Matt McGann '00 | August 20, 2006

"Straight from the Dean's mouth"

While I was on vacation this past week, MIT Dean of Admissions Marilee Jones was featured in an online chat on TIME.com, following up on their college admissions-themed issue. [Similarly, Newsweek featured a chat with Bruce Poch, Dean of Admissions at Pomona College, to promote their college admissions-themed issue -- it is also worth a read] Here's the TIME.com transcript of the Q & A with Dean Marilee Jones:

Ever since she first joined the admissions staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979, Marilee Jones has been a uniquely moral voice in the college admissions landscape. The Dean of Admissions since 1997, Jones has used her powerful pulpit to write and speak extensively about how to navigate the admissions process with sanity and humanity. Parents, guidance counselors, and above all, teenagers have benefited from her tempered approach. Her latest book, Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond, was cowritten with a Children's Hospital of Philadelphia pediatrician. It takes a keen look at the stressors in teenage life, and what parents and educators can do to defuse them. The book will be in bookstores in September, and is currently available at Amazon.

Some of your responses:

Valentina (Bogota, Columbia): How important is the SAT score in application? Are they looking more at the individuality of the person or are the standarized scores very relevant?

Jones: SATs or ACTs are important because they are often the only piece of information common to all applicants, which can be very helpful to admissions officers as we assess our applicants relative to each other. Different schools use standardized tests differently. Some put more weight on them in selection; some schools use the tests primarily for placement after admission. For most schools they are required, for some they are optional. Private college admissions practices can be very different from those of public colleges/universities. Because they carry a different mandate, publics generally have clear, transparent admissions requirements regarding GPAs, SATs, rank in class and the other metrics representing a student's academic preparation. While personal attributes are important, public colleges are often required to put more focus on the academic preparation of the applicants. Private colleges/universities on the other hand are freer to admit applicants considered to be the best 'match' for that school. They generally have more flexibility to determine the relative weight of standardized tests in the admissions process and are more likely than public universities to weigh individual characteristics more than SATs scores. Yes, it can be confusing because there are no national standards or universal rules in US college admissions. While some people think this is a bad thing, this diversity of admissions practices ensures that there is a college for everyone in America. There really is a school for everybody. My advice is to ask colleges directly how much weight they place on standardized tests vs the individual characteristics of the applicant. Make sure you understand what characteristics they are looking for in order to know whether or not the school is the right match.

Meredith (Bridgeport, CT): My daughter is 12 and going into seventh grade. My son is 10 and headed for fifth. Both are in parochial school, as we live in Bridgeport, Conn., where public schools are doing very poorly(poor test scores, many arrests, fights -- one h.s. nearly lost its accredidation). We're beginning to look at high school and we're considering the two local prep schools (Lauralton Hall and Fairfield Prep), as well as nearby diocesan high schools. Assuming their grades stay high and they're happy and involved in clubs/sports/etc., how differently do college admissions boards look at prep school students vs. those from diocesan schools? Any other advice for the pre-high school set?

Jones: Colleges are all different and some may have a bias one way or the other. But my philosophy here is "one step at a time", meaning I recommend that at this point you focus on picking the best high school for your kids, based on their needs and your family situation, and let the future take care of itself. When the time is right, your children will be admitted to the best colleges for them, regardless of where they went to high school.

Sabrina (Athens, AL): There is so much negative said about public education these days, but our school system in a small town in Alabama is one of the top in our state. (I know Alabama isn't known for public education) There seems to be many positives, yet I worry it will reduce my sons chances at attending a school like MIT (if that is his choice in 4 years). Would we be better off sending him to a big name private high school? Or is it possible to get a good enough education at a public high school to be a viable candidate for admission to MIT?

Jones: MIT has always been more popular with public school than with private school students for some reason. In any given year, 70-75% of our applicants come from public schools. So your son would fit in well with our applicant pool when the time comes. I've seen a dramatic change in public schools over over my long admissions career. Many people opine that public education in America is awful or declining in quality and that may be true in the aggregate, but my direct experience is the opposite. Some public schools are the best high schools in the US now. Public schools are more likely than privates to field teams for academic competition and are more likely to be resourceful in providing gifted students research and internship opportunities from within their communities. That being said, there is a 'cream rising to the top' phenomenon in public schools that tends to reward the most ambitious, hard-working kids. If your son is a go-getter, he'll do fine in any school and especially a public one. Alabama has some high schools that are among the best in the nation. If your son needs more personal attention, however, you might look at some private schools. My daughter was educated in our town's superb public system through ninth grade, but found then that she was getting lost in the larger high school. She was distressed that she didn't know her teachers well and she wanted smaller classes with more individual participation. She began to really thrive in 10th grade when she switched to an excellent private school. So just as with college, high school should be a match, too. Not everyone learns the same way. Different kids have different needs.

Samantha (Detroit, MI): How important are ninth grade grades? I noticed that Stanford doesn't look at them, do other schools have a policy like this? Thank You.

Jones: Ninth grade is often a goofy time for kids for two reasons: usually there are the transition issues of moving from middle or grammar school to high school, and then there is the 'P' word - puberty. We all know what hormones do to perfectly reasonable people. So many schools, including MIT, look at the 9th grade grades with the mildest of interest. If they are good grades, terrific. If they are irregular in some way, we'll want to know why but generally we do not turn down students just because of a poor grade in their 9th grade. High schools, however, most often include 9th grade grades in the student's overall rank in class, which can be problematic. Experienced admissions officers know to accommodate for that.

Andria (Charlotte, NC): About the male/female ratio nowadays: will young women be penalized in admissions chances because so many are applying to colleges compared to young men? What schools are seeking smart young women to balance out their ratios, other than Rensselaer and other traditional engineering schools?

Jones: The good news is that because of the steady efforts of the past few generations of women (including our own) who cut the way, this is the Golden Era for girls. These days girls best boys at nearly everything having to do with school: grades, rank, involvements, achievements, distinctions, etc. Girls are also more ambitious than in the past, and as a result, and here is the bad news, there are just more girls competing at a higher level for the coveted few spots in college. Many colleges (mainly liberal arts schools) now enroll classes made up of more than 50% females. That is a huge shift over the past decade. So I think it's true that it is harder to be admitted to many colleges as a female these days as those colleges make efforts to create a gender balance. Try not to take this personally or feel victimized. There are still many colleges/universities for which this is not true. (For example, I believe that my daughter's college, Claremont McKenna, is a liberal arts college enrolling more boys than girls still.) Ask admissions officers the hard questions and find out which colleges have what policies re gender. Colleges like my own that specialize in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education are always looking for talented women. We have a serious shortage of women in these many fields that hold a great number of opportunities for contribute to society.

Mohan (Mountain View, CA): My daughter wants to be part of the Class of 2019. What would you look for in her application that she can start preparing from now?

Jones: So let's see...that would make your daughter 9 or 10 years old now? Maybe she is still in that sweet still-playing-with-Barbie-dolls stage...plenty of time before she has to think about college. One of the big problems as I see it is that parents - although well-intentioned - sometimes send their children the message that they are not good enough, not active enough, or are not who the parents think they should be. We adults have a tendency to reward what our children 'do' and not appreciate and honor who they 'are'. This is not fluffy P.C. propaganda I'm writing here; there is real fallout from this problem, because some children actually get sick from the stress of trying to please their parents. My dear friend and co-author Dr. Ken Ginsburg, a pediatrician specializing in adolescents, has taught me alot about what sometimes happens at the intersection of high parental expectation and everyday life for a teenager whose brain is still growing. So love her for who she is, support her interests even if you think they are silly or won't be good preparation for college. Eat family meals together everyday and just listen to her. Tell her often that she's the best thing that ever happened to you. Soon she'll be caught up in teenage things and might go sullen on you. You want to lay the groundwork now for loving acceptance of her. If you do these things, she will thrive in high school, knowing that her parents are completely in love with her and will keep her safe no matter what. Then she'll really take off, with courage to pursue interests and ideas. She'll take tough coursework for fun because she'll have confidence in herself.

Tracie (Murphy, TX): Thank you. Just what I needed to hear as my daughter enters her senior year @ Plano East High School. After relocating from New Milford Ct. to the Plano area I was amazed @ how competitive the school was and the number of AP courses offered. I was inclined too to hire a consultant. What is the best way to determine the best match for college selection? What are the determining factors for acceptance when you read and hear that ACT/SAT scores aren't all that matters?

Jones: This is the very heart of college admissions, determining the match between student and school. Your daughter is at an excellent high school filled with many high achievers, so you'll have to watch her stress level carefully. The guidance office there is excellent, and they will be very helpful in offering suggestions to your daughter when the time comes.

What your daughter should do:

• think a bit about how she learns the best (eg, does she do best in large arenas or smaller ones?)
• daydream about college - in her imagination, what is it like? where and how big? what are the students like? what about the general atmosphere? Imagination is what she needs in this planning stage to help send her in the right direction (think of the imagination as an inner GPS mechanism that helps keep us moving in the right direction for us)
• ask advice of the guidance staff. Admissions changes so rapidly from year to year that guidance counselors who work with lots of cases are current on what schools are doing when. Develop a list of schools to consider.
• check out the websites of the schools on the list and get a gut sense of what each is like. She should trust her instincts here.
• Then the matching begins. She should look for the mission of the college - why was it founded? That will give her a hint about the culture. For example, some schools have a strong sense of social justice, others are community-based, still others prize individual achievements over groupness. Each school has a unique culture and your daughter needs to find out what they are in order for her to know whether or not she'd be happy there. For example, if your daughter dreams of going to the big football games with her friends in the fall and rooting for her school team, she'll want that kind of school. The match lies within the culture of the school. The point here is that she should be at a college where she fits in and feels welcomed among kindred spirits.

What she should NOT do:

• take advice about colleges from her friends. They don't know anything about that topic.

Karl (Minnetonka, MN): What general advice do you have for high school students who are building a list of colleges to apply to? I have heard of the advice to have a "safety" school on the list, and in our state the flagship state university provides strong programs in areas our children are interested in. MIT, to the credit of Amy Perez in 2004, has made a good impression here, so perhaps some of the young people I know (in and out of my family) will be applying there in a few years. But what principles would you suggest for filling out a reasonable-size college application list ranging from a sure-bet college for admission to a "reach" school like MIT, with other reasonable possibilities in between?

Jones: I've heard many guidance counselors offer the following advice so I'll pass this along. Some say that a student should apply to 2-2-2: 2 safety schools (pretty sure bets), 2 maybe/reach schools and 2 dream schools. Others say that the arrangement might look more like a food pyramid, with 3 safety schools, 2-3 maybe schools and 1 dream school. I hear alot these days that many students and their families come to guidance counselor meetings with a list of all dream schools or no safety schools. Remember that this past year and the next two years are the peak years for applying to college, so this period is the most competitive era in college admissions America has ever seen. Make sure that your child's list has schools they can reasonably be expected to be admitted to and will want to attend.

Jacob (Wyncote, PA): How do you feel about homeschooled students? I'm a homeschooler who would be going into 11th grade if I were in school. The last few years I've been taking courses at my local Penn State campus. With my unconventional background, what would help to convince you to admit me?

Jones: There are two basic scenarios I've observed with homeschooled students. In the first scenario, students are taught by their parents and keep pretty close to home base. Their mothers write their letters of recommendation. In the second scenario, students use resources throughout their communities to stay connected and pursue their interests. Many adults are engaged with them so they have a more sophisticated worldview and have been tested in different arenas. Others are able to augment the recommendation letters. It sounds like you might belong to the latter group. Generally speaking, the most prestigious colleges and universities will prefer the second group of students because they are better prepared for the intense academic experience of those schools. If you applied here, we'd want to know that you have the right characteristics to thrive at MIT and will read your recommendation letters for evidence that you have those characteristics. That's why it's always good to have adults other than your parent write on your behalf.

Janice (Brookfield): My husband and I both attended MIT, and my son is expressing interest. We hear all over that the kind of qualifications that got us in (grades, test scores, some activities, etc.) aren't enough anymore. What *does* it take to get into MIT these days? Jones: Actually, we admit students the same fundamental way we have since 1956, the same way we did when we admitted you. Even though the current entering students have metrics (SATS, GPAs, etc) in the stratosphere, just remember that we admit the best of each generation, so when your fellow alumni talk about how they'd never be admitted today, it's best not to go there... I urge you to go to an information meeting about MIT admissions when you have the opportunity to get current about admission to MIT.

Dracon (Portland, Oregon): I have heard quite a bit about college admissions hinging on interviews and/or campus visits. In fact, the websites of several colleges list visiting as a major criterion they they consider when deciding who to admit. Realistically, how much does the failure to visit a college before applying hurt a student's chance of admission? I ask because I am a prospective college student whose parents, while they have allowed me to apply to whichever colleges I wish to, will not take me to visit any college besides the local public university, where I have received a full scholarship but where there is no program I wish to enter.

Jones: Experiencing my daughter's recent college search, I was shocked to find out how many colleges put real emphasis on whether or not a student has visited before applying. While I understand that these schools are trying to manage their yields by using campus visit as an indicator of real student interest, I believe that this discriminates against students with limited resources of money or time or parental participation. Not all colleges have this policy, so you should check in advance. If you wish to apply to one of those colleges, and cannot visit before selection time, I'd include a note in the application itself explaining your situation so they will not assume that your absence from their campus is an indicator of your interest in them as a school.

Colleen (Flower Mound, TX): I graduated top 5% of a large public school, took nine AP exams, with grades of eight fives and one four. My combined math/verbal score was 1400. I had positions as an officer in three clubs and was a Project Coordinator in a local volunteer organization. And the list goes on and on. However, I didnt get into my first choice school, Rice. Since Ive been searching for an explanation all summer, I read the Who needs Harvard article eagerly. Would Rice have rejected me based on my academics or because they didn't think I was a good fit for the school? For that matter, do colleges look purely at academics and well-roundedness or do they look for people who they think would fit in well at their school? If they look purely at academics, is there any explanation why students like me -- middle class, good academic and extracurricular record -- wouldn't get into the more prestigious schools?

Jones: I don't know why Rice did not admit you, but Rice is one of the most selective colleges in America and they have the same problem as all selective colleges have: too many highly qualified applicants for the few spaces available. At MIT we are able to admit just 13% of our applicant pool and, like Rice's, our applicant pool is so deep with talent that we could fill our class four times over and still have a stellar pool. The most important thing now is not to take this personally. (Easy for me to say, I know...) Remind yourself what an excellent student you are, that you are a hard worker who is involved in her life and who always makes a difference in the lives of others. You might even remember times in your past when some decision did not go your way and because of that, some other wonderful thing happened that set you on a different path. That is how life is.

The author has filed this entry in the "Questions And Answers" section; check it out for further reading on this topic.

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