"How did HE Get In?"

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

We don’t expect the school of the NYC ballet to accept dancers based on holistic standard. If they did, maybe my D would have been accepted. But sad, to say, she’s not that talented a dancer.</p>

<p>We didn’t expect their other qualifications to counterbalance this basic lack of talent.

</p>

<p>Bad analogy, since there’s plenty of subjectivity in evaluating who is the best dancer. Yes, there are technical standards, but there’s an artistic one as well. Ditto for musicians and actors.</p>

[Agentninetynine]

<p>Thank you, Mathmom. You said this more eloquently than I could have. Why does the discussion turn so hostile when the topic turns to educating our most gifted students? </p>

<p>As I mentioned in a post way upstream, I agree with QM about accommodating these kids. This does not necessarily mean that they all need to attend top 20 schools, but rather institutions that have the financial resources, trained staff and the desire to teach them. Historically this has been places like MIT, Caltech, Mudd, U of Chicago, VA tech etc. More and more colleges are offering honors programs and this gives me hope. Not every brilliant kid wants to go to MIT or Caltech or major in science or math.</p>

<p>This is not an easy population to teach and many of them have a host of other issues that they bring to the table. One of the points QM is making is that MIT of all places, should understand and welcome these kids. </p>

<p>Of course, it’s MITs prerogative to do what they please.</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>

Quote:</p>

<p>We don’t expect the school of the NYC ballet to accept dancers based on holistic standard. If they did, maybe my D would have been accepted. But sad, to say, she’s not that talented a dancer.</p>

<p>We didn’t expect their other qualifications to counterbalance this basic lack of talent. </p>

<p>Bad analogy, since there’s plenty of subjectivity in evaluating who is the best dancer. Yes, there are technical standards, but there’s an artistic one as well. Ditto for musicians and actors.

</p>

<p>I don’t want to speak for mythmom, but I suspect she meant “holistic” in the sense that qualities other than a specific talent were factored in. So while the NYC ballet evaluates dancers holistically and subjectively, they are looking at dancing talent.</p>

[Periwinkle]

<p>There’s no evidence MIT is NOT admitting lots of “these kids.” Rather to the contrary.</p>

<p>Has this thread really started arguing over a sample size of 1 (one)? Huh?</p>

<p>I would not be surprised to hear that any applicant was not accepted to a moderately (or more) selective institution, despite a rapturous recommendation. Anyone else?</p>

<p>And has this become a complaint about the social skills of admissions people (on the basis of offhand comments) who try to explain that yes, they do value social skills in applicants, even if their applicants, in the aggregate, are more respected for their intellectual accomplishments than for being Big People on Campus? There’s something rather meta in that.</p>

[cobrat]

<p>

Why does the discussion turn so hostile when the topic turns to educating our most gifted students?

</p>

<p>Because there is an undercurrent in some American educational circles and activist groups who are of the opinion the “gifted students” or even “above-average academic achievers” will do well no matter how limiting/stifling the classroom/educational environments may be so lowering academic standards to the average or the lowest-performing student won’t harm them. </p>

<p>While PG has a point if you’re comparing tippy top engineering/STEM schools like MIT, Caltech, CMU versus slightly less tippy top ones like Berkeley, UIUC, Columbia SEAS, UMich, etc…it’s a different story if you’re comparing the ones at tippy top with those which are middling or moreso…the lowest-tiers. </p>

<p>In the last, I’m talking institutions in which admissions are nearly/completely open, most of the college’s attention is geared towards the mediocre/remedial students who make up a sizable chunk of the student body, above-average/gifted students are left to their own devices with little/no support, any demands for such support are ignored, there’s an abysmally low graduation rate in 5-6 years, and student culture that like many mainstream high schools which doesn’t support and sometimes even denigrates above-average academic performance/performers. </p>

<p>What’s more ironic is that this seems to be a peculiarly American phenomenon. </p>

<p>Even in the Combloc countries…only Mainland China adopted a similar mentality during the Cultural Revolution. They found it was such a disaster for their national educational/research institutes that they re-instated the exceedingly competitive national college entrance exam at the end of that ill-conceived political campaign in the late '70s.</p>

[alexissss]

<p>I aspire to become as educated as QM. </p>

<p>That is all.</p>

[shravas]

<p>

Harvard, Princeton, Yale and other elite schools, free to use holistic admissions. QM is merely saying that a specialized school set up to educate in one area should take achievement in this area as paramount in its selection process, and when it does, society as a whole benefits and we train the best engineers, physicists, math theorists, whatever.</p>

<p>Just like Julliard produces some of the best violinists and the school of the NYC ballet produces some of the best dances.

</p>

<p>A few things - First, I don’t think MIT want to produce only academics. I don’t think it’s fair to compare MIT’s undergraduate admissions to those of Julliard. It might be more appropriate to do so for graduate admissions.</p>

<p>Second, MIT has only 70 math majors per year. Most of these math majors are not looking to go to graduate school in mathematics to become math majors. On the other hand, there are at least 70 USAMO qualifiers per year. There just is not enough room to admit every single USAMO qualifier because they are very good at math and MIT needs to have the best math students in the country. It would make more sense to want MIT to auto-admit those who attend IMO or possibly MOP, but effectively this already happens.</p>

[Beliavsky]

<p>

A few things - First, I don’t think MIT want to produce only academics.

</p>

<p>They also want to produce entrepreneurs:</p>

<p>[How</a> MIT Became the Most Important University in the World
Boston Magazine
November 2012](<a href=“http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2012/10/mit-important-university-world-harvard/]How”>http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2012/10/mit-important-university-world-harvard/)

Between 2000 and 2006, MIT graduates started more than 5,800 companies, and the numbers have only been rising since.</p>

<p>…</p>

<p>This past August, Forbes named the Institute the second-most-entrepreneurial college in the country, and that same month, after taking into account such factors as the potential earnings of graduates, Newsweek’s the Daily Beast named it the nation’s most affordable college.

</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>Excellent point, Beliavsky. Who says that MIT’s mission is only academia?</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

Because there is an undercurrent in some American educational circles and activist groups who are of the opinion the “gifted students” or even “above-average academic achievers” will do well no matter how limiting/stifling the classroom/educational environments may be so lowering academic standards to the average or the lowest-performing student won’t harm them.

</p>

<p>But this isn’t at all what we are discussing, Cobrat. We are not discussing “take away gifted education so that kids who are ready for calculus have to suffer through more rounds of 1+1=2, or kids who are reading Shakespeare have to suffer through more rounds of Dick and Jane.” We are talking about higher education, in which there are plenty of resources in this country for a smart person to flourish and do well, not just MIT or HYPSM or whatever tight little narrow set people decree. </p>

<p>Why are you bringing in something that is completely tangential and irrelevant?</p>

[poetgrl]

<p>The reality is that each and every one of our snowflakes deserves the best education that they can get, with all attendant resources at their disposal. Science or math whizzes are no different, and they, too, ought to be able to take a fine education out of any of our top flagships, frankly, and a bit of the responsibility for that is on them. </p>

<p>Nobody “deserves” to be coddled through life just because they can win a high school science competition or score a perfect SAT, and I say this as the mother of top SAT scorers. Just, I don’t think the SAT is all that important a measure of anything other than how well one takes the SAT. </p>

<p>The fact is that it has been asserted that the most important element to true genius lies in the ability to ask the most interesting questions, and this occurs in collaboration. Standardized tests and the high school curriculum don’t even measure the ability to ask the right questions, the single most important aspect of excellent research.</p>

<p>At any rate, the reason people keep responding the QM, mythmom, is because she has posted the most posts on this thread, and because she directs her posts at individual posters who then answer those posts. It’s really not personal.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

Nobody “deserves” to be coddled through life just because they can win a high school science competition or score a perfect SAT, and I say this as the mother of top SAT scorers.

</p>

<p>Brava. So far, we’ve heard that these science competitors / high schools should “deserve” more of MIT’s resources because a) theyl’l get their feelings hurt and leave science (which QM alluded to in an earlier go-round) and b) they might get personally upset that these are value judgments on their personalities. Well, 5% acceptance rates mean that 95% of applicants are disappointed. These aren’t compelling reasons, at all.</p>

[mathmom]

<p>

And FYI – there is nothing particularly pretentious or advanced about what she wrote. Anyone who took introductory calculus pre-1980 (which I suspect includes many people reading this thread) learned all those things she mentioned.

Raises hand! me! me! and at only 16 too! </p>

<p>School/college may not have to be a race, but it’s a fact that math and science education are getting more and more dumbed down by too many of our schools. We need some colleges that let the bright kids soar. MIT has the reputation for being one of those colleges.</p>

<p>I do think my son may well have been happier at CMU’s School of Computer Science than he would have been at MIT (which rejected him) because they did put a premium on exactly what he’s good at and cut him a little slack in other areas. He was happy as a clam there. They had an (1 credit) intro class for the SCS freshmen that was designed to get them not to act like comp sci nerds. You got credit for seeing sights in Pittsburgh, going to restaurants etc. There are rumors they have told kids in that class to take more showers, but I *think *it was a joke. I don’t think you can teach a kid not to be a jerk, but you can certainly teach them to take showers.</p>

<p>I’m pretty sure that MIT has accepted its share of jerks. All colleges make mistakes. My younger son was very disillusioned that “the biggest cheater in his class” was admitted to Cornell, but since no one ever reported him, how was Cornell to know? If I were MIT I’d want to reserve the right to reject brilliant jerks although I am not entirely adverse to QM’s notion that there are students who should be very close to auto-admits. </p>

<p>Does MIT have only 70 math majors a year because that’s what they want? Or that’s what they end up with? Harvard only had 5 German majors one year. Luckily plenty of people want to learn German even if they don’t major in it, but if one year they had twice as many majors I don’t think it would be an issue.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

School/college may not have to be a race, but it’s a fact that math and science education are getting more and more dumbed down by too many of our schools. We need some colleges that let the bright kids soar. MIT has the reputation for being one of those colleges.

</p>

<p>Is there a shortage of “colleges that let the bright kids soar”? I think it’s awfully pretentious to think this is a real problem. I’ll save my tears for the bright kid living in the projects or the rural area whose high school doesn’t offer anything beyond algebra and who lives in a world that discourages achievement, not for the uber-brilliant kid who is forced to slum it with the slackers at CMU instead of MIT or Harvard. There is enough real angst without creating faux angst over nonexistent problems.</p>

[bogibogi]

<p>

It’s not as though MIT is calculus class and these other places are like elementary school where they are still figuring out arithmetic and our dear sweet genius will be bored.

</p>

<p>Do you believe that “geniuses” benefit from being around other “geniuses”? I am not knocking any other schools, but there seems to be a general opinion that MIT has a critical mass of these “top” students. These “top” students gain by learning from each other.</p>

<p>For my kid, a place like MOSP was a world of difference compared to his highly ranked high school math team and the local math circle. His accomplishments in math only came as a result of him learning and collaborating with “top” math kids.</p>

<p>My thanks to QuantMech for speaking up for kids like mine. I guess he would be considered a “textureless math grind who is a robotic clone”. But does he really have to be dismissed by Official MIT Admissions people in this way? I agree that negative stereotypes of any type are inappropriate in any college’s website.</p>

[Beliavsky]

<p>

@poetgrl

Just, I don’t think the SAT is all that important a measure of anything other than how well one takes the SAT.

</p>

<p>Nonsense. In perhaps dozens of posts I have cited studies disproving this, but you are impervious to the evidence.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>Beliavsky, in the real world that many of us actually live in, when we look at the people around us who have achieved success (let’s say within the context of a business organization), there ISN’T the direct correlation between SAT scores and success that you seem to postulate is true. In my professional world, I work with people who have backgrounds ranging from a PhD from Columbia U and numerous Harvard MBA grads, to people who went to Directional State U’s. I know you like to think that this is some hierarchy whereby all the elite school grads are at the top and the directional state grads are at the bottom, but it just doesn’t work that way. Once you are “smart enough to play,” it’s the soft factors and the creativity that make one soar, not the SAT scores. I don’t know how you can contradict the real world.</p>

[bogibogi]

<p>

Is there a shortage of “colleges that let the bright kids soar”? I think it’s awfully pretentious to think this is a real problem…There is enough real angst without creating faux angst over nonexistent problems.

</p>

<p>My impression is that maybe it is your lack of understanding of/exposure to “uber-brilliant” kids whose needs are not being met.</p>

<p>

I’ll save my tears for the bright kid living in the projects or the rural area whose high school doesn’t offer anything beyond algebra and who lives in a world that discourages achievement…

</p>

<p>This is a problem too, but not the current topic of discussion.</p>

[texaspg]

<p>I tend to think that if MIT’s mission is to only consider STEM geniuses, the first thing they need to do is get rid of SAT as a requirement and require only subject tests in Math, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.</p>

<p>Why bother with SAT which is 2/3rd English? 2400 SAT scorers are truly not a fit for this criterion but 3200 (math II, Physics, Chemistry and Biology) should be the main score which should be considered. As long as they want SAT, they are a holistic school needing language specific skills.</p>

[Gourmetmom]

<p>

MIT has only 70 math majors per year. Most of these math majors are not looking to go to graduate school in mathematics to become math majors. On the other hand, there are at least 70 USAMO qualifiers per year. There just is not enough room to admit every single USAMO qualifier because they are very good at math and MIT needs to have the best math students in the country

. </p>

<p>I didn’t know this, but I suspected as much, and it may be what happened to my son when he applied. Perhaps they were not interested in another math kid, especially one with less than the hugely full plate of contests (he wasn’t interested in spending much time on contest math). I’m also almost certain that MIT didn’t take ANY math kids from my state last year - even those with a boatload of contest wins and high scores. I’m fairly sure that only one student was accepted and he was a life sciences concentrator (he did not matriculate and there are NO current freshman from my state at MIT this year, and we are NEXT DOOR). My S made it clear on his application that he intended to major in engineering, but it could be that he had a difficult time conveying it convincingly enough on the MIT application…just a thought. Caltech accepted him, so his common application may have been more compelling - his long essay was really great.</p>