[1656] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] merit, diversity, hahvahd, mit, etc.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jessica H Lowell)
Mon Oct 24 17:20:55 2005
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:20:37 -0400
From: Jessica H Lowell <jessiehl@mit.edu>
To: Eric Jonas <jonas@mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <20051024203446.GI10368@convolution.mit.edu>
cc: mit-talk@mit.edu
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
Quoting Eric Jonas <jonas@MIT.EDU>:
> Jessie,
>> 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.
>
> Could you elaborate on this? Admissions seems to have a pretty strong
> say in the sort of student who ends up at MIT. Who sets their policies?
> Have they changed in recent years?
Based on my experience with them, they mostly set their own policies.
They have
a few changes each year, but the higher-level people seem to stay
longer. They
try to hire at least one new MIT grad each year. The Assistant Director of
Admissions is Matt McGann '00, a former UAP and long-time advocate of MIT
student culture. I'm pretty sure you don't have to worry that he wants MIT to
be more like an Ivy.
If you want more insight into admissions these days, read the blogs. Three
admissions officers, one financial aid guy, and several students (including
myself) write blogs targeted at prospective students to give them an idea of
MIT culture and how admissions works.
>
>> 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.
>
> Do you have any data to back this up? It's a nice hypothesis, but as a
> former course 9 undergrad and now grad who has talked to many course 9
> undergrads over the years, may feel the increase in course 9 is because
> more students choose MIT with the intention of going to med school, and
> 9 is an easy major to do if that's the case.
No, I have no data to back it up, and possibly should have phrased it as a
question along with the statement about the growth of course 15
preceding it. It is, like you said, a hypothesis. As a course 9
non-pre-med, I agree that
there are a lot of pre-meds in course 9 (and 7). However, in recent
years, the
prominence and prestige of biotech and biological engineering have grown. As
have other relevant fields...all of a sudden tons of people in my classes plan
to go into "neuroeconomics". And the fields of biology and neuroscience have
become more quantitative.
>
>> 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
>
> Given that, course 15 has far more rigorous quantitative requirements
> than course 7 and 9. So perhaps he was unfairly using 15 as an example,
> but there is still the impression that MIT graduates are less
> quantitative than they used to be...
> ...Eric Jonas
>
I stand by what I said before. Just because MIT students are in fields that
don't require as many quantitative classes, doesn't mean they won't take them
anyway. Also, less quantitative doesn't necessarily mean less nerdy or more
"all-American", as he put it. I know some biology nerds who wouldn't
take more
math or physics classes than the GIRs required unless their lives depended on
it, but who are still incredibly nerdy...just in their own field, and in their
day-to-day lives.
- Jessie
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