By and large, MIT does not turn students into drooling mental patients. One of my best friends attended MIT and got his BS in four years; he's now a PhD student at Caltech and is one of the best-adjusted people I know despite some particularly nasty tragedies (including his family basically disowning him when it came out that he was gay). He knew almost no one who fell apart while there, and the one or two people of his acquaintance who did had some obvious problems to start with.
Universities have always selected their students based on whether they think the students will succeed or fail; did you think the SATs were a popularity contest? As a high school student, I applied early-decision to Rice University, who liked my high SAT scores but were uncertain about my B+-average grades; they requested an interim grade report during the spring, and turned me down because my grades had slipped and they didn't think I'd be able to hack their program. They may very well have been right, considering that I very nearly didn't graduate from my second-choice school.
Regardless of whether I had the potential to succeed there or not (I eventually got my life straightened out, got my BA, and am now in a PhD program), they made the decision based on what they saw, and while I may always wonder what my college years would have been like at a small private university rather than a large public one, the admissions decision was their call to make.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-08-20 02:46 pm (UTC)Universities have always selected their students based on whether they think the students will succeed or fail; did you think the SATs were a popularity contest? As a high school student, I applied early-decision to Rice University, who liked my high SAT scores but were uncertain about my B+-average grades; they requested an interim grade report during the spring, and turned me down because my grades had slipped and they didn't think I'd be able to hack their program. They may very well have been right, considering that I very nearly didn't graduate from my second-choice school.
Regardless of whether I had the potential to succeed there or not (I eventually got my life straightened out, got my BA, and am now in a PhD program), they made the decision based on what they saw, and while I may always wonder what my college years would have been like at a small private university rather than a large public one, the admissions decision was their call to make.