<p>Do you think an American student who scores say in the top 10 individually of all competitors worldwide at the International Mathematical Olympiad has any serious chance of being rejected by MIT or similar (absent obvious criminal tendencies)? Surely beyond some level, abnormal intellectual ability trumps any consideration of ‘leadership’, social poise, devotion to charity, running fast with a ball on behalf of your school, etc.?</p>
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<p>If they’re super-qualified, they’re not being “overlooked.” They’re being compared to other super-qualified applicants, applicants you have never met. And if the qualifications are equal or interchangeable, other factors are then being considered (course of study, geography, other factors).</p>
<p>QuantMech
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<p>Brooklynborndad
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<p>To both of you, why? Why do you feel you have the right to determine the entrance requirements of a private university?</p>
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<p>I believe MIT offers degrees in subjects other than math. It seems to me that CCr’s assume that kids “make up” some passion or have the “foresight” to participate in some quirky activity just so they can get by with sub-par SAT scores. I think those of us who are not admissions officers have no idea of the talent that is out there and base our assumptions on anecdotal stories that never give the whole story. We can never know the whole story unless we have personally read all the applications. USAMO is only one indicator of future success, it is certainly not the holy grail. </p>
<p>Here is a look at their incoming freshman (no mimes) [L@@K</a> at the Class of 2015 | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/lk-at-the-class-of-2015]L@@K”>L@@K at the Class of 2015 | MIT Admissions)</p>
<p>In middle school, before that my son decided that math competitions would kill his HS social life, he was very active in this sort of thing, finishing very highly in our state’s Mathcounts competition (top ten). Through his experience in this program I really got to know some of the amazing math prodigies and their families in our area. I have to say, that if you were to see some of these kids in action, you would be blown away. I think for those parents who have no understanding of the math talent some of these kids possess and what it means, it’s too easy to dismiss them. </p>
<p>Yes, I agree that private institutions can do what they want, but collectively, for the good of the nation, I would hope that these students are going somewhere that can really develop their natural abilities. Is it MIT’s responsibility to take them all? No, of course not.</p>
<p>Thanks, soomoo, that is what I’m writing about! (More sometime later)</p>
<p>soomoo
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<p>It is highly unlikely that they can take them all, even if MIT is choosing only for “amazing math prodigies” because</p>
<p>limabeans
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<p>soomoo
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<p>I would also hope that for the good of the student, “these students” (and families, guidance counselors, high school faculty) would have the drive and initiative by age 17 to seek out such opportunities (colleges) “that can really develop their natural abilites,” beyond a handful of name-recognition U’s. Does the student, and that student’s support structure, not have a moral and practical obligation to develop such talent?</p>
<p>(I could get Biblical, but I won’t. ;))</p>
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<p>Many kids and dads are like that, and we cannot say that the kids are not good at math. Do these USAMO kids have potential to get better? That’s a better question for any admissions officer.</p>
<p>A student acquaintance was enrolled in a sociology course that covered elite admissions and where a former big name admissions director was a guest speaker. She told me he said something along the lines of - they do admit a handful of superstars every year, but the majority of admits are “just” bright and hard working and that AO admit those “ordinary” students because the superstars need to meet and learn from these other kids. I’ve never known a real superstar, but I’ve met a few bright, hardworking, accomplished people, and they tend to believe their admission to a lottery school, if there was one, was either a mistake or the application reader had a soft spot for dodgeball.</p>
<p>I can understand the disappointment and surprise when some remarkable kid doesn’t get into the school they want. When I read the profiles or stories of some of the kids on this board, and even in this thread, I can’t say I wouldn’t be a bit shocked myself that they weren’t admittied to this school or that school.</p>
<p>But it is beyond me to see how anyone can look at the link limabeans posted, and consider the track record at a place like MIT, and assume that there is something incredibly amiss with their admissions process and that it somehow needs revamping. </p>
<p>I suspect the committees have a lot of real contention over some of the decisions they make. Certainly they make mistakes. Maybe they made a mistake with a child of ours, or some acquaintance. But I suspect they have more complete information, and can look at the situation less emotionally and more objectively from the inside than we can from the outside, and see how each applicant helps them with their mission, which, BTW, they get to set. </p>
<p>And I seriously doubt that a handful of admissions errors at a place like MIT is going to irreparably ruin either the future of civilization and scientific research as we know it, or the future careers of truly brilliant students. I know people disagree, but I just don’t think that, in general, this is a major problem for society.</p>
<p>Looking at the test scores (from that link), it doesn’t seem they are accepting a bunch of academic slouches. So what would you have them do? Agree to take every USAMO winner if as a result they have to turn down some of those remarkable New York Times scholars? Automatically take everyone who won the Biology Olympiad when it means turning down someone who already has several exciting inventions or a recognized tech idea to their name? We all have our notions, but there is no objective judge of what is correct except results. And I don’t think MIT as an institution is lacking in those.</p>
<p>Whom do you accept if you could only take one? Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak? If it were me quessing I would say MIT takes Woz, and Stanford takes Jobs. But that’s just me guessing. I’m sure some would say neither belongs at a place like MIT, even Woz, because he’s really just a glorified hobbyist, and not likely to be answering the fundamental questions of the universe… There’s no correct answer.</p>
<p>I would feel better about the MIT admissions decisions if I did not have friends/colleagues there who have remarked that they don’t know how about 10-15% of the students in their classes ever got admitted. If these were URM’s, I know they would not have brought it up. They and I both support affirmative action.</p>
<p>The truly super-qualified applicants are very rare. There is more than room for them in a set of 1500+ admits. I’m not really writing about local people (with one exception).</p>
<p>^^^
Quant Mech, really even that is all just anonymous anecdotal information. If they don’t belong there I assume your colleagues are flunking them out, or making some public statements about the horrifically performing students they are forced to endure. If not, there is someting more amiss than the admissions process.</p>
<p>Edit: Maybe I’m unaware. Are there any articles where scientists/ professors have broken the veil of anonymity to express their concern about the quality of the MIT students? I know they did it back in the 70s or so, but that was quite a while ago. If this was really such a clear problem I think more professors, at MIT or elsewhere, would speak out publically about it.</p>
<p>Well, there is a follow-on section of the first-semester, first-year physics course, for students who have failed it the first time around. You can read about its existence on the MIT thread.</p>
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If they were truly unqualified I would assume they would fail this as well and certainly not be able to graduate. </p>
<p>I’m cetain there may be some students who are not up to the work or maybe need a little catching up because of circumstances. 10 to 15% of the regular admits? Seems a bit much, and a huge problem that should be addressed publically. Baesd on the MIT grads in my deparment I could believe it. It would certainly be an explanation. But that too, is anonymous and anecdotal. :)</p>
<p>I have heard a quite similar complaint from a faculty member at one of the HYPMS schools. I have not heard the complaint from anyone at Harvard. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Dudley Herschbach (great scientist, Nobel laureate, at Harvard) has commented that he thinks his new grading policy for mid-terms saved the lives of a lot of students’ grand-parents. He changed the grading so that if a student missed a question on a particular topic on the midterm, when the final rolled around, the student could regain all of the points lost on the midterm, by answering the question correctly on the final. It is an interesting approach, although it would be an accounting nightmare for a very large class. He said that he had seen a great reduction in the number of students who needed to delay the midterm due to the death of a grandparent. </p>
<p>One of my grandparents died when I was in college–the space between the generations makes this a not-uncommon issue–and I loved him very, very much, and did find it disruptive. For a lot of students, this may be the first time they have to acknowledge death in a personal way. So, I can understand that students might find the event disruptive of their studies, yet be willing to continue with the midterm if it’s not a single-chance scenario.</p>
<p>At Stanford, I have heard that admissions now refers the applications of prospective math majors to the Department of Mathematics. Presumably this happened because the mathematicians felt that the Admissions Office was rejecting some students they (the mathematicians) would have liked to have and/or accepting students they didn’t want. Dick Zare (Chairman of the Chemistry Department at Stanford, quite possibly a future Nobel laureate) wrote an editorial piece for Chemical & Engineering News complaining about the Stanford admissions decisions for prospective chemistry majors and the fact that some of the students who tried to work in his lab really couldn’t handle it. I don’t think he pin-pointed the source of the problem exactly right, but he did complain in print. Interpolating between math and chemistry, we arrive at physics–haven’t heard complaints from that source, but it would be a little odd if admissions got physics right, while “missing” a bit in math and chemistry.</p>
<p>QM-
An interesting side note -
A couple years ago I was messing around on the web and I pulled up a link on the MIT site to a Math Diagnostic Test for Freshman Physics placement. Frankly, the test was so trivial I was shocked that any MIT student couldn’t get everything correct on it. Just now I tried searching for it and the link is dead. So I admit that what you are posting is not totally unbelievable. </p>
<p><a href=“http://mit.edu/firstyear/2015/subjects/mathdiagnostic.html[/url]”>http://mit.edu/firstyear/2015/subjects/mathdiagnostic.html</a>
[MIT</a> Department of Physics](<a href=“Prospective Undergrads » MIT Physics”>Prospective Undergrads » MIT Physics)</p>
<p>Richard Shrock, Nobel Laureate at MIT, complained in an interview (with the Tech, I think) that the undergraduate students who worked in his lab were always being drawn away to pursue some non-research, non-curricular interest.</p>
<p>A quick perusal of the interview may lead you to think that Shrock is complaining about the admission of women to MIT in greater numbers, but I think his issue is really that the students in his lab don’t show the lab-obsession that he’d expect, and that he had as an undergraduate student at UC, Riverside.</p>
<p>It’s all still anecdotal, of course.</p>
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<p>I looked it up. I think the article is called “Test Takers or Scientists”.
[Richard</a> N. Zare](<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/group/Zarelab/zare/press.html]Richard”>Richard N. Zare)</p>
<p>It looks like Zare complained about basically the same thing I have posted complaints about frequently in the past on this message board. THat kids are so geared toward passing AP Exams that they give short shrift to actually performing lab work. In fact, he mentions that a lot of them win major competitions but can’t do anything in the lab. That’s somewhat different than being completely unqualified.</p>
<p>“Holisitic” admissions in the hands of non-scientists???
Does this play into the perennial CC discussion of rejections of dweebie/one-dimensional genius types?</p>
<p>This is fascinating discussion.
Should professors (of all departments) be more involved in Admissions decisions?
Would they WANT to be?</p>
<p>Yes, that’s it (I mean the article linked by bovertine, #1418 is it). There’s plenty to complain about in standardized testing, to be sure.</p>
<p>And to be fair, Zare’s complaints go up to the Olympiad level. On the other hand, the Olympiad in Chemistry has a lab component, as does the Olympiad in physics–and as mentioned, I’m not sure that Zare has the issue identified precisely right.</p>
<p>One of my colleagues said that if a student wanted to work in his lab, he would hold up a Phillips-head screwdriver and ask the students what it was.</p>
<p>To performersmom, #1419: The people I know at MIT generally do not want to be involved in making admissions decisions–realistically, they don’t have time for it. I don’t think they even have time to discuss the overall philosophy of admissions, with the Admissions Office; but maybe there are some faculty at MIT who would.</p>