<p>“Paul Graham’s recent essay on judgment seems to be relevant here.”</p>
<p>Actually that article was stupid. There aren’t two kinds of judgement. Graham has simply decided to look at it from two different perspectives, that of the person or institution doing the judging and that of the individual recieving the judgement.</p>
<p>A criminal court judge and jury aren’t being paid to pass judgement on an individual and he shouldn’t take it personnally if they get it wrong once in a while and send him off to jail. It is not about him. All they are trying to do is deter crime and if it looks like criminals are being punished then close enough is good enough. Shutup quit whinning and do your time.</p>
<p>But I don’t think it would be a mistake to assume that those kids in that picture also tend to have merit in other ways (GPA, competitions, etc) in addition to test scores.</p>
<p>“4. The only kid I know who did CTY at Hopkins was inducted into an actual-factual Satanist cult there, something her parents learned about two years and a LOT of self-destructive behavior later. I don’t think that’s a typical CTY experience, but I don’t know that MIT should be issuing free passes to CTY graduates, either.”</p>
<p>This is just ridiculous. CTY is a very well-known program by MIT undergrads. Is it satanic to want to spend 3 weeks out of the summer to learn science? And like Percy said, it is much less selective than the SET program anyway.</p>
<p>Is this indeed current MIT admissions practice? I have not seen this description of the admission practice at MIT before this thread existed. How much Academics, ECs, Essay, Tests/Contests, and Athletics is enough to clear the threshold of getting a rating of 2? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I see that there is what a debate coach would call “clash” on this point. So what is the truth of the matter? Does MIT have a five-category rating system, with minimum points required in each category, or doesn’t it?</p>
<p>Quote:
I think it’s a mistake to confuse merit with high test scores. </p>
<p>But I don’t think it would be a mistake to assume that those kids in that picture also tend to have merit in other ways (GPA, competitions, etc) in addition to test scores.</p>
<hr>
<p>They did a study on the SET kids and found that regardless of whether they went to a top undergrad or graduate school, their income was much higher than the non-SET kids at top 5 undergrad/grad schools. Also, a significant portion of them ended up as tenured professors. Reaching 1300 (and remember that this was a pre-recentered score, so it is more like 1400 now) by age 13 correlates very well with future academic potential.</p>
<p>“higherlead: If you live in the best educated place in the country all that drilling must have worked.”</p>
<p>Most of them are imports. We have 800,000+ people and no four year college in the country. However we do have more post-docs than you can shake a stick at. Washington, DC suburb, NIH, Goddard Space center down the road in PG, commuting distance to NSA, lots of lawyers, and lots of high tech. Three year olds get interviewed for nursery school arond here and fail.</p>
<p>My experience is that common sense and high level degrees vary inversely in any given locale.</p>
<p>Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyPoet
There are five rated categories (Academics, ECs, Essay, Tests/Contests, and Athletics) with up to five points in each, with a two in any category meaning automatic denial with no further review of the application. </p>
<p>Is this indeed current MIT admissions practice? I have not seen this description of the admission practice at MIT before this thread existed. How much Academics, ECs, Essay, Tests/Contests, and Athletics is enough to clear the threshold of getting a rating of 2? </p>
<p>Quote:
Originally Posted by cellardweller
Whoever told you the point rule was blowing some heavy smoke! </p>
<h2>I see that there is what a debate coach would call “clash” on this point. So what is the truth of the matter? Does MIT have a five-category rating system, with minimum points required in each category, or doesn’t it?</h2>
<p>There is some kind of point system, but HappyPoet must be wrong about the athlete thing. There were plenty of kids that were extremely unathletic (no way they got above a 2.) When I was admitted, they said about 2/3 of the class had played a varsity sport in high school. That means 1/3 of the class did not…I wonder how they could assess athletic ability if the person does not even play a sport. I suspect sports gave a slight boost to some candidates because it showed they are competitive and that they can sink significant time into an EC and still have top grades.</p>
<p>“The [SET</a> Alumni Home Page Directory](<a href=“http://cty.jhu.edu/set/members.html]SET”>http://cty.jhu.edu/set/members.html) has links to pages by or about SET members now in college or beyond. It helps SET members contact friends or find other SET members who share their interests and concerns. It also makes for very interesting browsing!”</p>
<p>First, this information was given to us <em>in person</em> in the summer of '05, just before my S applied for the Class of '10, by Dan Higgins (I’m not sure if the mods will delete his name or not), the previous Freshman crew coach at MIT – coaches are competitive people and with MIT’s crew team (the only Division I sport at MIT) always historically last in their league, it’s hard for MIT to hold onto coaches who seem to want to always go to a more competitive, winning team, which is what happened with Dan Higgins, unfortunately – we liked and respected him.</p>
<p>Second, applicants are NOT denied if they don’t have a request from one of MIT’s coaches; they just don’t get those points.</p>
<p>After the totals are computed OTHER criteria are used, but this is the first weeding out process. The crew coach told us a 2 in any category (excluding athletics) means automatic denial.</p>
<p>I would not like to think the coach lied to us (especially in light of the topic of this thread), and perhaps he wasn’t supposed to divulge this rating information; I know Ben Jones wasn’t too thrilled when I posted this on the MIT Blogs. </p>
<p>Again, students are not penalized if a coach did not send over to the Admissions Department a request form; they just don’t get those extra points that coaches can give. A student who is not an athlete is not scored in this area at all; the lack of a coach’s request form does not hurt an application, but then the lack of one doesn’t help, either. A non-athlete student can only get 20 total points at this stage of the reviewing process as compared to a possible 25 for athletes who have a coach send in a request form. I can’t think of any other ways to explain this, sorry.</p>
<p>Although I am just an EC and not privy to all the details of the admissions process, I am pretty sure no cumulative point system exists at MIT. We would certainly have been told by admissions if such a system was used. I could see a candidate getting a boost along any one of these factors, all academic considerations being the same. After all, they all considered. But some are much more significant than others. Recs and awards are for instance much more important than the essay or non-academic ECs. A strict point system is the complete antithesis of what MIT stands for: a search for the unique.</p>
Of course. I’m not saying SAT scores don’t matter at all, or that they shouldn’t be used. I’m just noting that I think an SAT-only admissions process would border on the absurd and useless.</p>
<p>cellardweller, I honestly believe the coach told us what he believed to be the situation. We can’t see any reason for him lying to us; indeed, he told us over and over that even though he could give our S those points, he could not guarantee him admission – and he wasn’t happy with that situation, either. He complained that restriction, unique only to MIT in their league, was a major factor in why the team was always in last place. No, none of us think he was being untruthful.</p>
<p>MIT does use other criteria, but I don’t know what they are or how they are measured or evaluated.</p>
<p>i’m sure he was telling the truth, although he may have misunderstood. It’s just impossible for them to give the same amount of points to GPA/test scores as athleticism. I find it highly unlikely.</p>
<p>Percy- you’re full of it. In another thread you insisted on calling MIT’s admissions policies “racist”. You’ll say whatever’s necessary to get a rise out of people.</p>
<p>cellardwellar said, “Recs and awards are for instance much more important than the essay or non-academic ECs”</p>
<p>How do you know this as fact? And what exactly are non-academic ECs? </p>
<p>I find it perfectly reasonable that MIT, a numbers-oriented institute, would quantify the qualitatative whenever possible. Point systems are used by colleges all around the country. U of Chicago, for example, was sued because they awarded African Americans an extra 20 points in the admissions process, but they lost – AA for minorities was upheld in that famous case.</p>
<p>But there does come a point, I agree, when subjective decisions are rendered; numbers can go only so far.</p>
<p>Mollie, thank you for that information which seems to supports what the crew coach told us. </p>
<p>Collegealum – Don’t underestimate the importance of sports or fitness on college campuses in America, even at a place like MIT, especially for Division I (which is a debate for another thread). </p>
<p>My son is a nerd all the way, but he also is a jock all the way, too, and is fantastic at crew and loves being on the water – it’s his “thinking time” as he calls it, and he solves complex questions of physics in his mind, without a computer, calculator, paper or pencils.</p>
<p>I can definitely see why athletics can be equally weighted with academics, both on the one to five scale.</p>
<p>Mollie said, "EDIT: Regarding scales, MIT’s campus newspaper reported in 2003 here about a scale:</p>
<p>Quote:
"One of the more prominent features in Dean of Admissions Marilee Jones’s office is a large rectangular grid on a blackboard. The chalk-etched grid appears have been created before our time and then left untouched for others to muse upon. On the bottom and the left sides of the grid run two separate one-to-five scales labeled A.I. and P.R., respectively.</p>
<p>“The bottom one is for academic index,” Jones says. “Our pool is so strong that the majority of selected students fall on 3.5 or higher, including minority students.” The vertical index, on the other hand, stands for personal rating. Jones explains, “The dimensions are co-curricular, such as math team; extra-curricular; and social skills.” </p>
<p>I find the dimension of “social skills” (Jones’ quote above) interesting. I had never thought this way before; makes for some deep thinking on how to present certain aspects on one’s application.</p>
<p>Marite, thank you for the definitions and correction :)</p>