college signs of genius there. And he went to MIT as an undergrad. There he worked as a research assistant to Slater (in quantum mechanics) and published his first paper. So maybe going to MIT helped. :)</p>
<p>If Feynman did not hit the ceiling on the IQ test, I rather suspect that the vocabulary component might have been his short-coming. As a student, he once asked a librarian for a “map of the cat.” He seems to have been the kind of scientist who operated on the basis of mental processes that did not need to be cast as words.</p>
<p>It seems to me intuitively reasonable that going to the “best” program for whatever you wish to study is going to confer advantages, ranging from REALLY significant to SOMEWHAT significant (y’all like how I quantified that?). But if, for whatever reason, a student isn’t chosen by or doesn’t choose the best program, there seems ample evidence that this needn’t be the end of the road with regard to admission to good graduate programs (if that’s the route one wants to take) and certainly not with regard to employment success in general. Admission to good grad programs is competitive, I gather, so one should get whatever edge one can. But it just strains belief to think that a motivated top 1 percent student could not manage to rise above the initial humiliation of a rejection from any school X. Assuming there is a relationship between the quality of undergraduate and graduate science education at any given school, there are plenty of excellent, accessible options for high-caliber students who don’t make the cut at the most elite schools. Again I ask, does anyone know of a promising young student (STEM or not) who was shut out of whatever his or her top choice was, who has not overcome the insult? A real student, not a theoretical one?</p>