If MIT "only admits people with a 4.0 unweighted gpa and 2300+ test scores", why doesn't everyone with a 4.0 get in and why do people with low GPAs get in?
Jelani Nelson, studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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| Jelani Nelson |
Answered Jun 29 · Upvoted by Sam Sinai, studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Students live in different environments, and different environments have different measurements of success and different levels of knowledge about how to play the college admissions game. Top schools I imagine recognize that top talent exists everywhere, in all communities, so then they try to figure out how to evaluate someone within the context of their environment. If a kid writes on their application that they aced a differential equations class in an elite high school that offers such a course, I’m sure that’s impressive, but if a kid aced (with maybe even a worse score?) such a course in Podunk, Iowa where no kid had even thought to take such a course at the local community college in the last 8 years, I’m sure that’s even more impressive, since it speaks to things like initiative, passion, etc., as opposed to a kid who merely inherited and executed a pre-defined strategy. Similarly, if one school pumps out more perfect SAT students than another, doesn’t that reflect more on the quality of the school’s SAT prep than the quality of an individual kid when compared with kids at some other school?
Where I’m from (St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands), no one I knew cared about their GPA. I didn’t even know what my GPA was, or what that term really meant, until senior year when a college application required me to enter it into a box, so I asked our school’s guidance counselor. I think I had a 3.8, which put my rank at 2nd (in a class of 30). No one cared, including myself. The SAT was similar — I showed up on the day of without ever having taken a practice exam. In my St. Thomian bubble, the big things people around me emphasized were contests like Quiz Bowl, Science Bowl, and Moot Court. I was also into classical piano. I wasn’t playing the college admissions game. I didn’t even know the game existed.
I then ended up applying to MIT (and only MIT) early action, despite not having heard of it until Fall senior year (I found it in some college ranking magazine). I never saw my recommendation letters, but I suspect they helped MIT understand the environment I grew up in, and they were able to then judge me based on that environment. I was admitted. I ended up double majoring in computer science and pure math at MIT, taking a grad course my junior year and 5 more senior year, losing a perfect GPA to an independent project course I blew off in my final semester of senior year. I stayed on for an MEng and PhD in computer science. I’m now a computer science professor and think I did OK.
In short, I don’t think the numbers you posted are all that important, and I suspect MIT and other top universities are right to take holistic approaches in evaluating college applications. Even ignoring issues of balancing racial/gender/other forms of diversity, a holistic approach just makes good sense even if all you’re trying to do is to identify top talent.
https://www.quora.com/profile/Jelani-Nelson
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