[1654] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] merit, diversity, hahvahd, mit, etc.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jessica H Lowell)
Mon Oct 24 16:07:46 2005
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 16:07:32 -0400
From: Jessica H Lowell <jessiehl@mit.edu>
To: mit-talk@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <BAY101-F3988E4B9B80DC1ECEF6005DF770@phx.gbl>
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
First of all, you are making an erroneous assumption. You assume that
Admissions is trying to make MIT more like an Ivy, and trying to get more
"all-American" kids. I have a job in Admissions, and I hang out with the
people in Admissions and discuss MIT with them once or twice a week, and I can
tell you that you're wrong. You don't have to take my word for it
though...read the Tech articles from the last two years which feature
Admissions staff heralding the idea that the admitted classes are more
old-school-MIT-techie. Now, what _some_ others in the administration of the
Institvte might want is a different question, but those others aren't the ones
choosing admittees.
You also assume that an increase in course 15 students means that MIT is
admitting more millennials (that's the word you were looking for, wasn't it?),
or at least that's what you're implying. Could it be that the reason for the
increase in course 15 students is simply that course 15 students are in demand
right now? Same reason course 7 and course 9 are growing.
Your claim that majoring in course 15 makes you technically deficient is
dubious, at best. Sure, if course 15 was in the School of Engineering, you'd
have a point, because it doesn't provide the same engineering background, as,
say, the engineering departments (gee, what a surprise). But a course 15 grad
has taken classes in linear algebra (18.06), probabilistic systems analysis
(6.041), and computer science or programming (6.001 or 1.00). Plus the
GIRs. And that's what they're _required_ to take. One thing I've
always loved about
MIT is that most classes are open to students from any department, and you get
21W majors who take 6.170, Sloanies who take 2.007, and so on. Most people I
know take 18.03, even if they're from a department that doesn't require
it. While there are an awful lot of double majors in 6 and 15 running
around all of
a sudden, I don't think it's wrong for someone to only major in 15.
Leadership skills, right. I got admitted, though I didn't think at the time
that I had any leadership skills. Interestingly enough, I've discovered some
previously unknown leadership skills during my career as an MIT student, and I
don't think I've become less nerdy in the process (in fact, I think
I've become
more so), so whatever MIT's doing to develop leadership, it's working
for me. Leadership and nerdiness aren't mutually exclusive anyway.
"The branding of MIT" is a perfectly valid discussion topic, however, I feel
that your interpretation of the current state of affairs is somewhat off from
reality. And I'm sick of hearing that my generation are millenials who aren't
h4rdk0r3 g33ks like your generation was B4ck 1n 7h3 D4y.
- Jessie
Quoting Jimmy Wu <jimmbswu@hotmail.com>:
> The article quoted below discusses the trajectory of the affirmative
> action policy among the Ivies, going from the paid exceptions to
> legacies in the 1900s, to the legacy quotas in the '20s, to the
> "character/whole person" preference for legacies in the '30s, to the
> present day "character/whole person" preference for athletes,
> minorities, and legacies.
>
> Under this analysis, the Ivies evolved their affirmative action
> policy to protect their brands over time. Because the Ivy brand is
> the accession to power and privilege, every step of the evolution has
> served to strengthen the brand.
>
> The questions for MIT are many. For most of us, we probably need a
> history lesson in MIT admissions policy before we can debate the
> purported egalitarianism in the MIT admission policy. However, one
> question we can ask today is: does MIT's admission policy today
> serves to strengthen the brand? What should be MIT's brand?
>
> As many people have noted over the past 7+ years on these forums, MIT
> is searching for a new brand identity. The old brand identity of the
> technical research university is no longer viable due to the end of
> the Cold War. Currently, MIT appears headed toward an "Ivy with
> technical focus" brand, which can be seen with the increase in
> "All-American" admitees and the tremendous increase in Course 15
> enrollment among undergrads.
>
> For the "Ivy with technical focus", MIT is probably using the right
> affirmative action policy, with weighting toward the
> "all-American-ness" needed for the brand.
>
> However, is it the right place to go? Among many other things,
> Hahvahd is also an Ivy with good technical focus. If you look only
> at their technical departments, they can certainly out-compete MIT.
> Same thing with the other upper-tier Ivies. Given that there is a
> lot of competition in this particular talent market, MIT should look
> for some other brand identity. As many of our 15ers can relate, in
> areas of intense competition, companies will segment/corner the
> market by appearing different, or seek out a different, distinct
> market, where they can utilize their "first-comer" advantage.
>
> In addition, the current admission policy is based on a particular
> leadership paradigm. The two schools of thought in leadership
> development are: leadership is learned vs. innate. By admitting a
> lot of "all-American" applicants, MIT is taking the easy way out on
> leadership development. Assuming that leadership is an innate
> quality, and that developing leadership otherwise is expensive, MIT
> seeks to instead develop the technical skills of born leaders, who
> have already demonstrated their leadership abilities in various
> extracurricular activities. This way, MIT skips out on the hard task
> of developing the un-quantifiable "leadership skills" and instead
> focuses on the well-known and quantifiable task of "technical skills".
>
> Admittedly, MIT's focus is perhaps easier than trying to develop the
> leadership skills of nerds, who may not have any in the first place.
> However, this new focus risks diluting MIT's character. The
> whole-sale introduction of all-Americans automatically means that
> there are less nerds on campus, given the relatively fixed class
> size. Moreover, the boom in 15 enrollment shows that MIT is not
> doing very well in its self-assigned task of developing the technical
> skills of all-Americans. The undergrad 15 curriculum may meet the
> minimum graduation requirement, but it does not imbue its students
> with the finer points of linear system analysis. [see below for more
> on course 15].
>
> The bright spot is that the graduate admission system is up to the
> individual courses and thus less vulnerable to MIT's brand change.
> However, as professors get exposed to all-American undergrads over
> time, they may change their focus in graduate admissions as well.
> Moreover, because MIT is no longer viable as a technical research
> university [aka the Cold War model], the courses have less research
> funding from their own contracts and depend more on the MIT brand to
> attract funding. The strengthening of the center vis-a-vis the
> periphery means that the courses are more vulnerable to
> admin-dictated changes in graduate admission focus.
>
> For MIT's sake, and for the sake of students future and present, we
> need to start a public discussion on the branding of MIT.
>
> Jimmy Wu'02
>
> [In an analysis of the technical content of 15 vs. the other courses,
> you could say that 15 is no more technical than, say, 21H or 17, so
> why single 15 out? But the truth is, 15 is qualitatively different
> from the other non-technical courses. The sales pitch of 15 to
> employers is that they are getting employees well-versed in the
> business as well as the technical world. The other non-technical
> courses do not make so strong a claim. However, 15 undergrads
> plainly are not as well-versed in the technical, industrial sectors
> as undergrads from the technical courses. In essence, course 15 is
> selling a defective product. Merill Lynch may hire a 15er to analyze
> the technical sectors, but he did not do 18.03 nor anything beyond.
> Other than his MIT diploma, this theoretical 15er can lay no claim to
> technical expertise.
>
> We need to make course 15 a "complementary course", where an
> undergrad needs to first have a technical course before he can
> double-major into 15. An undergrad cannot have 15 as the only major
> he has.]
>
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