Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion School Secrets: 5 things to know about MIT

So, I'm interested in your impression. Looking back, do you think that was good thing for them to do? They just didn't want you to give up, right?

bzylzy, thanks for posting the Splash link. I will definitely keep it in mind. BTW, I sent you a PM because I get the impression our DDs are similar.

I think it's a good thing when selective schools try to keep students--after going through the screening/recruitment process, it's nice that they realize that people can hit 'speedbumps' and if they stick with it everything may work out. In contrast, where I went to college, there were a number of classes that seemed designed to weed people out at least from certain majors using techniques like assigning ridiculous amounts of reading and grading on a steep curve. Not a great feeling after you've invested all that time and effort to get into a 'good' school.

I was really a special case. Normally people's GPAs don't steadily decline from freshman to senior year, where you are essentially randomly failing classes at the time you graduate and go to law school. I was at Duke because my undergrad was an exercise in underachievement and failure to cope with college life.

But for a normal person, who just hits a bump or two, I think it's a good idea.

For someone like me, I think taking a break for a year, with the ability to return, would have been a much better idea.

Thanks JonLaw, I see what you mean.

I was in pre-engineering program but didn't really care about it. I was smart enough to do the work but didn't latch on to the point of trying for this career. It was total parental pressure. The school was really trying to weed a certain percentage of the pre-engineering pre-med types out, and then when the dust settled those that remained were quite nurtured, but I switched schools and didn't pursue engineering. Maybe if there was more direct support for keeping the female students in engineering(I was one of the last two young women in our group to give up) I would have hung in there for the long haul...if I could have seen some sort of career ideas or mentors that I could relate to.

Dbat I replied to your PM - thanks!

I hung around MIT quite a bit as a freshman (I attended another college in Massachusetts and a friend in my dorm had friends from high school there).

It's not that you "can't fail" at MIT. I knew a couple people who washed out. It happens.

I think that the journalist did MIT an injustice by writing "can't fail," because it's not true. Statements like that feed misconceptions like "The hardest part of MIT (or Harvard) is getting in. Once you get in, they'll never fail you."

The thing is that the people who run MIT know how demanding the place is, and they also understand how difficult the first year there can be. So they try to ease the transition with policies like their first semester P/F policy.

Obviously, selective colleges want their students to succeed. It's good for the students and it feeds US News rankings. But (at least when I was there and then ten-ish years later when a neighbor's daughter flunked out) if someone fails, MIT will give them the boot. Perhaps things have changed, but it seems to me that passing too many people who should have failed will drag down the institutional reputation.

Indeed, Val. I attended a school that had pass/fail (and high pass) for the first semester. This was done in recognition of the problem that many of us parents on this board are working hard to avoid: kids entering after acing AP and honors classes without having to work at it, suddenly hit these difficult university classes faced with the realization that they lack basic "how to learn" skills. My room mate went through a painful process of trial and error figuring out how to get all her work done, how to ask for help, and figuring out how to study for a test for the first time in her life. Instead of having a spotty first year transcript, she had passes.

We had a lot of support in the first year, both from the college and from peers, but still, many students did "ITR" (ineligible to re-register, aka "invited to retire"). When I was deciding between MIT and the school I ultimately attended, they seemed very similar in the pass/fail system, as well as in ITR policies.

I'm proof that you can make it through engineering and law school without these basic skills.

Where the problem really hits is when you get out into the working world without any of these skills and you suddenly have to cope with things you have no idea how to do. Social isolation and avoidance no longer worked.

I eventually ended up with panic attacks (several years ago), but it had more to do with a basic inability to cope in a work and life environment than anything else. I'm just now to the point where I'm trying to develop basic organizational and time management skills (over the past year or so). It really never occurred to me earlier in life that you have to develop certain skill sets because you can either avoid the stress of developing them or other people (like your parents) will do them for you.

Granted, when you go to a school like MIT, I would expect that you either develop some of these skills or you do fail out. I would expect this from the other hard science/tech schools as well. It's always a good idea to develop these skills sooner rather than later because it's eventually going to cause severe life problems.

While in general I agree with you wholeheartedly, I personally can testify that it's possible to get a Ph.D. from MIT and a JD from Harvard without learning these skills. I'm finally developing some of them now.

I'm absolutely certain you can get the Harvard J.D. without effort. The good law schools are a joke.

I'm actually surprised about the Ph.D., since that requires actually producing something and defending it. Meaning that you have to grind out research and produce a significant document.