The discussion revolves around the experiences and concerns of applicants to MIT, particularly focusing on the implications of deferred admissions and strategies for improving academic performance for mid-year reports. Participants share their personal statistics, application processes, and reflections on the competitive nature of admissions.
Participants express a range of views on the admissions process, the importance of grades versus extracurricular activities, and the implications of being deferred. There is no clear consensus on the best strategies for improving chances of admission or the significance of various application components.
Participants mention varying GPA thresholds and standardized test scores, but there is no agreement on what constitutes a competitive application. The discussion includes personal anecdotes and subjective assessments of the admissions process.
Prospective students applying to competitive universities, particularly those interested in MIT, as well as individuals curious about the admissions landscape for international students.
marlon said:
There are pros and cons to going to MIT. The pros are that it looks great on a resume and the profs are well known in their field. The cons are that the students are so competative that you can be certain that you'll get less help from your fellow students than in most other universities and its a well known fact that when students work together they do better. The profs have less time to spend with students than the profs at other universities.Tom McCurdy said:
) and took Writing, and I already have an 800 in Math 2c. I'm also taking the SAT for the first time this January.
Oops. I thought he was applying for grad school.daster said:
There is one very nice thing that MIT has over other universities. They sort of artificially inflate the GPAs of the students. By this I mean that during the first year is when students tend not to do so well. MIT therefore does not include grades from freshman year in a students final GPA. Therefore if you do horrible the first year and recover the last three and do great then your GPA will appear as if you did great in all 4 years since the first is not included. Other universities include GPAs from all years.Tom McCurdy said:
). I turned around to a guy I knew and asked Do you have any idea about what he's (the prof) is talking about? and he responded No. But don't worry. Nobody else does either! 
Here's where I'm confused - What is a "deffered letter"? Who are these people getting deffered? Are they high school students? If so then when did high school start giving GPAs?cAm said:A friend of mine got his 'deffered' letter yesterday as well. I was really surprised, as he is ****ing brilliant; 4.0 gpa, gone through calc 3, phys c, damn near perfect act, sat, psat, ap chem, 4/5's on ap tests, internships in physics labs, all sort of crap. So, i look at it this way. Congratulations on getting deferred, rather than having been rejected straight out.
On many occasions I tutored students who got straight A's in high school. There were two kinds - some were sharp as a tack - others had no clue. From what I gather there were students who in high school were able to get A's and not have to study very much. I guess they assumed this would also be the case in college. They were sorely mistaken. I was a bit weird with respect to this - I was the opposite. I did lousy in high school and did very good in college. I think it was the beer. 
I attended MIT back in the 70's and that certainly was not true ... except, perhaps, in classes that were very heavily attended by pre-meds, who had their eyes on competitive med school admissions. In the math classes, I found other students extremely helpful.pmb_phy said:
What makes you think that? The student/faculty ratio at MIT is excellent; in general, it's lower at higher rated schools and it relates very strongly to how much time the profs have to spend with the students. I found the profs helpful there also -- they know what they're talking about and they like to talk about it, or they wouldn't be in that field.
He's applying for an undergrad position. At least in decades past, MIT looked first at the SAT scores. Grades counted a distant second -- it's a well-known fact that grades in high school don't correlate with much of anything in your later academic career, but SAT scores correlate heavily with success in college. I don't know how heavily they weighted things like extracurricular activities or time spent abroad -- certainly, less heavily than Harvard, which seemed to have diversity in the student body as a priority.
MIT has "early decision". You can apply for an early decision, which comes months before their regular decision process grinds out its results. If you get in early, you're home free and you can relax. (Many colleges (used to) do this, but nearly all (used to) require that you commit to go there if you got in early. In the past, MIT required no such commitment -- but then, I guess they figured almost everybody they admitted would come and didn't worry about it...)pmb_phy said:
They always did. The GPA in high school is no different from the GPA in a college -- 4.0 just means straight A's, and always has, except at MIT where straight A's are 5.0. (Scale is shifted up by one except for "F" grades -- makes the F's hurt worse.)
As I mentioned above, MIT, in years past, counted SAT's far more heavily than grades for exactly this reason. Grades in HS are subjective and not very reliable indicators of how well students will do later on.As far as straight A's go - Be cautious here. I used to tutor math and physics when I was an undergrad. I went to a private/preppy college. It's where my beer money came from.
From what I gather there were students who in high school were able to get A's and not have to study very much. I guess they assumed this would also be the case in college. They were sorely mistaken. I was a bit weird with respect to this - I was the opposite. I did lousy in high school and did very good in college. I think it was the beer.
Pete
"grade inflation" was a big topic when I was there. Sort of followed from the assumption that everybody in the class was smart... they also had a handful of profs who refused to give meaningful grades. Dunno how that finally shook out.pmb_phy said:
Not so fast.
It must have changed in the last 20-30 years. I guess its for this reason that they're restructuring classes. The person who is working on the project explained it all to me, i.e. the purpose of the project and what the response was to the changes were was explained to me by one of the people at the center for learning (or whatever its called).sal said:
I have no idea why people do the things they do. However grades and SATs etc. tell you what the students grades are. They don't tell you how hard it was for the students to get those grades. Some of the students may have been the type to ask a bunch of questions to be able to learn what they did and understand the topic as well as they do. That is not always possible at large universities.
Observation. I'm told that some classes (e.g. physics 101?) have hundreds of students in them. If each student needs/would benifit from 10 minutes of your time per week per class then I don't see how there is enough time for a proffessor to give that time. Where I went I had courses which were one on one. I could ask whatever I wanted to and I could talk to the teacher any time I wanted to (except, of course, when he was in class etc). In a class I sat in on at MIT I was actually asked not to ask so many questions (I asked about 3 per day as I recall). However I wasn't paying for the course so that was no biggy. The price was right!
However the students didn't know whether I was paying or not and the students asked the teacher if I could ask less questions. 
I've never experienced that attitude in any other college or university that I went to.I was referring to science and engineering students (since the question pertains to science students) and I only knew science/engineering students.sal said:
This is worth addressing, since it may sound a bit scary, and it shouldn't.pmb_phy said:
pmb_phy said: