[427] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Big Rant: Political correctness, Aff. Action
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anne Hunter)
Tue May 1 11:49:07 2001
From: Anne Hunter <anneh@eecs.mit.edu>
To: adstrom@mit.edu
CC: jmnelson@mit.edu, mit-talk@mit.edu, adstrom@mit.edu
In-reply-to: <200105010357.XAA13146@w20-575-82.mit.edu> (message from Aisha D
Stroman on Mon, 30 Apr 2001 23:57:59 -0400)
Reply-to: anneh@eecs.mit.edu
Message-Id: <E14ucOd-0003f4-00@altoids.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 11:49:03 -0400
>>> in response to anne's words about reading applications:
>>>
>>> key word here is reading applications, not choosing. correct me if i am wro
> *ng, but that mean you were reading essays and assigning a value to those essa
> *ys/apllications. this means that how anne graded these essays/applications w
> *ent on record as probably an index number i would guess or a written evaluati
> *on.
I would read the entire application. Then I would write up a paragraph
on the student's card telling the student's "story", and then I'd come up with three numbers
according to how good the student was on three fairly specific measurements.
It was tough turning subjective qualities into numbers, but with practice
and
> *. this means that this has absolutely nothing to do with the process of sele
> *ction that (i cant remember his name) suggested about the piles and how appli
> *cants were chosen from them. all this means is that the numbers are equally
> *assigned for the people who choose to choose from. it is in this process tha
> *t affirmative action takes place. once again perhaps i just completely misun
> *derstood and you were in fact on the committee that made the final decision o
> *f who was getting in but it seemed like you were making a reference to giving
> * an index to the essay.
I was invited to "roundup" where the decisions are made, and I went
twice. It was committees of three working with a pile of cards from a
particular box on the matrix, i.e. students who were all approximately
equally qualified. I didn't like it because it felt like we were
dealing people's lives into piles. It made my stomach hurt.
noone ever stated that an advantage was giv!
>>> en here.
>>>
>>> as far as your list of 100 people and that everyone you thought wasnt quali
> *fied didnt get in. i would have to ask about how many on the lis that you th
> *ought were qualified didnt get in. (going by your stats of your personal opi
> *nion and how many people get in here) out of the 100, you would think 85 were
> * qualified to make it but out of those 100, only 16 would get in.
I think I usually *wanted* MIT to admit about two-thirds of the
applicants I read, because they were strong students with such great
drive and ambition, who would make a great contribution to MIT, etc.
It was very sad that only a small proportion of them could actually be
admitted, especially since around a third of the class had already
been admitted through Early Action.
basic stat
> *istics and some good ole commen sense would see its quite easy for you to mak
> *e the claim that noone got in that you didnt think was qualified. the questi
> *on remains whether some people who didnt get in were more qualified than thos
> *e that did. that was not answered at all (im not attacking you on this. it'
> *s rather obvious such a judgement is almost impossible from someone who saw s
> *uch a limited part of the application)
The more qualified/less qualified idea is much more difficult to deal
with, as it depends completely which factors you think are more
important. How do you compare someone who's won major community
service awards against somebody who's won international music
performance awards? Both have strong and equivalent academic numbers.
I want both! But that might mean rejecting the student who did a research
project with a science professor at a local college and is *published*,
and I think we *have* to take that student, again assuming the same numbers.
Which one of those is more qualified?
Anne
