[1442] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: A new ballgame at MIT
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Will Hafer)
Mon Sep 15 19:19:09 2003
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 18:57:52 -0400
From: Will Hafer <williamh@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0309151401420.3607-100000@sub-zero.mit.edu>
>If a person is good at rowing boats but can't hack it at MIT, they won't
>be let in. It already works that way.
I think you might be surprised how much sway the athletics head coaches
have in admissions--as in, surprised that it's non-zero. I've heard of
coaches who make phone calls on behalf of freshmen they want for their
team, and they wouldn't do it if it didn't work. That kind of "under the
table" influence is extremely sensitive to political winds--meaning that if
the athletic dept. goes on a highly publicized crusade, admissions
officials are sure to cue in and allow coaches an even more influential
role in admissions.
On to the next point,
>The admissions dept. doesn't go after the 'well-rounded', they go after
>the interesting students.
It's pretty much common knowledge that MIT is going after well-rounded
students. Plenty of admissions department quotes have supported this,
without mentioning anything about students being "interesting".
>I wouldn't worry too much about the changing
>demographics of MIT: I get the sense they're largely a consequence of
>changing high schoolers. The educational mission of MIT hasn't actually
>changed, has it?
The point about changing a high school demographic is tough to quantify.
it's 50/50 whether Marilee Jones, when she talked about the "changing young
person" a couple years ago, was the savior of MIT's future, or just an
administrator who wished she were at Princeton.
As to your last rant: just because MIT still has plenty of relics from the
past, doesn't mean they're not exactly that. This place is changing.
-Will
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