MIT has plenty of introverts. You can spin your own conspiracy theories, or you can actually attend an event or 3 or 5 on campus filled with undergrads and actually observe the interactions.
This is like saying that Berkeley is prejudiced against Asians… even though when you cross campus it is a little hard to confirm that visually/empirically.
And now my head is spinning, QuantMech. I thought your point about “pretty good university” vs. MIT was that at MIT the sky was the limit (i.e. a talented student would ALWAYS find harder material to work on, i.e grad level classes with grad students. Now your argument is that the tippy top kids are NOT going to find the P-sets difficult- which suggests that these tippy top kids are- in fact- taking the easy track/basic beginner classes and NOT challenging themselves?
So confused.
But honestly- you guys are trying to reconstruct MIT’s admissions philosophy based on the 6 or 8 kids you know in real life who got rejected. That seems very unscientific for a bunch of folks who claim to be scientists or at least fact based in their approach.
How about thumbing through the most recent campus publications, young alumni newsletters, award section of the website to see the amazing things that these alleged B-listers are actually accomplishing? Somehow-- even with a couple of extroverts, and even with a couple of kids with bizarre hobbies, the institute manages to pull together a bunch of kids who are doing astonishing things.
And no- not all of these things are math, and not all of these things win awards. Some of these things are in medicine and public health and economics and sustainability and climate modification and oceonographic mapping and genetics and neuroscience-- topics which have enormous societal benefits. So if one genius in theoretical math manages to get him or herself rejected every decade in favor of a kid who is quite good in math and also exceptional in some other areas- my guess is that the faculty and administration can live with that.