Does M.I.T./Yale Success = FIRST Dean's List Finalist/Winner?

[Akash Rastogi]

I'm not sure what students/parents expect here. Dean's List is a great award, but in the end it is a tiny facet in the student's application. The greater reward is how the student will use it on a resume once they try to earn a job, and heck, they get a large scholarship out of it. The scholarship is the greater reward, in my opinion. I don't think FIRST is claiming anything about the award that isn't true.

As Grim Tuesday pointed out, plenty of students who don't have a Dean's List award go to impressive universities. 3929 has students who have either been accepted to or are currently attending UPenn, Yale, Columbia, CalTech, etc... For what it's worth, we are also a public school. However, these students are all distinguished scholars in their school, athletes, National Merit Scholars, and leaders on our team as well as many other clubs/organizations.

I don't think FIRST has to correct what they say about their award, students should know that it is not a "golden ticket" or something like that, and I bet most of them do. For all we know, the students did not "sell" their experiences in FIRST well enough in the application. There are also many times where some students discuss FIRST TOO much in applications. It can be so arbitrary. (source: Masterman School and friends/family who work at or attended Cornell, MIT, & Harvard)

Random examples: On 11 a few years back we had a student who was waitlisted by RPI, but was accepted by MIT. Another friend of mine was accepted to Columbia but waitlisted by MIT. 3929's captain was accepted by CalTech and Wharton at UPenn but waitlisted by MIT. Admissions is too random to correlate to small things like Dean's List, I think.

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Admissions is too random to correlate to small things like Dean's List, I think.

Hey Akash! ;-)

I AGREE, now, that "Admissions is too random to correlate to... Dean's List..."

THEN WHY does FIRST do that?!

I have to confess I've left out _so much/many_ proactive things that were done regarding FIRST/M.I.T./Yale _AFTER_ my son won Dean's List Finalist... time/effort/interactions/loads-of-$$$. And it feels a bit like Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football... ;-)

I'm just trying to get a feel for the success of other Dean's List Finalists in getting into M.I.T. and Yale, the ones that meet the known criteria _PLUS_ have D/L in their quiver... it's THAT simple.

So far, the results on CD and the results I've received privately aren't looking encouraging compared to what's been sold over the last two years.

We saw the FIRST document I point to in the OP _AFTER_ my son won D/L. And then, of course, we were blown-away by what we heard at the 2012 Championship ceremony.

--Michael

[goldenglove002]

I received the Dean's List finalist award my senior year, so it was already past the point where it would have helped me get into schools. However, I do not believe that it would have changed the status of my admissions even if I had gotten it a year earlier. The general sense I have gotten from anyone in admissions that I have talked to is that something like Dean's List can be a nice bonus, but is not the type of thing to boost a student who wouldn't get into an elite school without it to getting into an elite program.

I would really like to see the award have more impacts on internships/co-ops/jobs. So far I've gotten nothing out of it other than a nice honor and a backpack full of goodies. Not once has a potential employer seemed to care when it get's mentioned.

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by goldenglove002

I would really like to see the award have more impacts on internships/co-ops/jobs. So far I've gotten nothing out of it other than a nice honor and a backpack full of goodies. Not once has a potential employer seemed to care when it get's mentioned.

I think that's more a function of it being new, and many employers not yet being familiar with it. When I interviewed for my first internship (which I got), my interviewer was definitely interested in both the technical and leadership sides of what I'd done in FIRST. That on its own certainly wasn't the deciding factor in getting hired (nothing replaces coding on a whiteboard!), but it was a neat thing to be able to talk about.

[JamesCH95]

Yale and MIT have admission rates of 7.7% and 9.7% respectively. Are DL winners/finalists achieving those rates, or higher, of those who apply to these schools?

[IanW]

I went through college admission process last year, and it is truly a crapshoot.

While I wasn't a Dean's List Finalist, I can relate to the feeling of realizing that nothing correlates perfectly with admission success that you seem to be having. For me, it was academic success. And instead of Dean Kamen telling me how important it was at an event last year, it was (almost literally) every authority figure in my life for as long as I can remember. Even though I began to realize this before I applied to colleges, it was still disappointing when the realization was confirmed by admissions results.

Based on my observations of my peers' admissions success, the only thing that comes close to a "magic bullet" in college admissions is independent research.

In the end, where you go for undergrad (especially if you plan on going to graduate school) doesn't matter as much as the media makes it out. What you do while there is what makes the difference.

Oh, and if you want understandable, quantifiable college admissions, apply to Cal Poly.

[Alexa Stott]

Akash brought up a good point—the Dean's List isn't the only factor in the admission process. As far as I know, the only required information about the student's academic success is the cumulative GPA. That means Dean's List winners could potentially be students with low SAT/ACT scores, few other extracurricular activities, bad college admission essays, etc. Even the cumulative GPA is not incredibly informative if given on a 4.0 scale; it provides no indication of the strength of a student's schedule and whether or not that have taken challenging courses that would warrant entrance into a prestigious school. I've also noticed that there are FIRSTers who only do FIRST in high school. That's fine, but admissions people tend to like a bit of diversity in those activities.

Criteria for the Dean's List (courtesy of the manual) includes:

• demonstrated leadership and commitment to the ideals of FIRST;
• interest in and passion for a long term commitment to FIRST and its ideals;
• overall individual contribution to their team;
• technical expertise and passion;
• entrepreneurship and creativity;
• ability to motivate and lead fellow team members; and
• effectiveness at increasing awareness of FIRST in their school and community

This indicates success in FIRST and a passion for STEM, not academic excellence and ability to succeed at a highly-ranked college or university.

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by Alexa Stott

That means Dean's List winners could potentially be students with low SAT/ACT scores, few other extracurricular activities, bad college admission essays, etc. Even the cumulative GPA is not incredibly informative if given on a 4.0 scale; it provides no indication of the strength of a student's schedule and whether or not that have taken challenging courses that would warrant entrance into a prestigious school.

Alexa... you may be right about a lot or even the majority of FIRST Dean's list Finalists and their academic (objective measurements) and their extracurriculars / recommendations / essays (subjective measurements) NOT being good enough for M.I.T. and Yale despite having Dean's List Finalist in their quiver.

But, in my son's case, he applied with a 99.6 GPA, 13 AP-level and 13 PreAP-level courses, HIGH SAT score (5th highest in his class of 604 seniors), FOUR _killer_ recommendations/assessments (including ONE on FIRST letterhead)... and AP Scholar... and an award-winning poet and writer in his district of ELEVEN high schools and in Texas... and FOUR years of _competitive_ marching band and concert band playing TWO different instruments; the clarinet and the bassoon. The rest of his life was pretty-much dominated by FIRST and competition robotics, hence the D/L Award.

AFTER he received his 2012 Dean's List Finalist award, the following summer he took a _non-paid_ internship at the FIRST Central Region/Texas (Alamo) where he worked projects, built a 3D printer from the open-source RepRap model, built a holonomic drive FRC demo-robot for the district, and took that robot and FTC/FLL robots on the road around San Antonio to PROMOTE FIRST ROBOTICS where he presented to/spoke with about ONE THOUSAND middle-school students (SEVEN events total) who were attending summer PREP (pre-engineering) programs at area colleges.

STILL, it wasn't enough for those, at M.I.T. and Yale, who are represented to "love" and "want" Dean's List Finalist applicants...

--Michael

[Grim Tuesday]

I think it serves underscoring that college admissions at the highest level is a crapshoot. Your son got unlucky, pure and simple.

I have friends who have perfect GPA's, extra curriculars up the wazoo, and fantastic essays but still don't get into their college of choice. There is literally no way I could tell them they could improve their application and they still didn't get in. Maybe the admissions counselor was having a bad day or your child violated one of the unspoken rules (a counselor from Cornell came down to our school and told us that he has a colleague who circles every time a student writes 'plethora' in their essay and dislikes their application more as the number goes up).

So maybe Dean is misrepresenting how much colleges care about Deans List. I just don't think it's reasonable to expect anything to be worth as much to colleges as some have claimed Deans List to be.

[bnardone64]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Admissions is too random to correlate to small things like Dean's List, I think.

This, this, and this. I was a Dean's List finalist at WPI last year and I applied to colleges this year including MIT (I was declined). In my experience in the college application process the Dean's list is not an automatic acceptance to any college (except maybe WPI because they're absolutely in love with FIRST). It does help tremendously for FIRST scholarships, though.

The main benefit for a Dean's List finalist is all of the other experience that FIRST can offer. FIRST has helped me in problem solving and teamwork, which translates into academic success, and it has provided me with experiences that I could write about on the Common App and supplement essays.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

STILL, it wasn't enough for those, at M.I.T. and Yale, who are represented to "love" and "want" Dean's List Finalist applicants...
--Michael

As a high school student planning on applying at MIT, this is something I've personally had to make piece with. I had a chance to talk to some interviewers, and the fact is, as so many people have already said, there are simply too few spots for too many qualified applicants.

I think this interviewer told me something along the lines of "after a certain level, it's not what your grades or your extracurriculars were, it's what time the readers looked through your application."

She also told me that most of the applicants to MIT would be well suited to it. There's a certain caliber of student it takes to even consider applying. As a Junior waiting in the calm before the storm, I can't help but look in with dismay-- it looks like chaos from the outside, and from what I've heard from survivors, it sounds like chaos on the inside and afterwards.

I completely agree with Tuesday:

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

I think it serves underscoring that college admissions at the highest level is a crapshoot. Your son got unlucky, pure and simple.

[jspatz1]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

I'm just trying to get a feel for the success of other Dean's List Finalists in getting into M.I.T. and Yale, the ones that meet the known criteria _PLUS_ have D/L in their quiver...

"...known criteria"? There is no such thing. I fear you have the mistaken impression that admission to these schools is a mathematical formula that one should be able to predict the result of by looking at the data. It is nothing of the sort. No matter how stellar one's portfolio is, you will never get to know what impression was left by such things as your essays or interviews. They are very large factors. Much bigger factors than a Dean's List Award, or even grades or test scores. It is a very difficult reality that one never gets to know exactly why they were not accepted to an elite school that they thought they were qualified for, but it is a high-risk reality that goes along with applying to these schools.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

Hey Akash! ;-)

I AGREE, now, that "Admissions is too random to correlate to... Dean's List..."

THEN WHY does FIRST do that?!

FIRST isn't making that correlation; you are. Unless FIRST ever told you that meeting some benchmark and making the List would guarantee admission, all I've seen them do is correlate Dean's List with more interest from admissions officers. Dean's talked to many, and they say are particularly interested in these students. Truthful and transparent.

Correlating this extra interest from admissions officers with admission to the university is where the logic falls apart, but that's your logic, not FIRST's. In fact, Dean hasn't even promised it'd increase probabilities, he's just reported conversations: top schools want DLs. But there are other applicants they want; no one ever implied exclusivity. Tradeoffs are necessary: MIT didn't take 1,620 students because #1,621 wasn't very interesting; they took 1,620 because that's what their cutoff is.

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by jspatz1

"...known criteria"? There is no such thing.

No matter how stellar one's portfolio is, you will never get to know what impression was left by such things as your essays or interviews.

They are very large factors. Much bigger factors than a Dean's List Award, or even grades or test scores.

Jeff... there ABSOLUTELY is a known base-line in the objective measurements, both M.I.T. and Yale publish their data. ALL I'm talking about is the middle 50-percentile range. If you hit the numbers it's NOT a factor that has to be outweighed with other strengths or explained with a story.

For my son, on the interviews, all we have are the very positive/complimentary feedback from the TWO interviewers given right at the end of the interviews.

On the essays, maybe they thought they were crap... but, they were written by a multi-award winning writer in both middle-school and high school.

ALSO, I think you're so intent to prove me wrong on this, I think you've lost what I originally wrote in the OP. I just think the whole Dean's List Finalist value is overstated and over-sold as it relates to "desirability" with M.I.T. and Yale.

I wish I could share the info I've received via PM's on CD and FB; emails and one phone call. There's a bunch of people thinking exactly the same as me on this.

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by Siri

[Dean] just reported conversations: top schools want DLs.

Siri... "top schools want DLs"?! SHOW ME the evidence supporting this _desire_, or stop posting on this.

WHAT is the actualization, WHAT is the _results_ of the statement "top schools want DLs"?!

--Michael