"How did HE Get In?"

Parents Forum
1981

<p>LookingForward, I appreciate your input. I can actually understand both sides , and truth be told, I don’t even have a dog in this fight (anymore at least) and am on the fence about what good - if any - would result from anyone trying to pressure what are essentially private institutions to alter their admissions policies.</p>

<p>Re: the 2nd point which makes you cringe, I’m with you on this… to say that we can shove the brightest kids in America to any school and have them thrive… well, this is just nonsense.</p>

<p>Apologies if I came across a bit hostile. I’ve been following this thread for the past few weeks as a casual observer and felt compelled to defend those whose views I felt were being mis-represented by some. Anyhow, I think the time has come for many of us to just agree to disagree and root for all the kids in the coming days as they await for decisions to roll in.</p>

1982

<p>Um, no sevmom, #1979. If I had a dream school, it was probably Caltech to begin with. However, they did not admit women as undergrads, when I first became interested in them. They did begin to admit women in time for me to go there potentially. My parents said that they could only afford to send me out to Caltech at the beginning of the year and to bring me back at the end of the year. (This was probably true–financial aid has ramped up a bit at some of the top schools since then.)</p>

<p>I applied 5 places and was accepted at all. In those days, financial aid packages arrived separately from admissions. When I received my financial aid offer from An Ivy, I was rather disappointed. They projected my loan debt to exceed my family’s annual income. And that was assuming that I was able to find a summer job that would pay more than my father made in the same time frame. This did not look like a good deal to me.</p>

<p>I picked an alternative to both An Ivy and MIT, for several reasons. First, there was a strong egalitarian spirit sweeping the country in the 1960’s and first half or so of the 1970’s, and I was part of that–hard as it may be for people who picture me as an elitist to conceive, I still have a strong egalitarian spirit. Secondly, by the time I made my decision, I was interested in going to a university that had students in a very wide range of majors, including many in the humanities and social sciences. An Ivy would have fit that bill, but it was over-ridden by the issue of cost + not seeming very egalitarian. I assumed that since the financial data my family supplied was the same everywhere, MIT’s financial aid package would be the same as An Ivy’s, more or less, and I did not even wait for their offer, to decide.</p>

<p>I have no regrets about not picking MIT as an undergrad. I wound up there as a post-doc. At that stage, many aspects of the Institute appealed to me, particularly the research of the faculty member that I worked with. However, I personally didn’t much like the non-academic aspects of life in Cambridge, MA. We lived along the MIT-Harvard axis, a bit beyond Harvard, and did not have a car. I really disliked the subway, and got motion sick on the bus. Central Square, between MIT and Harvard was rather sketchy in those days. It has been much gentrified since then, as I understand it. MIT seemed to be more concentrated in the Institute building in that era also–it seemed a bit monolithic to me. I think that they have added a number of buildings in the last 30 years (either that, or I was somehow oblivious to most of the buildings aside from the Institute proper).</p>

<p>Would I have learned more as an undergrad? Maybe–I can’t say. On Garland’s metathread, I have joked that if I only had gone to a university that gave me the opportunity to drink from a firehose, now the cohomologies would mock me less (from their roost on the papers covered in unsolved equations). I don’t believe that, though. As I have said earlier, I do think my limitations are my own.</p>

<p>However, I don’t think that this view necessarily applies across the full talent range. I know a few young people who are considerably more talented than I. I can conceive of people who do actually “deserve” admission to “super-top” schools, and might be better off to go there.</p>

1983

<p>Correct,texaspg. That was part of his thinking. He was an engineer and that was the best choice for that . His dad was a CIT engineering grad in the 40’s also. H was also a recruited basketball player. Funny thing though, one of the few things we found that his dad had kept for years was the personal note from the Yale interviewer congratulating H on his acceptance. H’s older brother played for Yale and part of it also was not having to deal with his brother(and most of us know that can be interesting even if you love your brother!).</p>

1984

<p>sevmom, I just wanted to mention that we have cross-posted. My reply to your post #1979 is just above your last post (#1983).</p>

1985

<p>QM,Thanks. I really do appreciate your posts. I myself thought about studying the classics . Wasn’t really going to happen for a middle class kid in those days. I really am glad to see schools payng more attention to financial issues these days.</p>

1986

<p>@cobrat, I was in no way trying to say that funding for GT programs should be eliminated. Both of my children, one PG and one HGT, either are or have been in publicly funded GT programs. I feel blessed that we have this option available where we live. I am well aware of some of the abysmal stats on funding for GT programs and the challenges GT parents face in many K-12 programs as one of my kids is a Davidson Young Scholar.</p>

<p>I was just trying to say that once these PG kids reach the university level, if they are so inclined, are going to soar whether they are at MIT or another university.</p>

1987

<p>I’ll admit I haven’t read all 130+ pages of this thread so have probably missed most of what is going on, but as a parent of an extreme outlier I have to disagree with a lot of what I have read about top students in less than top schools. My son is the age of a typical high school sophomore but is a college undergrad. He takes mostly grad classes in his major (stem). He never applied to MIT or any of the elites. He also never thought that he had a ‘right’ to be admitted to them just because he was so advanced. He attends a state flagship. I’ve read what some on this thread have written about top students in state schools and I’ve tried to see their viewpoint. But i just don’t agree. My son, as smart as he is, has found challenge with the grad classes. He does not know more than his professors. He gets individual attention and has research opportunities that he finds interesting. And grad classes never have 200 students in them, more like 8 to 15. Not bad for a huge flagship. The students in his grad classes offer him an intellectual peer group as much as he could probably find anywhere else. We are both satisfied with his education thus far. And as an added not insignifcant bonus, he will graduate debt free. </p>

<p>He will apply to the more elites for grad school because he wants to stay in academia and knows the name on the paper is important for that. But if he gets accepted it won’t be because it’s his right to get accepted, but because he’s the most qualified.</p>

1988

<p>

Why would they even need to go to undergrad? Why not just take the qualifiers and go straight to grad school? Or, since they already know that stuff too, why not just get the diploma on day one and carry on?</p>

1989

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</p>

<p>If the university/college concerned is academically mediocre enough due to administrative and political priorities, the odds of soaring are drastically reduced unless they figure out a way to transfer up to an academically better institution or are exceedingly lucky to find influential mentors. I am not talking even top 50 or bust…more like tiers 1-2 vs those near/at the bottom. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I’ve actually known of several folks who did just that, including a HS classmate.</p>

1990

<p>I want to repost this - it was on the MIT thread last night:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/1473377-dream-working-hard-rejection.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/1473377-dream-working-hard-rejection.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>This fellow captures the disappointment many are feeling right now - quite touching, really.</p>

1991

<p>Someone, several pages back, brought this up, and I would like to see it addressed.</p>

<p>How many kids, nationally, are you (referring to any one of the many posters on this thread) considering when you write about the extremely gifted who may not be having their needs met at universities other than those at the tippy top of “X” field of study?</p>

<p>I agree with the previous poster who wonders if everyone on this thread is referring to the same set or subset, or sub-subset of “gifted” students.</p>

<p>5?
15?
150?
1500?
15,000?
150,000?</p>

<p>Honestly curious about this. Because the answers might be different if you are talking about 5 people versus 1500 or more whose needs can’t be met by many universities.</p>

1992

<p>

</p>

<p>Many state constitutions guarantee children the right to a free and appropriate public education. Special education exists because what is appropriate for special needs children is not always what is appropriate for the general population. Gifted children also deserve an appropriate education, which often will differ from what is appropriate for others.</p>

1993

<p>

</p>

<p>I agree with this. Furthermore, MIT deserves credit for its OpenCourseWare program, which makes course materials (syllabi, lecture notes, video lectures, problems sets, exams) freely available. If my conjecture that courses at less elite schools move at an appreciably lower pace is correct, motivated students with extra time on their hands can supplement their regular coursework with OCW material.</p>

1994

<p>Tollfree, if you have looked at my posts about selecting alternatives to the universities HYPSM+C+others in that league, starting about #1906, I think you will find agreement with your point of view.</p>

<p>The state flagships are quite different, even though they all carry the label “state flagship.” Some of them have multiple programs that are ranked in the top 5 in the country, in the latest ranking by the National Research Council. Others are pretty far down the list.</p>

<p>For a Californian, Berkeley is golden: it has a number of departments that are very highly ranked. UIUC has a corridor in which photos of their Nobel Laureates are posted (or maybe just some of their Nobel Laureates). There are several other state flagships that are very strong (I only know a few schools and will not try to list them all–also, the strengths do vary by field). </p>

<p>However, some are not as strong as Berkeley or UIUC, and out-of-state tuition at the strong state flagships tends to be fairly steep. For a middle class family that does not live in California, I think it will cost substantially more to send a student to Berkeley than to send the student to HYPSM+C++</p>

<p>Thanks, eastcoascrazy for raising the issue about numbers in post #1991: Yes, it does make a difference. I think the group that I suggested for auto-admit (provided that there were no disqualifying issues of character) numbered 10-15. With many of the “top” schools admitting 1000+ students, I don’t think this would disrupt the holistic admissions scheme detectably. (It wasn’t just USAMO qualifiers, it was the smaller set of students who had scored above some threshold on the USAMO by junior year in high school.)</p>

1995

<p>Trying to answer my own question in post 1991:</p>

<p>2009 census lists 2,937,000 as the number of recent (last 12 months) recent high school completers, ages 16-24.</p>

<p>Definition of “very highly gifted children” (googled) stated “fewer than 5 in 1000, some as rare as 5 in 10,000.”</p>

<p>Assuming we are talking about the extremely rare 5 in 10,000 gives me a rough estimate of 1,469 very highly gifted students graduating from high school in any one year.</p>

<p>So is everyone on this thread referring to the same 1500 very highly gifted students? Not all of them would be interested in the STEM/math/physics majors that this thread keeps returning to, but if even three quarters of them are, aren’t there enough seats at the tippy top universities to accomodate their needs?</p>

<p>(Go easy on me, I am not “mathy”) :)</p>

1996

<p>Um, no, eastcoastcrazy, I am talking about 10-15 students (per year) who are way smarter than I am.</p>

<p>Very important edit: I am not saying that there are only 10-15 students per year who are way smarter than I am! Far from it! There are significantly more!</p>

<p>Just that I think one can still differentiate meaningfully at the top of the top.</p>

1997

<p>Oops, cross posted with QM.</p>

<p>So we are talking about a very, very small subset of giftedness, of even less than 5 in 10,000.</p>

<p>That is brilliance of a kind that most of us have never met, and I tend to agree that those 10-15 kids probably would benefit from learning in proximity to one another.</p>

<p>Of course the problem is that thousands of parents believe, with all their loving hearts, that their kid, who may be one of the 15,000 brightest in the country, is also one of those 15.</p>

<p>So glad to be the parent of merely average gifted kids who can thrive most anywhere.</p>

1998

<p>About the numbers:</p>

<p>I think we are talking about a pool of 1500 highly to profoundly gifted students. However, realize that STEM is not the only area to apply yourself. So, out of these, maybe 500 are interested in STEM, perhaps less. Of those, maybe half are not exposed to the resources to make them a “superstar” in STEM. Sometimes the lack of focus is because of economic factors or geography. Sometimes the lack of focus is because they are also good in another area (think sports) and they, +/- their coaches and parents, put a great deal of effort into this other area. Sometimes it is because they are females, with the attendant reservations abut devoting themselves to a STEM field, even though they are interested.</p>

<p>So, of the 500 interested in STEM and having dazzling cognitive abilities, about 250 have the opportunity to show their stuff by age 17. Of those, maybe 50 have found other universities to attend, that is, going to college at high school age, or deciding on Harvard et al. in EA.</p>

<p>That leaves 200 domestic students. Add to this 100 international students, almost all of whom are “superstars,” and you get the 1/3 of the student body that MIT admissions identifies as academic superstars.</p>

1999

<p>I am talking about that small group, eastcoascrazy, but other people on the thread may be talking about a much larger group. I think I gave the numerical estimate <em>way</em> back on this thread. Your point is well taken. I am not writing about any members of my extended family.</p>

<p>I also wanted to comment on the question: If a student is ready for graduate coursework, why doesn’t the student just go to grad school? cobrat gave one answer, that some do. My answer is a bit different. The fact that a student may be ready for grad courses at some good research universities does not mean that the student ought to be out with a Ph.D. four or five years from that point. For example, one student I knew took the graduate sequence in abstract algebra as a sophomore. She also showed up in the undergrad abstract algebra course (where i was), and the professor chased her out, saying that she belonged in the higher-level course. She nevertheless spent a full four years as an undergrad, and took the normal amount of time to complete a Ph.D. If a student wants an academic career, then the student needs to be at the top of his/her game by the end of a post-doc (or sometimes two post-docs). Cutting out advanced work while an undergrad would be inadvisable, in my opinion. Beyond that, I believe that there are courses of the same mathematical sophistication that are labeled as undergrad courses elsewhere.</p>

2000

<p>If you ask MIT students, though, they know who is “really amazing.” I don’t think it is as few as 10 per year, though.</p>

<p>Of course the student body might not be a good judge of the kind of talent QM is referring to. I think she is talking about the students who, once admitted to MIT sort of disappear into grad classes and work on real research from day one. These students, who tend to be modest about it, can appear to be garden variety amazing to their peers in the dorms.</p>