<p>
</p>
<p>I will avoid commenting further, because discussions of racial preferences on CC tend to get shut down.</p>
<p>Why arenât these students being admitted already? </p>
<p>I donât know that, either, but I would suspect that a few of them fall victim to stereotyping. Has the stereotype of the âtextureless math grindâ been completely eliminated? Before that phrase came out, it is possible that an applicant who knew that he/she was personally well-rounded, and had a lot of friends did not realize that there might be a need to counter the stereotype in the essays, and might have written quite earnest science/math/engineering essays (yawn), rather than a âChicken Nuggetsâ essay.</p>
<p>There might be a few âred flags.â As above, I think that their number is in the single digits.</p>
<p>Lack of geographical dispersion may be another reason. Top schools go to great lengths to assure students that they are being considered relative to the national pool rather than relative to students from their own high schools. However, in 2011, the following high schools all had 4 or more qualifiers (out of the 282 total, 268 US listed in black): Mission San Jose, Canyon Crest Academy in San Diego, Lynbrook in San Jose, Saratoga (CA), George Walton Comprehensive High School in Marietta, GA, Phillips Academy, Lexington, Montgomery Blair, Phillips Exeter, the Academy for the Advancement of Science and Technology (Hackensack), West Windsor Plainsboro HS South (NJ), Stuyvesant, and Thomas Jefferson (Alexandria).</p>
<p>I can understand the geographical dispersion argument. On the other hand, these schools also produce a substantial number of pre-11 grade qualifiers who re-qualify, which would reduce the numbers in any given cohort. Also, it seems unlikely to me that if they were all admitted, the TJ students would link arms and walk around campus chanting, âWe donât stop for no-body!â</p>
<h1>1773 Canuckguy - Thanks for the link. This looks fascinating and Iâm going to read it closely later today. If you want to start a new thread? It probably will get this one closed. I do think this thread keeps getting back to differing ideas as to the mission of the university.</h1>
<p>Iâd like to agree with the comment that many kids may not know anything about USAMO. This is certainly the case with other competitions, like the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, YoungARTs, and TASP. My kids went to a magnet high school that is probably on that short list, and they still didnât hear about any of these things at school, We found out about them here on CC and elsewhere on the Web. (I donât know if kids there heard about USAMO or not, but I never heard anything about it as a parent.)</p>
<p>Hunt - Do you agree or disagree that those scoring on the USAMO should be an auto-admit group at MIT (assuming no Lex Luthors in the group)?</p>
<p>Maybe we could get a count? PG - what are you thinking at this point? Poetgrl? anyone else?</p>
<p>This really seems to be much ado about nothing. Itâs not as if these few USAMO kids are ending up at community college if they donât get into MIT. I randomly googled a few of the top kids in 2008 just out of curiosity. Of ones I could find, many had either gone to MIT as undergrads or were currently grad students there. One Harvard undergrad(then MIT PhD),one UCLA undergrad then on to MIT, one kid at Princeton undergad. Maybe he just liked Princeton better and hadnât even applied to MIT. Who knows but MIT is not for everybody and it seems like most of the kids who are top math students do have a good shot at MIT. It really doesnât seem like some kind of auto-admit is necessary at all. There are too many factors that go into college admissions, beyond just a score. So no, do not agree with auto-admit.</p>
<p>I donât agree that they should be auto-admits, because I still think there may be facts which might suggest that they wouldnât fit in well at MIT. For example, if I were MIT, I wouldnât want to admit a student with poor grades in English and social studies, even if he or she was a talented mathematician. I also wouldnâ t want to admit somebody who received negative recs, or who had a criminal record, or who had been disciplined for cheating, and probably others. I think it would dumb of MIT to reject such a person just because they have too many people from Massachusetts alreadyâbut Iâm not convinced that MIT is dumb. While they may well make some mistakes, I suspect that if you could be a fly on the wall in the admissions committee the decisions would make sense in the vast majority of cases.</p>
<p>And hereâs another interesting fact, from the MIT admissions website:
It appears that a bad interview might make a difference at MIT, since no interview clearly does.</p>
<p>Still compiling reasons why these students might not have been admitted: Another is that they seemed insufficiently âfun.â There is a question on the MIT application asking what the applicant does for fun. It would be best to regard âreading the Feynman Lectures on Physicsâ as an illicit pleasure, not to be mentioned in this context. Marilee Jones favored applicants who made popcorn and watched movies with friends (I think she is quoted in print as having said so). This could be a screen against introverts, too.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Maybe some of them arenât admitted because of the stereotype of the textureless math grind, and maybe some of them arenât admitted because they are textureless math grinds.</p>
<p>I personally object to the distorting effect of academic contests.</p>
<p>There still has been no proof of any kind that the very brightest students are harmed by not having a Golden Ticket to MIT. </p>
<p>So, no to auto-admit.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This idealization of MIT as the Holy Grail is just as over-the-top as the idealization of HYP and / or Ivies as the only colleges worth going to, or i-banking and mgt consulting as the only careers that could possibly provide a nice lifestyle. I donât ever think idealizing one âthingâ is evidence of a really bright mind. As said above, itâs not as though these kids canât find plenty smart kids other places. </p>
<p>This is not analogous to the gifted kid having to watch Barney in class and becoming bored / restless as a result. Richly intellectual peers and professors can be found a lot of different places.</p>
<p>Another thoughtâperhaps MIT has studied what qualities exhibited by applicants are most correlated with success at MIT, and perhaps USAMO isnât all that high on the list.</p>
<p>A related point is that MIT enrolls lots of math whizzes every year. One or two more or less just may not be that big a deal to them.</p>
<p>Re: Swimkidsdad, #1747: Einstein was 16 when he first applied to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute (now ETH Zurich, as far as I can make out), and was not accepted. The next year, at 17, he was accepted.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>QM - with all due respect, I love you, but this is where your scientist-literalness gets you in trouble! Is it really that Marilee Jones favored the specific activities of popcorn making and watching movies with friends? Or is that that was an EXAMPLE of the type of I-have-a-life-and-social-skills-I-am-more-than-a-grind that she sought to see?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Right. Itâs certainly a big deal to their family and friends, but to MIT? Their mission hasnât ever been stated as âfind / identify every single greatest math whiz.â</p>
<p>I just donât get the belief that amazing potential is being thrown in the trash, here.</p>
<p>Sue22, #1767, some of the students at Exeter are there on scholarship. I mentioned above a study that indicated that family income and AMC performance might be anti-correlated at the highest levels. We live in an area with fairly high median family income. Nevertheless, there are students who have free or reduced-price lunches at the school.</p>
<p>Canuckguy - I did plow through the excellent article @1773. I too, think it is worthy of itâs own thread.</p>
<p>Agree - Canuckguy, great, thought provoking article - thank you for posting it.</p>
<p>"Wasnât one of the recent IMO gold medalists, Evan OâDorney, homeschooled? And his father works for the civil service, so heâs probably not able to mentor his son in these math competitions. "</p>
<p>He was not shortchanged all that much since he was a really well known kid after winning the spelling bee. He was mentored a by a top notch Stanford prof for his math paper that won the Intel talent search. Kid is practically paying for college at Harvard with his prize money. I guess he did not consider MIT worthy for his talent?</p>
<p>On a different note, I also vote against auto admits. MIT has enough almost auto admits via RSI, MITES programs where some of these top Math kids get in anyway. </p>
<p>Where does it end - MIT likes all science types. So why USAMO sooo special and why not USABO, USAPO, and USACO (I am just making these up for the other science subjects but I believe something along these lines exist). Once quotas start, they donât end.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, #1794, I just interpreted that as an example, too.</p>
<p>I think that CC has provided an immense benefit to the top students that MIT does not accept (and ditto for other places), particularly those in areas where few students apply and even fewer are accepted. About 10 years ago, I think that a top student rejected by MIT would actually have some reason for self-doubt about a career in, say, physics (just to take an example). </p>
<p>Suppose the student wants an academic position in physics, where he/she can conduct self-directed research, with his/her own research group of Ph.D. students and post-docs. Rough guess: there are about as many positions available for Assistant Professors of Physics in research-intensive universities each year as there are positions in the NFL draft. The last I knew, there were only academic positions for about 10% of physics post-docs.</p>
<p>Let me insert here that I understand that not all MIT students want to be physicists! Of those who do, not all want to have an academic position. Many people who start out in physics shift to another field, to their benefit and probably to the benefit of the other field.</p>
<p>Still, say that a student is roughly trying to work out the odds, and it is 10 years ago, with CC in its infancy. If the student is not among the 1700+ admitted to MIT, the student could logically conclude that there are likely to be more students out there who are more impressive at that point. Perhaps he/she should re-think the choice of physics. I know that some reacted in that way.</p>
<p>If I knew a student who had not received a football scholarship at a Div I school, Iâd certainly suggest that he needed a back-up plan to âprofessional football player.â Some students successfully walk on to Div I teams, but the numbers are small. I am not sure how many wind up in the NFL.</p>
<p>So, if a student circa 2002 thought that MIT was selecting based on potential in science, math, or engineering as the overwhelming criterion, he/she would be correct to conclude that the odds were long (not insurmountable, but long) of a physics career.</p>
<p>Alternatively, the student could conclude that someone at the high school did not support the application. Either way, the scenario is not that good.</p>
<p>Given the info on CC, a student might realize that he/she just didnât seem multi-dimensional or âfunâ enough. That realization is actually much better for the future of science, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Finally, will mention that a good friend who is on the faculty at MIT once remarked to me that he liked to spend all of his time in the lab, because he could not think of anything heâd rather be doing.</p>