4 ms·

I'm not surprised a lot of successful people are rejected by Harvard and Yale. They reject, what?.. Ninety Percent or so of applicants? and those are self-sele

by fnid2 17y ago

I'm not surprised a lot of successful people are rejected by Harvard and Yale. They reject, what?.. Ninety Percent or so of applicants? and those are self-selected achievers who think they might have a shot getting in, so there are a lot of exceptionally talented individuals in the rejected pool from those schools. What's that say about Matt Damon and Bill Gates who essentially rejected Harvard? You must respect someone who, at such an early age, is wise enough to know that even Harvard isn't going to make them better off. Looking back, 18 is so young. Just babies. It'd be really hard at that age to predict who among them will succeed.

csomar 17y ago
Actually they could do better. They are selecting students depending on SAT results and I really doubt they are reviewing in depth the achievements, situation of the student.
- ramchip 17y ago
  I'm not sure about that, unless you're talking specifically about undergrad at Yale and Harvard. The prof at my previous laboratory worked on the admission committee for the MIT and told us that having research publications done before graduate studies was a large factor. So was doing special stuff like going to Africa and building a library, getting a grammy award, etc. Everyone who applies has excellent grades, so they can't really use them to distinguish people.
  - hga 17y ago
    I have a good friend who's been part of the MIT admissions process in times past (on a time available basis). They look at lots of things. Before the SAT changes in 1994 that made them worthless, they found that class ranking was strangely enough one of the best predictors of future success (MIT does longitudinal study of the admissions and resulting success of failure, the number one imperative is to accept no one who they don't think can do the work (which is a pretty high bar for MIT, with it's core math and science requirements)). And, yeah, having an almost published paper probably helped me (I sent the original draft with a note that half the results were unusable due to a contaminated culture that was only discovered after the work). Plus a well designed (structured programming) program (this was back in 1979). My SAT (very high verbal, OK but not so much for MIT math) and class standing weren't too great, but they correctly said yes. My friend said that being from deep in flyover country certainly made a difference in terms of a desire for geographic diversity. Anyway, a bottom line today for MIT is that if you can do the work, you have a raw 1/3 chance of acceptance (self-selection of applications is fierce). The very most important thing you can do is to demonstrate to them that you're a "go-getter", the sort of person who naturally does projects and the like. Mens and manus (mind and hand) as the school motto goes.
    - codexon 17y ago
      Before the SAT changes in 1994 that made them worthless I've heard this a couple times, but there is not much reasoning to back this up. Having taken the SAT after 1994 and receiving a high score, I think it is a bit disingenuous to claim that the SAT after 1994 are useless. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#1994_changes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#1994_changes The mean SAT score remained virtually unchanged, while the removal of antonym questions and non-multiple choice questions seems to be an improvement. There were many times where the analogy questions were quite ambiguous, I could think of a dozen reasons to support each answer.
- travisp 17y ago
  It seems to me that the SAT results of the applicants are so good, they can't only use SAT results to select students. When Stanford rejected me for undergrad years ago, they essentially said not to feel so bad because thousands of those who were rejected were valedictorians, had perfect or near perfect SAT scores, etc..
- araneae 17y ago
  SAT results count for very little these days. At universities like Harvard, a perfect score will not get you in. Even at University of Michigan, a state school, a 1360 on the SAT is worth the same as a 1600: http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:mZNMh_wonTIJ:www.umich.edu/~mrev/archives/1999/summer/chart.htm+http://www.umich.edu/~mrev/archives/1999/summer/chart.htm&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:mZNMh_wonTIJ:www.umich.e...
  - tokenadult 17y ago
    That's not current information about Michigan, dating from before both the Supreme Court case about affirmative action there and before the subsequent voter initiative than banned consideration of race in admission there.
    - araneae 17y ago
      Yes, but it wasn't meant to be current information about how race admissions are done. If a 1600 was indistinguishable from a 1360 in 1999, I doubt it's much more significant now, considering that schools have been moving away from using the SAT more and more.
- jacobolus 17y ago
  > They are selecting students depending on SAT results Your summary is simply wrong. There are obviously limits to how much you can learn about a person’s life from school records, test scores, application essays, recommendations, and lists of achievements, but these schools care a lot about getting the most ambitious and accomplished students they can, and spend extraordinary effort reviewing applicants.

by fnid2 17y ago

csomar 17y ago

Actually they could do better. They are selecting students depending on SAT results and I really doubt they are reviewing in depth the achievements, situation of the student.

ramchip 17y ago
I'm not sure about that, unless you're talking specifically about undergrad at Yale and Harvard. The prof at my previous laboratory worked on the admission committee for the MIT and told us that having research publications done before graduate studies was a large factor. So was doing special stuff like going to Africa and building a library, getting a grammy award, etc. Everyone who applies has excellent grades, so they can't really use them to distinguish people.
- hga 17y ago
  I have a good friend who's been part of the MIT admissions process in times past (on a time available basis). They look at lots of things. Before the SAT changes in 1994 that made them worthless, they found that class ranking was strangely enough one of the best predictors of future success (MIT does longitudinal study of the admissions and resulting success of failure, the number one imperative is to accept no one who they don't think can do the work (which is a pretty high bar for MIT, with it's core math and science requirements)). And, yeah, having an almost published paper probably helped me (I sent the original draft with a note that half the results were unusable due to a contaminated culture that was only discovered after the work). Plus a well designed (structured programming) program (this was back in 1979). My SAT (very high verbal, OK but not so much for MIT math) and class standing weren't too great, but they correctly said yes. My friend said that being from deep in flyover country certainly made a difference in terms of a desire for geographic diversity. Anyway, a bottom line today for MIT is that if you can do the work, you have a raw 1/3 chance of acceptance (self-selection of applications is fierce). The very most important thing you can do is to demonstrate to them that you're a "go-getter", the sort of person who naturally does projects and the like. Mens and manus (mind and hand) as the school motto goes.
  - codexon 17y ago
    Before the SAT changes in 1994 that made them worthless I've heard this a couple times, but there is not much reasoning to back this up. Having taken the SAT after 1994 and receiving a high score, I think it is a bit disingenuous to claim that the SAT after 1994 are useless. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#1994_changes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#1994_changes The mean SAT score remained virtually unchanged, while the removal of antonym questions and non-multiple choice questions seems to be an improvement. There were many times where the analogy questions were quite ambiguous, I could think of a dozen reasons to support each answer.
travisp 17y ago
It seems to me that the SAT results of the applicants are so good, they can't only use SAT results to select students. When Stanford rejected me for undergrad years ago, they essentially said not to feel so bad because thousands of those who were rejected were valedictorians, had perfect or near perfect SAT scores, etc..
araneae 17y ago
SAT results count for very little these days. At universities like Harvard, a perfect score will not get you in. Even at University of Michigan, a state school, a 1360 on the SAT is worth the same as a 1600: http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:mZNMh_wonTIJ:www.umich.edu/~mrev/archives/1999/summer/chart.htm+http://www.umich.edu/~mrev/archives/1999/summer/chart.htm&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:mZNMh_wonTIJ:www.umich.e...
- tokenadult 17y ago
  That's not current information about Michigan, dating from before both the Supreme Court case about affirmative action there and before the subsequent voter initiative than banned consideration of race in admission there.
  - araneae 17y ago
    Yes, but it wasn't meant to be current information about how race admissions are done. If a 1600 was indistinguishable from a 1360 in 1999, I doubt it's much more significant now, considering that schools have been moving away from using the SAT more and more.
jacobolus 17y ago
> They are selecting students depending on SAT results Your summary is simply wrong. There are obviously limits to how much you can learn about a person’s life from school records, test scores, application essays, recommendations, and lists of achievements, but these schools care a lot about getting the most ambitious and accomplished students they can, and spend extraordinary effort reviewing applicants.