Over summer I played hockey with a guy that does MIT interviews. He went there for undergrad and grad school. One of our teammates has a kid who wants to do there, so there were discussing admissions.
~25% shouldn’t even have applied
~25% could be successful there but just aren’t quite as strong of applicant
~50% have what it takes and it’s a coin flip
The biggest thing he’s evaluating is the kid’s own curiosity and motivation vs. is it their parents pushing them. He’s trying to find something they were passionate about and pursued on their own. They want well-rounded kids not kids who will spend all their time in the dorm studying. I don’t think taking more classes would interest them much.
It makes sense when you look at the personality types that move up in the corporate world. How may C-level execs were the quiet kid who only did HW and spent all their time in labs? Having other activities gives people a broader perspective for decision making.
It also seems the interview doesn’t have a ton of weight, and he doesn’t get feedback on why the ones he recommends are denied admission. He does get guidance on what they are trying to evaluate though.
The interviews at MIT and a lot of colleges are useless. I’ve heard from MULTIPLE interviewers that the people they say are once in a lifetime don’t get in. After about 10 years, the interviewers give up, but I’ve never met even one person who thought their review made a difference for the better at MIT.
For many schools, alumni interviews are a way to keep alumni engaged with the school and for kids to hear and ask questions about the school. At best, it is used to throw out candidates that are clearly problematic behaviorly.
Many people here talk about college, course for kids, what is best etc…
Ironically, when it comes to investment education for their own future survival, they say, “It is not required” and they do not go through proper investment education.
Lynbrook kids are not much interested in Ivy leagues (except Cornell and UPenn which has separate admission for engineering schools).
They are mostly interested in STEM oriented schools like MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Cornell, UPenn, UC engineering, UM/UIUC engineering, CMU, Rice, USC Viterbi, Harvey Mudd etc.
Are many of them qualified for Ivy? Probably Not
Are they interested in Ivy? No either
If you truly interested in going to Ivy, then, you should not just focus on STEM centric ECs. If you are only interested in STEM competitions, STEM research internships, robotics etc, you know which schools you want to apply to and have a good chance with your achievements as well. They are certainly not Ivy schools.
For a STEM-focused high school, I was surprised Lynbrook didn’t offer Multivariable Calculus and AP Physics 1. It does offer two AP CS courses though. Programming in Java…
It provides AP-physics-C.
It doesn’t offer AP-physics-1 because most of them go straight to physics-C. Physics-1 is easier version of physics-c-mechanics. Physics-honor is pretty much same level with AP-physics-1.
As for multi-cal, west valley college provides those post-AP math classes at lynbrook. However, my kid couldn’t get in because more than 200 lynbrook kids tried to sign up for the onsite class. I didn’t know that we were supposed to stand in line by 5am on the registration day. She eventually took it at west valley campus.
I do not necessarily like the overall culture and etc of lynbrook but if your kids love math and good at it, lynbrook can be a great place for them.
That’s also crazy that they don’t just teach it on campus. I mean, it’s one thing if you have 6 kids, but 200 kids - they’re just mooching off the CC system. Just hire someone (or two) and use the CC’s curriculum to offer it for dual enrollment.
My two kids came out Lynbrook, 9-12 is stressful years with various activities.
we felt bad when they go to bed by 12 midnight or 2 AM morning, but later they said, when reached college, 9-12 grade stress is very minor compared to their college education.
When they got the job, finally realized the work pressure is higher than what they had it in college!
For me, the question is what’s a research school like MIT optimizing for - creating works class scientists and researchers or US corporate execs? If every school in the country will optimize to admit future corporate execs, who will do the actual research and development? Usually the personality type for ground breaking research is kids who enjoy spending time in lab.
That totally makes sense from running higher Ed as a business pov. And that same logic holds for college sports and hence admitting promising athletes for those college sports teams.
BUT there’s something fundamentally wrong here if every college for every course optimizes on same parameters. Eg we may forever fall behind on STEM and R&D aka innovation.
As they say, the world will be a less melodious place if all birds in the jungle sang like the Nightingale.
And this is the basic problem with US college admissions process today.
I think elite colleges try to strike a balance between nerds and corporate execs. A gold medalist at math olympiad would have no problem at any top 5 colleges.
The problem with optimizing only the “business executive” vector is that the prestige of the college would decline over time. It will be seen as just a party school for the rich without any academic rigor, while the nerdy schools produce Rhode scholars and Nobel laureates.
The notion that being a leader and being technically competent are mutually exclusively is a total fallacy. Zuckerberg, Gates, Musk, etc…all of these guys were highly technically competent as students. On top of that they had exceptional leadership potential. Top schools are making bets on which students are most likely to truly distinguish themselves in their careers…e.g. future Nobel prize winners, gold medal winning athletes, national politicians, CEOs and founders. Kids who are smart but not exceptionally motivated and/or appear to lack leadership potential are a dime a dozen.
Right now MIT’s undergraduate admissions is doing neither. They are recruiting “talented and diverse” students in an effort to right the wrongs of an “inequitable K-12 system”. It’s no longer “best and brightest”. (That said, they are expecting the people they recruit to be on the tech side, not the corporate exec side.)
They are, and they aren’t. They have applicants with perfect GPA that also work a ton of hours, because they’re in a low income family. The family needs the income of everyone working. Those kids aren’t getting in either. They aren’t well-rounded enough. I would think those would be the prime candidates if they were trying to be more equitable. A kid from a low-income family getting into MIT is a game changer for the whole family. I think Harvard would be more likely to admit them.
As Shen graduates from high school, he hopes to carry his math and critical thinking skills into a Computer Science degree and career in a way that he can make a meaningful impact on others.
