<p>Thanks for posting the article written by the Harvard connected person. What an impact it could have if enough read it and bought into it.</p>
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<p>One question would be, would the characteristics that distinguish these 100 students be obviously visible on college applications, compared to the applications of many students who are good or great, but not super-outstanding?</p>
<p>(Standardized test scores in the US would not be sufficient, since the ceiling scores are low enough that the super-outstanding students, great students, and some of the merely very good students may all get similar scores.)</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, #1337: There is a difference between being in the bottom 15% of the class, which has to happen to 15% of the students, and having a professor wonder how one was ever admitted to the university.</p>
<p>Beliavsky, thank you for the link to Helen Vendler’s opinion piece. </p>
<p>Who are the philosophers and poets of 2035? They walk among us, but we don’t know who they are. I think they’re more likely to be found at Hampshire College than Harvard University.</p>
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<p>I’m curious in what way this person was one of the top 50 candidates in math/science, because in my experience, this is not the case. I would guess majority of MOP attendees, and the similar training camps for physics and computing, and Intel and Siemens finalists attend HYPMS. If it’s not those schools, it’s Chicago, or Duke, or Carnegie Mellon, or some other top school - and they probably chose their school over an admittance to HYPMS.</p>
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<p>They are being made, not the persons with the same names that are walking among us.</p>
<p>There are great teachers everywhere. The corollary is that there are also bad teachers everywhere. So one does not need to go to Harvard or MIT to find the good or bad because some of the best may be teaching elsewhere. </p>
<p>There are great future engineers of 2035 attending places like Olin or Harvey Mudd or Purdue. Some of the best doctoral students have done exceedingly well at a no name school in US or as it so happens with 50-60% of doctoral students, in some obscure college abroad and have continued to be exceptional at MIT, Caltech or other big name schools. I really don’t believe one has to be caught early and groomed to their fullest potential.</p>
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<p>So, ironically, the claim being made is that the smarter and more special / brilliant / genius the student, the more his or her abilities are hampered or limited if he or she doesn’t get into Just the Very Right School - MIT or maybe a handful of others.</p>
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<p>But that presupposes that there is a class of student that MIT “owes” admission to. That’s where we fundamentally disagree. I don’t think MIT “owes” admission to anyone they don’t find interesting enough to admit. And just because you think “top 100 in the country in math / science” is interesting enough, doesn’t mean they have to. And if they prefer the merely super-bright kid who does something interesting over the genius-bright kid who never leaves the lab – why isn’t that their prerogative? </p>
<p>Apropos of nothing, my D, who attends a school that has cross-registration with MIT, shared this video with me – I thought it would provide some comic relief. [1077</a> The End - Seattle - Video: CNN’s In-Depth Look At M.I.T. Body Odor](<a href=“Seattle Alternative Music #2MinutePromise - KNDD-FM | 107.7 The End”>Seattle Alternative Music #2MinutePromise - KNDD-FM | 107.7 The End)</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, #1348: I look at this in the opposite way: The brighter the student, the more fully he/she is able to take advantage of the opportunities to learn from really outstanding faculty members. </p>
<p>With this comment, I am not referring to “outstanding teachers,” in terms of classroom instruction. Feynman lost a lot of his students when he taught introductory physics at Caltech–even with that select group. I think this course must have been incredibly frustrating to those who could not follow it. In this sense, he could hardly be rated as an “outstanding teacher.” However, The Feynman Lectures in Physics, a three-volume set based on the lectures in the course, are superb and well worth multiple readings (or a single reading, in the case of LoremIpsum’s son, or others who get it the first time around).</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, #1349, your viewpoint is certainly the one taken by MIT admissions. Mine is different. I think that there are some students that MIT really ought to admit, and that they don’t owe it to the students, they owe it to the country.</p>
<p>No doubt, we will never persuade each other, but the discussion certainly gives me an opportunity to refine my analysis around the edges.</p>
<p>^But what is the cost to MIT, or the world, to have a small percentage that don’t meet the typical MIT brand “standard”? The answer: very little.</p>
<p>Life isn’t fair. At this very moment there are brilliant nascent scientists and mathematicians all over the world who will never go to MIT or any American university. The system isn’t perfect, but it works as well as it can in a free-market society. I don’t cry for the domestic students who have to choose U of Illinois or Alabama over MIT or Stanford. If they are that good, they will succeed and leave their mark regardless of where they get their B.S. degree.</p>
<p>Quantmech - I really liked post 1316.</p>
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<p>Consulting.</p>
<p>After reading this and similar threads, I wonder how much we discourage the “genius-bright” by assuming they are uninteresting and unlikeable compared to the “super-bright.” It bothers me quite a bit they may be encouraged by society to conform to the “super-bright” norms. </p>
<p>Bay suggests (way upthread; I can’t read back that far to give the post #) that individual genius may be less important than I imagine, that important discoveries happen when the time is right. Even so, doesn’t it just make sense to have as many geniuses as possible working at their full potential to increase the possible benefit to society? So that the discoveries that will benefit us all happen in as timely a matter as possible?</p>
<p>I think your point about the cold war emphasis on science is really fascinating and I’ve have been thinking about it ever since you raised it some time back… and wondering if, as a society, we only value intellectual achievement when we can see an immediate and very clear possible personal benefit - like we won’t get blown up.</p>
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<p>Richard Feynman is my son’s all-time favorite scientist. I don’t believe he has had the chance to read Feynman’s Lectures in Physics yet, but he loved the multiple autobiographical volumes, which I gave him some years ago. Feynman’s stories about picking locks holding A-Bomb secrets at Los Alamos are absolutely hilarious!</p>
<p>From the fact that life is not fair, I derive the idea that I should do what I can to make things as fair as possible.</p>
<p>I agree that students can succeed from a variety of backgrounds. In fact, one of my acquaintances went to the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire (because his girlfriend was going there–he hadn’t otherwise intended to go to college at all), and has wound up in the National Academy of Sciences.</p>
<p>I just think that if one had a choice of admitting to MIT a student who could understand the introductory lectures of a Feynman type, vs. one who could not (and the demographics of the two students are the same), the fact that the latter is a rodeo clown, unicyclist, or ceramic frog collector ought not figure into the decision.</p>
<p>Incidentally, the Feynman Lectures are available in paperback. I have two sets, one to lend to students and one to keep.</p>
<p>Just to add: Re Bay’s point that any given advance would have been made by someone else–a group of scientists I knew had the idea of an “Einstein award of order n,” where n is the number of years that would have had to elapse before someone else did make the same advance. (Correspondingly, there was an award for setting the field back by n years.)</p>
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<p>So what? Lots of bright kids go to UW-Eau Claire. One of the most successful people I know went to UWEC undergrad and then Stanford for his PhD. I know this is hard for some to believe outside the rarefied air of East Coast schools, but there are really smart people everywhere and they find their “level” no matter where they start from. </p>
<p>There is really no crisis here. Throughout history people have, and have not, reached their potential due to a combination of talent and luck and opportunity. To insinuate that MIT or other top schools are missing out or failing the country because of their admissions policies is beyond ridiculous.</p>
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<p>REMAIN CALM! ALL IS WELL!</p>
<p>[Animal</a> House - All Is Well! - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDAmPIq29ro]Animal”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDAmPIq29ro)</p>
<p>^Not sure why Dean Fitzsimmons is wearing a uniform…</p>
<p>I actually have the Feynman lectures and have read them. I probably need two more readings!</p>
<p>Many great poets have come out of Harvard, as it happens. I don’t know of any from Hampshire.</p>
<p>And if people are led into more lucrative fields, they’re not the special creative geniuses we need worry about. Yes, brilliance, creative spark – all important. But motivation is even more important I think.</p>
<p>All it takes is one really great teacher to inspire a student and hone his/her skills.</p>