Angry over the college admissions process

Parents Forum
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<p>Perhaps, but the publication of two volumes of memoirs auggest that he was no stranger to words either.</p>

<p>The reason I mention Feynman is not to question his fitness for MIT or the markers present to indicate that fitness but to suggest that we should not use one test as a marker for academic fitness. As I mention James Watson also posted mediocre IQ results, and he was “encouraged” to abandon science by his own admission. Some of his later racism may support the inadequacies of his thinking, but his breakthrough scientific research does not.</p>

<p>Science is a big umbrella. Lots of room for different kinds of minds with differing strengths. I think one of the most important qualifications for science is devotion and commitment.</p>

<p>We do want to pair minds with environments that nurture them, but I don’t see why this thinking should be limited to STEM majors. I don’t find science to be the only field with social value.</p>

<p>My academic word happens to concern three novelists who began as scientists and ended up in the humanities: Vonnegut, Pynchon and Powers. Each independently expressed the ideas that the humanities allowed him to think in a broader, more comprehensive way. And each has a message that suggests that there are other areas of significant import besides science.</p>

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<p>I was not shut out, but circumstances sent me to a lackluster department from which I earned acceptance into a PhD. at Columbia.</p>

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<p>@mythmom - my DD chose the University of St. Thomas, in St. Paul, MN.</p>

<p>@poetgrl - you picked up the Michelangelo quote and skipped over the Wayne Gretzky and Teddy Roosevelt? ;)</p>

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I’m an analytical geek male and I’m totally with the folks advocating holistic admissions and frankly don’t get the belief that the process could be quantified … I seriously don’t understand how anyone who has interviewed people for jobs can believe that lining applicants up by their scores or trying to develop a measurement process to grade and then rank order things like ECs and leadership is remotely possible. </p>

<p>And my complaint comes on two fronts both quantitative … the time and cost of developing and running such a measurement system would be prohibitive … and it just wouldn’t be that accurate. I’ve been interviewing folks for jobs for 20+ years with evaluation methods at varying degrees of quantification … and at all places, in the end, the best selection process was getting together and discussing the applicants. The correlation to how we had them graded after reviewing their resumes (rank order them on the their “scores”) is virtually non-existent and the percentage of time an applicant had “it” over the other applicants was very high … it just has not been very hard to pick who to hire. </p>

<p>I’m also interviewed for my college and picking out the outstanding candidates from the pool of highly qualified applicants just is not that hard either. At the time my school has an acceptance rate of about 30% and the candidates who had “it” in the interview got in at a 90% acceptance rate … and the one who missed is one I knew wouldn’t make it because her SATs were just too low (even though I advocated for her).</p>

<p>Bottom line if your kid is killing themselves to take the hardest curriculum or is trying to figure out what to do to appear interesting to HYP etc then they are probably not the students these schools are hoping to cull out of the admissions process … they are looking for kid who can do very well academically without killing themselves and who are doing interesting stuff because they are naturally drawn in that direction.</p>

<p>I have a hard time believing that the folks complaining about the process and how it is impossible to stand out among the crowd or to be able to differentiate among the applicants have actually interviewed candidates for a top 20 school. If they did I would guess their experience would be similar to mine … they would be a stream of very qualified and interesting candidates all of whom would be fine representatives of the school … but among that crowd of qualified candidates would be 10% or so who just wow you with some aspect of their story.</p>

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<p>QuantMech, I appreciate you going laboriously through all these posts and responding to them.</p>

<p>I disagree with the way your point is framed, though. Wouldn’t it be “better for the country” if MORE universities could provide great STEM (and other) training to the most promising students? There is no way MIT can accommodate either a) all qualified students or b) the demand for future STEM stars. Nor can it employ every research or teaching faculty member with the potential to do great work. So in my opinion it is a GOOD thing that undergrad students, and MS/PhD students, find their way to a wider range of programs. I only wish more parents had the confidence that their talented kids could achieve the same results without going to MIT or HYPS.</p>

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<p>Helen Vendler, English professor at Harvard, has written an essay on
[admitting</a> and nurturing creative undergraduates | Harvard Magazine Nov-Dec 2012](<a href=“http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/11/writers-and-artists-at-harvard]admitting”>http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/11/writers-and-artists-at-harvard)</p>

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<p>3togo - I have seen alums complain on CC as well as in real life about how hard it is becoming for anyone to get into their schools and how they are not able to predict who can actually get in.</p>

<p>Everyone gets interviewed for MIT and the ivy league. Some of the alums interview as many as 15-20 candidates in a cycle and have found that none may be admitted despite their strong recommendation. It has become too hard to get in.</p>

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<p>Thank you for linking that article, Beliavsky. How one can read that article and care about SAT scores (beyond “can do the work”) is beyond me.</p>

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<p>texas - I showed the MIT physics placement exam to my son. He said that “no one should be admitted who cannot easily do those problems” (he also thought they are intro to physics, not AP level.</p>

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<p>That’s a very hard question to answer. There are a few people who I suspect changed their career path partly as a result of it, some in real life and others on cc. It’s not the sort of thing someone would admit to, and if they did, then people would make negative assumptions on their character. One of these people was conservatively one of the top 50 candidates in math/science. </p>

<p>As Quantmech alluded to, it is easier to make money by NOT trying to make paradigm-shifting discoveries. It’s understood that it’s unlikely to make a lot of money, but if they are also not getting positive feedback, they may change course. It happens.</p>

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<p>Well, James Watson also got the highest score on the internal reading comprehension test given out at his private high school, Horace Mann. I don’t know how he did on the other measures. He did mention that he could have done better in some of his math and physics classes as an undergrad.</p>

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<p>As an undergraduate, I went to a university that some of the people on CC would not consider, due to cost selecting it over MIT, where I was also admitted. I wound up at MIT as a post-doc. In my estimation, any short-comings that I have now scientifically are a result of my own limitations, and not my undergrad school.</p>

<p>Break into a chorus of “I’m a science prof, and I’m ok,” to the tune of “He’s a lumberjack and he’s ok” (but without any of the additional connotations, please).</p>

<p>On the other hand, I have been advised by a Nobel Laureate to “be just a little bit better.” Good advice for us all, probably</p>

<p>I will say that I have seen posts on the MIT forum that suggest that MIT is now declining fantastically well prepared students, who–I think–would actually not be as well-served by my undergrad institution (as it is now) as I was (back then).</p>

<p>While I agree with sally305 that it would be great if more universities could provide excellent STEM training, not enough money is being devoted to STEM education to permit this at present. There are many other pressing needs in society that I think should have precedence over expanding the number of top-quality STEM education providers. </p>

<p>If I believed that the number of exceptionally qualified high-school seniors in STEM fields actually exceeded the capacity of the “top” schools (taking into account the number who are not actually interested in attending a “top” school), then I would probably give the expansion of absolutely top-quality universities for STEM undergrads a higher priority than I currently do. Instead, I think it is a problem of mis-selection.</p>

<p>I think that LoremIpsum is exactly right that the admissions offices can become fiefdoms of their own. I sincerely doubt that MIT admissions is soliciting (much) input from their faculty. One MIT faculty member that I talked to thought that MIT was rejecting thousands of 2400 scorers each year. I doubt that there are thousands (plural) of them, even with super-scoring. He also remarked that he wondered how about 15% of the students he taught were ever admitted to MIT. This was not an anti-AA nor an anti-women-student comment–plenty of students of privilege in the group. He is not alone in this opinion. However, as mentioned earlier on, the quality of the grad students is much more crucial for MIT faculty than the quality of the undergrads–particularly if 85% of the undergrads are just fine.</p>

<p>But I think that admissions could be tuned at the margin. I suspect that admissions policy is set as it is partly to ensure predictability in the class size for MIT. The top students are likely to have several excellent options, and I would guess that their yield is lower. This no longer factors in ratings, but it does factor in predicting class size and limiting the need to go to the waitlist.</p>

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<p>Thanks for your perspective, collegealum314. I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, though? Are you saying you know of a top 50 math/science candidate who decided not to pursue a STEM career because of an admissions disappointment? That isn’t necessarily what I had in mind when I posed my question. I was looking for bad outcomes. Someone changing course? That happens all the time.</p>

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<p>James Watson’s remarks on his unimpressive IQ and the chorus of voices urging him not to go into science are in The Double Helix. As a Long Islander, I have met him on many occasions. (He supervised Cold Spring Harbor Labs on Long Island. It is very near the town I grew up in and a frequent haunt for field trips. But I ran into him as an adult as well.)</p>

<p>Yes, thank you Beliavsky for Vendler’s remarks. I really recommend her book on Shakespeare’s sonnets. </p>

<p>QuantMech: Thank you for sharing your personal history. I, too, feel that my own values have limited my career, not my undergraduate institution. </p>

<p>giterdone: Thanks for answering my question. I’m delighted that your D is happy at her school.</p>

<p>I know that for my kids being admitted to the “right school” (right for them – not universally coveted as Harvard is) did really influence their life paths. I am very grateful they were admitted. </p>

<p>As whatever I’ve argued, I am sorry for the young people who are bitterly disappointed by their admissions results, even if they can “bloom where they’re planted.” </p>

<p>A dear friend of mine teaches use of the school’s software to the students and sometimes the staff at MIT. Her background is a PhD. in Spanish Language Literature with a concentration in South American Literature. I know she has fun understanding the software in ways the techies don’t, but more than that, she really loved Cambridge and MIT. I don’t think that experience can be duplicated, even if the education can.</p>

<p>ONTH, There are many wonderful experiences to be had in our adventures in higher education. </p>

<p>A dear in-law studied biology at University of Colorado and became a high school biology teacher. When he decided it wasn’t enough for him, he was admitted to a PhD program at MIT. He now teaches biology at Tufts. </p>

<p>Life isn’t decided by the thin or fat envelope.</p>

<p>Having seen the consequences of test driven admissions in the lives of my students, I am really delighted that we have more seats and more opportunities here than in the countries many of my students come from. Perhaps MIT is passing over some great scientists and making mistakes; I still don’t think a test-driven metric would solve that problem.</p>

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<p>Yes. I was going to address the undergrad-versus-grad-student issue, but you beat me to it. A smart, motivated undergrad can succeed in a wide range of environments–from solid universities to reputable state flagships to LACs–and go on to receive a terminal degree from MIT or whatever other “elite” program best fits his or her academic goals. As one of my professor friends says, “it just doesn’t matter where you go for undergrad.” And as I have noted numerous times, there are HYPSM PhDs teaching at hundreds of colleges and thus hopefully bestowing their great knowledge on their students wherever they are.</p>

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<p>So Mary, what did your son decide to do? Europe? Community college? Spring admits? Wait list?</p>

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<p>"He also remarked that he wondered how about 15% of the students he taught were ever admitted to MIT. "</p>

<p>It seems to me that 15% of the class at MIT is always going to be, well, the bottom 15% of the class.</p>

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<p>“If I believed that the number of exceptionally qualified high-school seniors in STEM fields actually exceeded the capacity of the “top” schools (taking into account the number who are not actually interested in attending a “top” school), then I would probably give the expansion of absolutely top-quality universities for STEM undergrads a higher priority than I currently do. Instead, I think it is a problem of mis-selection”</p>

<p>in your opinion, Quantmech, how many truly “top” schools are there for STEM, and what are they? Trying to understand how many actual slots you think there are below which quality falls so precipitously that a “good” STEM student who winds up there is screwed.</p>

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<p>I don’t have a specific number in mind, Pizzagirl, but it is definitely the case that the quality of scientific instrumentation varies a lot from university to university.</p>

<p>The extent to which any specific university may be limiting depends on the strength of the student in question.</p>

<p>I’m not really talking about a “good” STEM student, who could go a lot of places. I’m talking about a rare subset of STEM students, probably 100 a year or fewer. I am making a very narrow claim that if any in this subset apply to MIT, they should be admitted.</p>

<p>Lots of people get Ph.D.s at Harvard and even more get undergrad degrees there. Most of them are not the equals of the Harvard faculty.</p>

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<p>“STEM” is not monolithic in terms of this and other phenomena. For example, the biology departments at Berkeley seem to have a limitless capacity to accept students – Molecular and Cell Biology is the largest undergraduate major at Berkeley, and Integrative Biology is the fourth largest (behind Economics and Political Science). Neither of these two biology majors is capped or impacted (meaning that any student who merely passes the prerequisites can declare the major). These two biology majors produce more bachelor’s degrees than Berkeley’s entire College of Engineering, all of whose majors have capacity limitations (meaning that students who want to change into them have to apply into a competitive admissions process to do so, needing a very high college GPA to succeed).</p>

<p>Perhaps the overproduction of biology graduates relative to biology jobs (even at the PhD level) causes a positive feedback in that it is relatively inexpensive to hire more biology faculty, in contrast to having to compete with industry for engineering PhDs when hiring engineering faculty.</p>

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<p>When <a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu%5B/url%5D”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu</a> was working it was easy to see that the higher ranges of applicant stats that resulted in higher admission rates at UC also had lower yield rates.</p>