<p>Look, some people have accused me of being closed-minded, of being incapable of thinking “out-of-the-box,” because I think admission should be driven by academic ability. I would like to vigorously contest this assertion.</p>
<p>I am quite capable, in fact, of considering other points-of-view and finding value in them. For instance, while I have vociferously opposed Pizzagirl’s posts, I do think they may have utility as a pro-emetic agent in a hospital setting.</p>
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<p>So, basically, we continue on this path asking that students who generally gain admissions anyway somehow be guaranteed auto admission, because we… think they “should” be. But, the admissions people at MIT have already figured this out. Not that this is shocking.</p>
<p>Let’s just say, at this point, based on the few facts we have seen on this thread, that I am of the opinion that if someone who is a USAMO winner is not admitted to MIT, there is a reason for this, and MIT has every right to accept those USAMO winners who their interviewers find suitable for the school.</p>
<p>No matter how I look at this USAMO argument, which I have seen put forth by QM on more than one thread, even in the past year, I can’t see that MIT is lightly passing these students by. Do you not agree that there are USAMO winners who lack character? Who are arrogant? Who don’t play well with others?</p>
<p>They would be the only sainted group in the world.</p>
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<p>Doubtful. We do have one Caltech grad. </p>
<p>However, if you saw him on the street, you’re more likely to think he’s a Div I. athletic graduate from one of the Californian based “Beachbum schools” or a Hollywood actor typecast into playing Governator type roles or stoutly well-built handsome romantic leads where height isn’t really a concern. </p>
<p>While he’s very gregarious and charming(Women are really charmed by him at parties/hangouts), he’s also an extreme hardcore engineering/STEM nerd who can seem contradictory. </p>
<p>While he’s not the type to be hung up about academic pedigree/grades when it comes to hiring, he does have a tendency to grow impatient with anyone he feels cannot keep up with him intellectually* or in terms of work-ethic(100 hour workweeks for himself year-round). </p>
<p>Saw plenty of instances of him blowing up with older and younger siblings/cousins on that score. Funny enough, despite our differences in outlook…he finds me to be one of the few folks who really “gets him” and is somewhat “on his level” even if we don’t always see eye to eye. </p>
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<li>A.K.A. Similar to the MIT students who don’t want their class time wasted by students asking questions showing they were unprepared for the lecture of the day/week.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>Incidentally, this attitude was also pervasive in the hardcore Linux community…especially during the '90s and early '00s and in more technically demanding linux distribution communities like Gentoo or Slackware…the almost near opposite of the attitudes you’d find in more user-friendly linux distribution communities like Redhat or especially Ubuntu and Mint linux. Got to see both sides of this not only from having experimented with various distributions since college…but also from having used ones from both ends of the user friendly/unfriendly spectrum.</p>
<p>There appears to be 2 distinct arguments being floated here, as follows…</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Should private schools be forced to abandon holistic admissions practices because they receive funding – either through gov’t aided tuition or research grants – from the federal government responsible for dispensing public services? My wish would be for our federal government to stay out of higher education all together and let the markets decide who wins and loses, except for those cases where grants are competitively awarded. I think in a more perfect market, the consumers of education services – parents and students and employers – will inevitably determine who the winners and losers are. In an imperfect market we see today, losers sometimes win and winners sometimes lose. You need not look far for universities like Devry and Phoenix U which may operate very profitably while churning out un-employed\under-employed graduates to see that our government’s involvement in education is creating a less than perfect system.</p></li>
<li><p>Are holistic admissions practices good or bad for the student or school? My guess is that it’s definitely bad for the gifted students – however one defines this - but it’s not all that clear cut when it comes to the institutions themselves. I have observed that there appears to be more of a critical mass of these high performing kids at MIT than at say Harvard and Princeton, but even if one were to deduce that Harvard’s holistic practices are more extreme than MIT’s, beyond some write-up here or there about how MIT is gaining on the Ivy’s, it’s hard to find definitive proof that Harvard is somehow hurting itself by its use of holistic admissions.</p></li>
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<p>There was a very interesting write-up last fall about how school administrators tried to change Stuyvesant admissions to be more holistic due to a certain ethnic group being over-represented (below… I’m sure many of you may have read this already). This sentiment – to make magnet public high schools follow the elite schools’ model fundamentally grounded in holistic admissions – in not unique to the NYC system… there is immense pressure on many school systems which have notable magnet programs (NJ, TX, VA, CA, etc.) to look beyond those measures which are easily quantifiable (SAT, grades, USAMO score, IQ tests, etc.). Again, I don’t know what the right answer is here but will agree that one can point out both pros and cons for whatever position they take (i.e., there appears to be no clear cut “right” answer).</p>
<p><a href=“Asians’ Success in High School Admissions Tests Seen as Issue by Some - The New York Times”>Asians’ Success in High School Admissions Tests Seen as Issue by Some - The New York Times;
<p>In VA, the admissions process for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology was changed in 2005 to be more “holistic.” The teachers are now complaining that the overall level of student aptitude has declined:</p>
<p>[An</a> uneven base of knowledge at Thomas Jefferson High School - Washington Post](<a href=“http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-05-29/opinions/35456202_1_selection-process-middle-school-current-students]An”>http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-05-29/opinions/35456202_1_selection-process-middle-school-current-students)</p>
<p>More relevant to this discussion, is that in each of the last 3 years, TJHSST has rejected at least one applicant who has qualified for USAJMO (USA Junior Math Olympiad) in 8th grade. And because I know these students personally, I will vouch that none or them has “character issues.”</p>
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<p>The irony is that the holistic measures proposed by those launching the current lawsuit…especially the essay portion and teacher recommendation will have the effect of furthering advantages to well-off/well-connected families who send their kids to private/parochial schools. </p>
<p>Most NYC K-8 schools, especially the mediocre ones in poor neighborhoods don’t teach any effective writing skills. A reason other than violent chaos in my old NYC neighborhood’s public schools why many working-class families in my neighborhood preferred to send their kids to parochial schools in the area if they could*. </p>
<p>The crime/violence issues in my old neighborhood’s zoned HS was the main reason why I opted to attend one of the Specialized HSs. Unlike the zoned HSs…the Specialized HSs can and do toss kids out for violent behaviors/actions against others in the school community. </p>
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<li>Main barrier here was classroom behavior. Many kids who are disruptive or worse, start fights in class/school are immediately thrown out not only for violation of school rules, but also to protect the rest of the student population. Even so…bullying/fights still happened…but at much lower rates and teachers/admins are much more proactive in trying to put a stop to them. This was a reason why there was a bit of an adjustment to public middle school even in one of the better ones in NYC where teachers were overwhelmed and some teachers/admins actually went so far as to protect/defend the bullies and blame their victims for “not understanding them”. :(</li>
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<p>Incidentally, the Specialized High Schools including Stuyvesant used to have a “Summer Discovery Program” for low-income students whose SHSAT scores were within 60 points of the cutoff of the school being chosen. </p>
<p>In practice, such a program worked very well as some students admitted under that “second-chance” program had to prove by passing summer math and English courses that they have what it took to perform under a given SHS’s academic expectations/rigor. If they found a given student needed remediation or is struggling too heavily during this program, they weren’t passed and thus, were not admitted. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, they did away with it sometime after 2001 or so because the Department of Education supposedly wanted to change the requirement so that schools with higher cutoff scores like BxScience or Stuyvesant would be required to accept Discovery students with scores 60 points below the school with the lowest cutoff…not the school a given student was interested in attending. That was too large of a gap and the admins of BxScience & Stuy felt such a policy change would just end up setting up many lower scoring students to fail once the school year started if they somehow managed to do well enough in the summer Discovery courses to gain admission to the higher cutoff schools.</p>
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<p>I am not sure how a guess can be followed by the word definitely, but that is quite another issue. Since we are exchanging hunches and opinion based on a high level of idel speculation, I would suggest that the gifted students are hardly hurt by a process of holistic admissions. Obviously, I could merely point to the abundant statistics that show that the gifted students are extremely well represented at the schools that are at the pinnacle of our tertiary education. If gifted students are hurt, it must be on an individual basis because collectively they do well or extremely well. </p>
<p>And, fwiw, when gifted student becomes a proxy for angular student, the evidence shows that they are amply rewarded in admission, as opposed to yesterday’s BWRK and the hordes of Lake Wobegon Stepford applicants who built resumes filled with Suzuki classes. </p>
<p>But heck, opinions are just that. Opinions!</p>
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But I don’t think the problem is with people who are capable of grinding (a skill which I fully agree is difficult and necessary for success in a highly intellectual career or course of study) – the problem is with people who are capable of nothing but grinding. </p>
<p>I have not met a large number of people at Harvard and MIT who are solely grinds. But I have met a few. The kind of person I would describe as a “grind” is one who does not have high native ability, but above-average ability combined with a staggering capacity for memorization and tolerance for the kind of time it takes to commit entire courses’ worth of material to memory. It’s not a recipe for success as a scientist or engineer.</p>
<p>“above-average ability combined with a staggering capacity for memorization and tolerance for the kind of time it takes to commit entire courses’ worth of material to memory. It’s not a recipe for success as a scientist or engineer.”</p>
<p>I might re-write this like this:
above-average abstract ability but a dazzling capacity for memorization and admirable tolerance for the kind of time it takes to commit entire courses’ worth of material to memory. However, this, without abstract thinking, is not a recipe for success in certain areas of science or engineering (the kind MIT does). </p>
<p>I like that statement just fine, without the implied sneer (not by Molly) that often seems to accompany it.</p>
<p>Peeps. Short version. It’s really not possible to say holistic disadvantages the gifted. When you have immense, fierce competition, there are some who get a seat and some who do not. There is an application process and we ask 17 year olds to enter it. They have little or no experience with this sort of exercise. On CC, we see the chance-me threads, the sort of misconceptions even very bright, accomplished kids have about what matters and what doesn’t. Those apps don’t go to the kid’s teachers the way a school assignment does; to adults who know the kid, know he did x and y, when he didn’t list it, know when he’s kidding or really a lot better adapted to something or integrated or tolerant than that essay or answer shows. Adcoms are strangers.</p>
<p>As much as possible, you account for them being 17. But, note how QM mentioned the kid who crossed a line with some comment. I don’t know what it was, but just as she had a reaction, so do adcoms, for a variety of impressions that come forth. Many highly intelligent, high achieving kids hit the mark. It’s exciting. But, not alll applicants do.</p>
<p>Disagree. At Thomas Jefferson High School, holistic admissions is hurting the highly gifted, by causing many of them to be rejected. And it is hurting the school, according to the teachers who wrote an irate letter to the school board that the median math competence in the school has declined. And it hurts the whole student body who now have their classes necessarily taught at a lower level.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>Oh please! They are middle-schoolers! Soon enough, we will be talking about how the highly gifted Pre-K is being “screwed” despite amazing prowesses stacking the ABC cubes and playing the recorder. </p>
<p>And, fwiw, why is it always assumed that the highly gifted cannot look … highly competitive in a race that goes beyond the angular? </p>
<p>That is the problem of a term that belies a consensus definition. For most, the definition of highly gifted amounts to identying a narrow niche of purported excellence, and almost always based on a subjective interpretation.</p>
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<p>The flipside of this is that you would expect that a class whose selection was based only on academic ability would also contain quite a few well-rounded people, without any special social engineering to achieve it.</p>
<p>What do you consider to be the qualities indicative of academic ability?</p>
<p>Is this only GPA and standardized test scores?</p>
<p>Or are there other qualities you would consider to be indicative of academic ability?</p>
<p>"Has time come to invite some of the blessed 1500 or the 17500 unlucky ones to suggest an answer to the original question. "</p>
<p>72 fewer students got into MIT this year compared to last year. I suspect yet another brutal season of dwindling numbers being admitted at top schools will be unfolding.</p>
<p>@poetgrl: No, there are certainly other factors that I would consider to be indicative of academic ability.</p>
<p>I think we are getting tripped up by multiple definitions of “holistic.” I assume that geomom meant “holistic” in the sense of consideration of factors out of the academic realm.</p>
<p>What factors would you consider to be indicative of academic ability? What would be your top ten list?</p>
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<p>Generally highly gifted is asserted based on I.Q. and or supporting academic testing. Hardly subjective interpretation.</p>
<p>@xiggi, You have to excuse me as English is not my native language, so I often struggle with word choice, spelling and grammar.</p>
<p>But let me try to better understand what I think you’re saying. Are you implying that trying to identify the special needs of the gifted before college (or high school) is futile?</p>
<p>University of Chicago just announced their numbers:</p>
<p>3,344 students were admitted from 25,277 applicants in 2016
2,676 students admitted from 30,396 applicants in 2017</p>
<p>Essentially, 668 fewer students were admitted one year later.</p>