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What's wrong with students doing everything they can to get into IIT? How is it different from the US? A student aspiring to get into HYPM in the bay area often

What's wrong with students doing everything they can to get into IIT? How is it different from the US? A student aspiring to get into HYPM in the bay area often needs to get full GPA, complete more than 10 AP courses, be the leader in multiple voluntary groups, be a captain in a sports team, sleep 5 hours a day, and take illicit smart drugs. Do such students have a childhood? Do they have life? Do they have true hobby? So it's okay to toil for so-called "holistic admission", but it's not okay to play the game in India? What kind of twisted moral superiority is this? And how is different from a Korean students doing everything they can so they can get into the top medical school? And how is it different from a Japanese kid fighting to get into Tokyo University? And how is it different from a Chinese student who walks 10 miles every day to attend high school so she can get into a top-tier university? Do Americans even know that some countries do not have as many universities as the US? Do they know that national entrance exams can be the most fair system a country could afford? Do they even know that building leadership in high school can be a luxury that millions of family wouldn't even dream to have, yet the families can still produce brilliant students? Holistic my ass.

internetslave 6y ago
IIT is a complete waste of time. You guys force your youths to spend their lives memorizing.
- hintymad 6y ago
  I'm not sure if everyone survives IIT by rote memory. I'm sure some people thrive by truly understanding the fundamentals. For those who want to really learn a hard subject, IIT is wonderful. On the other hand, I have a hard time imagining anyone could survive a STEM subject through mere rote memory. A STEM subject is built on layers and layers of abstraction anyway. If someone could use things like "any subgroup of a commutative group is normal" or things like BPP=co-BPP to solve problems via sheer rote memory, what can I say? Hmm... Kudos? Seriously, though, we should look at statistics instead of individual samples to assess the value of education. I mean, how many students can really solve a JEE question like below by rote memory? I'm sure there are some who got lucky, but I'd rather believe most of the students who could solve such problem truly learned some math: If f(x) is a differentiable function and g(x) is a double differentiable function such that |f(x)| <= 1 and f'(x) = g(x). If f^2(0) + g^2(x) = 9. Prove that there exists some c \in (-3, 3) such that g(c)g"(c) < 0.

internetslave 6y ago

IIT is a complete waste of time. You guys force your youths to spend their lives memorizing.

hintymad 6y ago
I'm not sure if everyone survives IIT by rote memory. I'm sure some people thrive by truly understanding the fundamentals. For those who want to really learn a hard subject, IIT is wonderful. On the other hand, I have a hard time imagining anyone could survive a STEM subject through mere rote memory. A STEM subject is built on layers and layers of abstraction anyway. If someone could use things like "any subgroup of a commutative group is normal" or things like BPP=co-BPP to solve problems via sheer rote memory, what can I say? Hmm... Kudos? Seriously, though, we should look at statistics instead of individual samples to assess the value of education. I mean, how many students can really solve a JEE question like below by rote memory? I'm sure there are some who got lucky, but I'd rather believe most of the students who could solve such problem truly learned some math: If f(x) is a differentiable function and g(x) is a double differentiable function such that |f(x)| <= 1 and f'(x) = g(x). If f^2(0) + g^2(x) = 9. Prove that there exists some c \in (-3, 3) such that g(c)g"(c) < 0.