Reminder: No one, not even me, can give you an accurate chance at MIT!

Colleges & Universities Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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The admissions office could certainly provide reasons for a student being positively selected – that’s why they were selected, after all. There are absolutely concrete reasons each student in the accepted class is there, because each of those students has been argued for from the beginning of the reading and selection process. </p>

<p>I think Mikalye’s point from earlier is important: the selected class is better than the pool as a whole. It’s better in objective ways, but it’s primarily better in subjective ways. You seem to find that subjectivity troubling, but there it is. </p>

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<p>I reject your theory because not every detail you can get out of an application can be thrown into an algorithm, due to many of them being subconscious. MIT is not interested in rationalizations, it’s interested in getting the best class.</p>

<p>Take Mikalye’s example about the two applicants for a job. There’s not really a “worse” choice in some circumstances, but the choice gets made, and a human makes them. There’s not much upside to a lottery making them instead, unless there is an unfair bias.</p>

<p>You claim there’s an unfair bias, but you refuse to answer what unfair bias there is. (And then you accuse me of “blind faith” in MIT Admissions when, in fact, I just don’t have blind faith in you.) </p>

<p>Until you back your own claim of bias, there’s no where this can go.</p>

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<p>And here I am breaking my own rule about not posting on this again, but I think that there is an important caveat here. There usually is a better choice when I am hiring between two great candidates. Often there really isn’t much in it, but I will always take the candidate who impressed me the most. That is not to say that the other candidate did anything wrong whatsover, nor that I could not have done really well if I hired the other candidate, but that he was not the candidate who I subjectively thought was better. MIT selects the class that they think is BEST. That does not indicate that there is anything wrong, whatsoever with the candidates that they did not take, and therefore, there is no way to articulate why they were not admitted. They were really good, but there were other candidates who were subjectively more impressive, often in tiny, and perhaps inconsequential ways.</p>

<p>Not that being aware of why one wasn’t accepted is all that great. I used to be an actor, and I recall being called back for the third time for a role I really wanted. As I walked in to the callback, there was just one other actor there with me. We both knew that one of us would get the role. We both walked on stage to stand next to an actress who was already cast. The director looked at both of us and said, “Ok, [the other actor] is slightly taller, we will take him.” And then he looked at me and said, “Thank you so much for coming in.” I never opened my mouth. I was bitter and twisted on the day, but in the tiniest of ways, the other actor was BETTER than I was for what the director wanted. I should note that the casting sheets had listed our heights. The director wanted to judge the visual look of the two possible pairings, so he called us back in, and that was it. I was the worse candidate and the other guy was better. I know why I wasn’t taken. I knew I could have done a great job, and I knew that the director knew that I could have done a great job, I even knew that there was nothing wrong with my performance, but I was the worse candidate on the day.</p>

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<p>“The admissions office could certainly provide reasons for a student being positively selected – that’s why they were selected, after all.” Reasons should be provided to those who were not accepted- that is the sign of an open admissions.</p>

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<p>“Until you back your own claim of bias, there’s no where this can go.” Closed minds like yours will always have the trouble in seeing an alternative</p>

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That’s just not feasible. The amount of time it would take to compose tactful individualized letters would be unreasonable–how many man hours would that take? 1500 slots are available with a admission rate under 10%, so you’d have to write more than 10,000 essays. And for most of the middle candidates, it’s more a matter of who they wanted more. The answer for many might be that their academic credentials were strong, but not so impressive that they clearly would do well at MIT and that they had nothing else which really distinguished them. And that is really a slightly more specific explanation than the one they likely give in the rejection letter, which is probably something like, “Our admission pool was very strong, but unfortunately we could not offer you a spot.”</p>

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But that’s the point I’m trying to make – there are concrete reasons that students are accepted, but not necessarily concrete reasons that students are rejected. The only reason that most applicants are rejected (excepting those who are clearly unfit in some way) is that there were 1500 applicants who were better than they were.</p>

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<p>Again you seem to define “closed mind” as “does not have absolute faith in a random commenter on the internet who does not back their claims”.</p>

<p>(I’d answer the other statement, but two people already beat me :P)</p>

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<p>And those decisions are based on an irrational and biased system, which is no better than a random lottery.</p>

<p>Mikalye- thanks for your thoughtful comments, but I respectfully disagree. Let’s review:

  1. In your example above about not getting the actor part: you knew why you were not selected and you can then rationalize it, unlike the admissions game, where no reason is provided. Human mind likes to rationalize, even if the decision is negative, and wants to rationalize, even if the decision is positive. The admissions committee obviously (or rather hopefully) read the application and evaluated it- a one line comment explaining the decision will go a long way.
  2. In your example before of choosing among two equal candidates, you went with your gut feeling, and you rationalized it in your decision in your mind, which may or may not prove to be correct. In admissions game, the candidate deserves a common courtsey of knowing why a certain decision was made. If none can be given, then lottery provides an equally attractive alternative, which is at least worthy of consideration. The class chosen among the qualified few may still be as good as or better than the nonsensical and irrational process. Qualified refers to those who are judged to be able to handle the academic load (80% according to MIT), which is still a judgement call but can usually be rationalized and understood through many different metrics, including courses taken and choices available, transcript, recommendations and scores.<br>
  3. Please read this very thoughtful recent article (<a href=“Harvard, Ivy League Should Judge Students by Standardized Tests | The New Republic”>http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119321/harvard-ivy-league-should-judge-students-standardized-tests&lt;/a&gt;) written by Steven Pinker, whose books I have read, on the irrationality of admissions game.</p>
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<p>“That’s just not feasible. The amount of time it would take to compose tactful individualized letters would be unreasonable–how many man hours would that take?” </p>

<p>Yes, it is feasible with an even one line explanation after the admissions has spent time evaluating it (it is also a proof that it was indeed evaluated). </p>

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<p>“The only reason that most applicants are rejected (excepting those who are clearly unfit in some way) is that there were 1500 applicants who were better than they were”</p>

<p>Explain to those not selected, why they were not good enough. And, explain to those who were selected, why they were selected. That’s the sign of an open, rational and logical system, even if it is an opinion of the committee.</p>

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<p>Where is this common? I’ve never gotten a reason for rejection from any college or employer I’ve applied to. Nor do I think I’m entitled to one.</p>

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<p>Just because you feel you are not entitled to one, doesn’t mean others are too.</p>

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Like Piper, I’m not sure I’ve ever been involved in a selection process where I was informed why I did or didn’t make the cut. All of the processes through which I’ve applied – grad school, postdoc interviews, paper submissions, grant applications, fellowship applications – are pretty holistic, and there’s never a single reason why I didn’t make the cut when I didn’t. </p>

<p>As one example, I’m an academic scientist who applies for research funding via the National Institutes of Health. The NIH has a governmental mandate to fund the best science with applications to human health, but the way they define “best” varies – from institute to institute, and from day to day. When I send an application to NIH, it is read and reviewed by a “study section” composed of other NIH-funded scientists, and it is given a percentile score reflecting how promising the study section feels it is in comparison with all the other applications that were reviewed. </p>

<p>So the study section is attempting to rank-order the applications from best to worst, although there’s quite a bit of noise in the ranking because the percentage of applications that will eventually be funded is so low, and the top applications are outstanding – interesting science with high relevance to human health, pursued in technically sound ways by qualified investigators, likely to result in gains in knowledge about the human condition.</p>

<p>Nonetheless, the scores given by the study section are just recommendations, and the NIH higher-ups (“Program”) are free to pick and choose among the applications according to the priorities they choose – are certain diseases currently seen as high priority? is a particular method very sexy? Program will not tell you why your grant was not picked up for funding, even though it had a very good percentile score. And you don’t need to ask, anyway: it’s because your grant wasn’t good enough.</p>

<p>I actually think it would be lovely if the admissions office could make available a summary of comments about each application, although I’m realistic about the amount of work that would necessitate. But that would not be the same thing as providing “the reason” a given applicant achieved a given outcome, because no such single reason exists. And it’s not clear to me that having that feedback would actually help anyone.</p>

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<p>Don’t know about NIH, but I have knowledge of DARPA, DOE, NSF and ARPA-E proposals through various friends, who are graduate students, and in each case one get the reviewers comment back with clear explanations of deficiencies. </p>

<p>“And it’s not clear to me that having that feedback would actually help anyone” I beg to differ- a feedback would be highly beneficial.</p>

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<p>I don’t know the frequency with which the NIH higher-ups overrule the rankings based on the score, but my guess is that it is somewhat rare. And the priorities are often stated in decrees where they call for applications in certain subfields.</p>

<p>The two or three reviewers that look at your grant application are pretty detailed in the evaluation of the applicant and their proposed experimental plan, and the score generated generally almost always determines whether it will get funded. </p>

<p>One difference is the number of grants being reviewed. The application evaluator to application ratio is much higher for college admissions than for scientific grants. </p>

<p>It’s an interesting idea, though, to provide feedback. I think it would end up being a PR nightmare, though. Thousands of people would be insulted. Though some people appreciate negative feedback; there are many who don’t want someone detailing how the culmination of the first 18 years of their life comes up short. If this change were to be instituted, it would have to be all the top schools rather than just one.</p>

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<p>Just because you feel entitled to one doesn’t mean you are.</p>

<p>With any of my applications anywhere, I am saying “Hi! I am interested in you and I think we are a good fit. Here’s information about me.” I hope the other side will try to evaluate me fairly. But I don’t see how they’re indebted to me. </p>

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It’s a substantial minority, actually, when you include both sides (applications with a score below the payline that aren’t funded plus applications above the payline that are) – 10-20%. (This is at my IC, NINDS; not sure how it globalizes.) And it’s over all R01s, including specific program announcements as well as unsolicited.</p>

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Yes, reviewer comments. But I’m saying that this feedback isn’t the same as “the reason” someone was accepted or not – reviewer comments for a grant that’s funded and one that just misses the payline will generally look quite similar, and so would admissions officer summaries of applicants that were admitted and those that were promising, but weren’t ultimately admitted. I don’t think having the summary of the application would provide a great deal of predictive value, since comments for most people would be quite positive on the whole.</p>

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Feedback is generally useful in a process that an applicant is likely to repeat in the future, but it seems less useful to me in the context of undergraduate admissions, which the vast majority of applicants go through only once. Like collegealum, I think that many people would just see a list of their shortcomings with no tangible benefits.</p>

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<p>I have read the article, and I do know Steven Pinker (he actually taught me when I was at MIT and he was on the MIT faculty). As it happens, I also know that he likes to articulate challenging positions to prompt debate. And indeed, he was on the MIT faculty, when the 1989 CUAFA report came out directing the Dean of Admissions to base much more of the applications decision on test scores. That was an experiment that ran for several years (for example, see <a href=“http://tech.mit.edu/V109/N62/scores.00n.html”>http://tech.mit.edu/V109/N62/scores.00n.html&lt;/a&gt;). After a while, CUAFA again made changes to the admissions criteria. MIT is an evidence based institution, and it accumulates evidence on the impact of admissions policies. MIT absolutely has mapped the correlation between, for example, SAT scores and subsequent MIT GPA. And indeed they found that SAT success correlated very tightly to future success at MIT for SAT scores up to around 700, thereafter the corrolation grew increasingly weak to eventually become very minor above say 760ish. That research has indeed fed into the way that MIT admits students. </p>

<p>Pinker observes that one thing that irritates him is the high percentage of students who choose not to take advantage of the educational opportunities that Harvard offers them. If there is one thing that most closely correleates to success at MIT admissions, it is precisely this. MIT wants to admit students who will take the fullest advantage of an MIT education. That is a hard thing to judge, but MIT is an evidence based institution and I would argue that the very problem that Steven Pinker is trying to address has been measured pretty carefully by CUAFA and addressed in the MIT match criteria, which determine admission. Why is intellectual curiousity a good thing? Because the intellectually curious tend to put more into, and get more out, of an MIT education and so we will measure that as best we can subjectively, and weight it in the admissions decision.</p>

<p>I agree that feedback is nice to have (though I also think that it is not an entitlement), but I agree completely with Mollie that you can get all the feedback that exists in an application folder, and it still will not tell the majority of candidates why they were not admitted. The costs of compiling that feedback will be very high, and the incidental costs huge. For example, confidential letters of recommendation will become less honest, and less useful, if a recommending teacher knows that their negative letters will be shared with the student (or even a summary "You were not accepted because your math teacher described you as a ‘brown-nosing toad’). And heavens forfend if any of the feedback is incorrect in any detail. Megan Thode may have lost her $1.3M lawsuit over a C+ that she claimed that she did not deserve, but the costs to the university in fighting that suit were significant, and any issues of fact become painfully discoverable. Also, MIT would be alone in providing this feedback. Like Mollie, and like Piper, I too have hardly ever, as an adult, been involved in any selection process where I have received any clear indication as to why I did not make the cut. Not for a job, not for a grant, not for anything. And while an actor, I applied for a bunch of roles, and in only two cases did I know why I missed out on a role. And neither represented anything I could have done differently. </p>

<p>Consider a selection process that is completely transparent, say in a public election. What can you meaningfully tell the losing candidate in a close public election about why he or she did not win? “You did not win because the other candidate got more votes?”, “You didn’t win because 50.04% of the voting electorate wanted the other applicant.” There is very rarely and single meaningful single REASON why somebody did not win. All you can say is that on the day, the other candidate was closer to what the electorate was looking for. And that is exactly the same as for university admissions, on the day, the admissions department took the students that were closest to what they were looking for. They are transparent about what they are looking for, and they take the students that come closest to that ideal. And then they tell the students that were not admitted that they wish they could have taken more, but as wonderful as those students were, and some of them were indeed wonderful, there were other students that they judged as being even better. Nearly every year I interview brilliant, talented, hugely impressive students who are not admitted.</p>

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<p>Has there ever actually been a letter of recommendation to MIT that described an applicant as a “brown-nosing toad”?
If so, it would be harder to say who had the worse judgment: the student, for asking that teacher for a letter of recommendation; or the teacher, for putting those words down on paper.</p>