Did Harvard really turn down a member of the US IMO team?

Colleges & Universities Harvard University
121

<p>Sewhappy:</p>

<p>I don’t think anyone is suggesting that math talent trumps all. But the IMO is surely a reliable criterion of math talent. Fitzsimmons talks about 200-300 academic stars being admitted each year.
Caltech is not just about math. It has its share of students interested in biology. Your son’s research into pandemic diseases probably was far more relevant than his Calc 1.
As for “ridiculous” SAT scores, I don’t think they are very good gauge of advanced preparation. The ceiling is far too low–a knowledge of pre-calc is good enough for the SAT Math. Even the Harvard math placement test cannot be used to tell a student whether s/he should take Math 23, 25 or 55.</p>

122

<p>marite: How many do you mean when you say “not many” below?</p>

<p>“My point is participating in this discussion was ONLY to suggest that there are other ways of identifying potentially superb math students than participation in USAMO/IMO. There may not be many, but they do exist.” (Post 115)</p>

<p>Because I can think of quite quite a few: USAMTS, ARML, Mu Alpha Theta, Rocket City Math League, Mandlebrot, iTest, ASMA… not to mention Harvard/MIT, Caltech Harvey Mudd, or Princeton math competitions.</p>

123

<p>I attended a Harvard/MIT competition once, and while the participants were impressive, I would not necessarily consider math stars in the same league as IMO medalists. I can’t say anything about other math competitions. </p>

<p>We’re talking stars not just highly able students.</p>

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<p>Yeah, USAMTS is actually an alternate 1st round to the selection of the U.S. Math Olympics team, so its quite a bit lower than IMO. ARML and Mandelbrot might be the most prestigious competitions next to the AIME/USAMO/MOSP tests, but anybody who has participated in both will tell you that ARML and Mandelbrot aren’t quite the same caliber. And, generally people who would take ARML and Mandelbrot will have taken the AMC12/AIME, also. </p>

<p>I do know a guy who barely made USAMO after a lot of struggling. Everybody thought he was brilliant, moreso than those who qualified effortlessly, and it was surprising to us that he had trouble making it–you know, he was a really deep thinker. Later he won a prestigious NSF grant in math for grad school. So these math contests don’t mean everything. These contests test an automaticity and speed as well as creativity, and some guys who have trouble at them because of the speed requirement end up being great at math research. Also, if you have diverse interests as a high school student, say like doing a research project in bio, you will have a hard time competing at the top levels at these math contests. Still, I think if you look at admissions as a system, these contests are a good indicator of ability and the high scorers should be priority.</p>

125

<p>JHS, thank you for the links to the wiki articles on James Harris Simons, Edward O. Thorp, and Robert C. Merton. I concede that I should not have set up a dichotomy between mathematicians and hedge-fund managers, since Jim Simons has extraordinary accomplishments in both areas (and admirable work in philanthropy, as well). His mathematical accomplishments are of the highest level. </p>

<p>On the other hand, Simons pursued these fields more or less sequentially, as far as I can tell. The last mathematical publication of his that I could locate on the Science Citation Index appeared in 1985. He has had two Ph.D. students in mathematics, the last completing his thesis in 1976.</p>

<p>Edward O. Thorp does research in the mathematics of gambling and the stock market. Well, someone had to!</p>

<p>Robert C. Merton is a Nobel laureate in economics; his accomplishments in that field are beyond my reach, it goes without saying–but he is no more a mathematician than I am.</p>

<p>With my post, I was intending to suggest that Harvard might be admitting potential math majors who were likely to be less talented in mathematics than some of those they rejected–but who had personal characteristics that suggested that they would be very successful in other/related fields, in the long run (no reference to anyone on this thread, and no reference to their children intended).</p>

126

<p>The converse of this, I tried to suggest in post #112 is that Harvard may have preferred an applicant who could do well in fields other than math and related fields to one whose sole focus was on math. Again, just a speculation.</p>

127

<p>Sorry, marite, I seem to be unusually dense today. Do you mean that Harvard would prefer a potential math major who was also strong in history, but who was not one of the top math students? Or do you mean that Harvard would prefer a potential history major who was stopping for good at AP Calc AB, instead of admitting another math major, however good?</p>

<p>If the first, do you think Harvard might have this preference because the combination across fields indicates an unusual variety of intellectual strength; or do you think that such a student would be predicted to surpass the IMO medalists in math, after a few years?</p>

128

<p>Again, sheer speculation on my part, and probably not even a likely scenario.<br>
BUT, if a student were to be stellar in only one area and incredibly bad in others, I wonder how adcoms would react. There is an emphasis on general education at Harvard. MIT has HASS, but the courses seem to be designed to appeal to math/science types in a way that Harvard’s Core/Gen Ed courses are not. I know an academic star who decided against applying to Harvard because of the (very basic) foreign language requirement.</p>

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<p>I would assume that most potential history majors would stop at AP-Calc, or might not even take AP-Calc. I believe that Harvard tries to have 1/3 in the humanities, 1/3 in the sciences and 1/3 in the natural sciences.</p>

<p>Let’s keep in mind that only 200-300 are admitted as “academic stars”; given that very few students can be stars across the board, this means that plenty of students are admitted who do not qualify for star status. They may be academically excellent (one of S’s chums had 18 APs, with scores of 5 on 14 of them); they may have incredible ECs or artistic talents, they may be sports recruits or have different hooks.</p>

<p>But among the academic stars, some must be potential humanities or social sciences majors. I have no idea what kind of calculus adcoms engage in when looking at the applications of “stars” in different fields.</p>

<p>It is a different question from deciding whether to admit a star over one of the well-rounded or hooked or artistic, or socially engaged applicants. And I have no idea why the number of stars (200-300) does not change a great deal from year to year.</p>

129

<p>QuantMech, the work that Merton got the Nobel Prize for is essentially math – his participation in development of the Black-Scholes option pricing model. </p>

<p>And Merton’s undergraduate degree WAS in math. So, while of course one would not have described him as a math professor, when he was 18 he probably looked like a future professor of something, and the most likely something was math, and in fact he didn’t deviate so much from that.</p>

<p>The point I was trying to illustrate was simply that “future math professor” and “future hedge fund manager” are categories with a meaningful overlap. Simon obviously had the most significant career in math before becoming one of the world’s richest men, but Thorp and Merton were academically-oriented mathematicians, too.</p>

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<p>JHS, interesting commentary, and I do appreciate the links you’ve posted. Perhaps the math department at my undergrad school was too far shifted in the direction of pure mathematics for me to consider the development of Black-Scholes to be “essentially math.” I don’t think that Black-Scholes is novel in a mathematical sense, although it was a new equation–i.e., I don’t think it is analogous to Norbert Wiener’s development of functional path integrals. But if this is wrong, I’d be interested. </p>

<p>Many people in my field do only mathematics and computation, but the university math departments haven’t rushed to offer us joint appointments (even those of us who belong to the AMS).</p>

<p>Among people who have the option of an academic position in mathematics, personality factors would probably drive the decision for or against (I’d guess). Further, I’d suspect that the personality factors are largely in place by age 18. I did have a friend who won a national award in science, but while at Harvard decided that a life in science would mean a life in the middle class (true, for essentially all purposes except for offspring’s tuition payments) and therefore “jumped ship.” But I think this inclination would have been detectable at 18.</p>

<p>And thanks for the clarification, marite.</p>

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<p>Opinion of an IMO winner and a math professor on math competitions or math research in high school:</p>

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<p>[Cogito</a> - Cogito Conversation: Kiran Kedlaya, MIT Math Professor](<a href=“http://www.cogito.org/interviews/InterviewsDetail.aspx?ContentID=17741]Cogito”>http://www.cogito.org/interviews/InterviewsDetail.aspx?ContentID=17741)</p>

132

<p>The invalid underlying assumptions – white noise – of the options formula bankrupted the LTCM. The market was more “brown” noise than they thought. Large sigma events happened more often than they thought, and that was when people lost all their money, like what is happening now. That was the reason the windows were really sealed at the Merrill’s top trading floors in the World Financial Center.The Nobel prize went to a non-mathematician the year after LTCM went under. You are always a winner until you lose. People make money for the wrong reasons and lose money for the right reasons. To make money in the markets, you need a true mathematician and experienced trader to at least figure out what is wrong with that little options equation.</p>

133

<p>Quite contrary to what everybody said in this forum that Harvard admission committee made a mistake on not admitting Kishore. The decision is probably correct because Harvard does not have any faculty working on applied mathematics whicih is his professed interest. The decision was probably recommended by Harvard math department. Here is the math publications and impact of the big 5 math departments in the last 5 years:</p>

<p>Harvard publication:
Mathematics=293, average citation/year=128.17, H-index=12, average citation/item=2.62
Applied mathematics=0<br>
Mathematics Interdiscipline=0</p>

<p>MIT publication:
Mathematics=607, average citation/year=248, H-index=16, average citation/item=2.45
Applied mathematics=492, average citation/year=244.8, H-index=16, average citation/item=2.99
Mathematics Interdiscipline=208, average citation/year=179.5, H-index=16, average citation/item=5.18</p>

<p>Princeton publication:
Mathematics=836, average citation/year=534.5, H-index=23, average citation/item=3.84
Applied mathematics=447, average citation/year=297.83, H-index=19, average citation/item=4
Mathematics Interdiscipline=157, average citation/year=132, H-index=15, average citation/item=5.04</p>

<p>Stanford publication:
Mathematics=319, average citation/year=161.83, H-index=14, average citation/item=3.04
Applied mathematics=317, average citation/year=250.17, H-index=18, average citation/item=4.74
Mathematics Interdiscipline=231, average citation/year=253.67, H-index=18, average citation/item=6.59</p>

<p>UCB publication:
Mathematics=590, average citation/year=261.83, H-index=14, average citation/item=2.66
Applied mathematics=405, average citation/year=208, H-index=14, average citation/item=3.08
Mathematics Interdiscipline=202, average citation/year=133.33, H-index=14, average citation/item=3.96</p>

<p>As you can see, Harvard’s math productivity and impact appear to lack behind the other 4 departments. It is a singular pure math endeavor. I believe that any applicant with main interest in applied mathematics should be rejected or waitlisted in Harvard. Such discipline is simply not there. I enclose a link for any of you to do the search here: [ISI</a> Web of Knowledge [v.4.9] - Web of Science Home](<a href=“http://apps.isiknowledge.com/WOS_GeneralSearch_input.do?highlighted_tab=WOS&product=WOS&last_prod=WOS&search_mode=GeneralSearch&SID=4A@Pip4Oe4b6OGol2Oh]ISI”>http://apps.isiknowledge.com/WOS_GeneralSearch_input.do?highlighted_tab=WOS&product=WOS&last_prod=WOS&search_mode=GeneralSearch&SID=4A@Pip4Oe4b6OGol2Oh)</p>

134

<p>^ That’s really interesting, harvardfan, and at the same time utterly wrong.</p>

<p>First, Harvard accepts a bundle of people who might be interested in applied math. It offers concentrations both in general mathematics and applied math, and has roughly equal numbers of students doing each. That’s not universal at all. Neither Princeton nor Chicago offer undergraduate applied math concentrations, for example.</p>

<p>Second, Harvard doesn’t (and shouldn’t) accept or reject students based on their specific research interests at age 17. Most students – even really focused, talented ones – change their interests between then and their college graduation.</p>

<p>Third, if an applicant is otherwise desirable as an undergraduate student, I think the student, not the admissions department, should be making the decision whether a particular college’s faculty and curriculum are right for him. Everything I know about Harvard tells me that Harvard Admissions would agree completely with that.</p>

135

<p>I thought it was weird they were all arguing. What happened was that the kid got Waitlisted at Harvard before he made the team. That seems reasonable enough to me.</p>

136

<p>Sorry, I made a mistake in calculating Princeton University’s math output by including institute of advanced study papers. The real number for Princeton University is: </p>

<p>Princeton publication:
Mathematics=540, average citation/year=376.33, H-index=20, average citation/item=4.18
Applied mathematics=320, average citation/year=232.17, H-index=18, average citation/item=4.35
Mathematics Interdiscipline=133, average citation/year=127, H-index=15, average citation/item=5.73</p>

<p>JHS: Harvard has no applied math concentrated faculty. It does not make sense for them to take in a lot of students interested in that field. It is equivalence of asking a evolutionary biology professor to teach molecular virology: He still can do it, but the quality may drop several notches. MIT is a much better fit for Kishore.</p>

137

<p>Just referring back to whoever stated that all IPhO/IMO/IBO/IChO qualifiers are bookworms - uh, not true. I know qualifiers (not Americans though, mind you) who’ve performed as soloists overseas, who’ve been prefects/captains, who’ve won debating accolades, who’ve done community service and who have very vibrant personalities. Don’t generalise.</p>

138

<p>If you look at notable alumni of Harvard, and also those notable victims (got turned down by Harvard, and now exceptionally well-established in society, thus the famous one), we see that Harvard does not always take the best one.</p>

<p>Look at one example: Warren Buffet. I don’t know how well he did in school, and I have no idea about his IQ score, but certainly he is a genius in finance and business. Harvard rejected him. </p>

<p>Former Google China CEO Mr. Lee Kai Fu was also rejected by Harvard, and turned to Columbia. Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia, was rejected too.</p>

<p>So in my opinion, if Harvard did, she did it for a reason.</p>

139

<p>some girl from this year, from CA i think, got rejected too.</p>

140

<p>Harvard rejection —> work harder —> more successful.
Harvard accept —> laziness + pride kick in —> not as successful</p>