<p>Who cares if it is or isn’t? I don’t care about genetics, and honestly it shouldn’t matter to MIT admissions officers — this isn’t going to change MIT’s admissions process.
Anyway, I think I know what muddles parents and students about the admissions process. Read this:
MIT says they want people who have the passion to do stuff. As said in Ben Jones’s blog thread, MIT’s average # of AP courses was 4 to 5. Most took only math and science AP courses. They took it because they were interested in math and science.
But, here is where the problem comes in: Suppose Person X follows his interest and takes only math and science AP courses. But what happens? Other students (Person X’s classmates) end up taking other english and social studies and foreigh language APs. Those students vitually end up with higher GPA and thus a high rank. So now Person X is no where near the top, and what does Person X’s parents do? They FREAK OUT to death. They feel that Person X is going to get rejected from MIT and elsewhere. Tension builds up and exaccerbates due to fights between Person X and his parents. This consequently puts much pressure on Person X, which causes mental breakdown. Person X screws up on his application and gets rejected.</p>
<p>Now we high schoolers do not want to be like Person X. What advise would you give to MIT prospective students so they would’nt be in a Person X situation?</p>