MIT Admissions Dean Resigns { Marilee Jones faked Resume }

I’ve got to disagree with you on that one-it’s got to be a “soccer mom” in a minivan talking on the cell phone while applying her face paint (farding).

I think I actually met her when I was at MIT.

She was basically the “mom” figure who threw the welcome-to-college parties for freshman. She played a pretty critcal role for a bunch of socially-disfunctional nerds in the big city.

It’s really a shame, because she didn’t need a degree to do her job.

She must have been new while I was still at the ‘tute. Think she was the longhaired young deskperson just inside Admissions who answered the phone and greeted people.

I can’t help but wonder how someone who has never been a student there can really understand what’s needed to cope with the place or fit in with the culture.

Your exactly correct. She committed material fraud on her application. She had to be fired. I served on a Ivy League admission committee for years, and let me assure everyone that the Dean of Admissions has profound power over the entire admission process. Committee members that rocked the boat too far were removed by various means.

Another post alluded to her having a law suit against MIT. Wrong with fraud, she doesn’t have a hope.

However, how about the thousands of applicants her committee turned turn that were extremely qualified. I wonder if any of them will file a suit against MIT implying they were not accepted due to MIT’s errors and omissions in their admissions office. If they were turned down due to PC rather than other justified reason, they may have a case. I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone come forward with that argument fairly soon. Our lawyers are aways looks for cases.

In my agency, we had a case of a guy who listed phony degrees on his application. He was caught and not hired. That lead the Personnel Department to have everyone bring in their diplomas. That irritated my that my signature would not be trusted (this was a lot of years ago), however when I saw the number of people who shilly-shalled around about bringing them in, I really wondered. Just a thought.

I just recall a dumpy lady at some sort of mixer from freshman orientation getting people to do games and singing. It was pretty dreadful.

About 30 minutes in, some SAE guys walked up to me (I’m closer to 7 than 6 feet tall, wearing a kippah, scraggly 17 year old beard). One said “Damn, you’re the tallest Jew I’ve ever seen! Wanna go get drunk?”

I think I had more fun.

I don’t know what the statute of limitations might be on bringing such suits, but given that MIT rejects more than 10,000 applicants each year (they accept around 1500 out of 12,000 applicants) there must be some potential litigants out there (if anyone cares enough to bother at this point).

There must be some former applicants with top-flight numbers and credentials who were rejected from their first choice MIT and ended up “stuck” at an Ivy or Stanford, Berkeley, CalTech, etc....... they could argue that such an obviously well-qualified app was passed over by a ditzy fraudulent dean who chose to undermine the objectivity of the process .... but it wouldn’t fit into any of the politically correct categories for the Mass. judiciary, since it would be someone who was either not an “approved minority” or else someone who was judged “too narrow” in their personality and character, etc.

Marilee Jones seems to have been the leading edge of changing MIT’s admissions criteria somewhat to de-emphasize their traditional hard-core “nerd” profile in favor of more “well-rounded” and “diverse” applicants, but as you well know, there is enough variability in debates about admissions criteria for “elite” institutions that any litigation would probably have much less of a chance of success than a rejected applicant suing because their high scores and grades were passed over for some “minority” applicants.

It would be interesting to find out (as though they would ever tell the public) how far MIT has pushed affirmative action in recent years, since there are probably some really stellar students rejected when they are white or Asian-American males and don’t strike the admissions committee as “interesting” enough. I don’t expect that there will be any successful suits, or even that anyone will bother to try, unless they really just want to generate some publicity for the issue of rejecting more highly ranked students in order to pursue “diversity” in the entering class.

As an MIT Graduate, I can tell you that there are MANY students (both men and women and from all racial backgrounds) at MIT who are well-rounded with stellar academic credentials and accomplishments. In fact, the so-called 'nerds' have to compete against people who not only have the same high SAT scores that they do, but who also have demonstrated incredible leadership in sports, in their communities and in their school organizations.

Obviously MIT didn't follow the same process they use to evaluate students when they hired Ms. Marilee Jones. I won't comment on her situation (I'm still in shock) except to say that the school's admission standards seemed pretty tough (and not 'watered down' as you put it through her leadership) since all of the students I've met over the years are super-intelligent.

It would be interesting to find out (as though they would ever tell the public) how far MIT has pushed affirmative action in recent years, since there are probably some really stellar students rejected when they are white or Asian-American males and don’t strike the admissions committee as “interesting” enough. I don’t expect that there will be any successful suits, or even that anyone will bother to try, unless they really just want to generate some publicity for the issue of rejecting more highly ranked students in order to pursue “diversity” in the entering class.

MIT classifies minorities into two groups; "minorities" and "underrepresented minorities". The difference being whether or not the percentage of the particular minority being referred to in the MIT student body is at least equal to or greater than the percentage of that minority in the U.S. population. Qualified members of underrepresented minorities are automatically accepted.

Before you consider this as a free pass, consider that the same minorities are underrepresented minorities every year. If members of such minorities were being accepted with lower academic credentials just to build the numbers up, they would in fact climb until they were no longer underrepresented. But that's not the case. It is well recognized that accepting an unqualified student into the Institute does neither them nor the Institute any favors. They'll just wash out. There are no easy courses or majors for unqualified students to hide in.

Americans of Asian heritage are not "underrepresented". In fact, they're about 2 or 3 times more prevalent than in the overall population.

When I was at the Institute, the gender ratio was about 9:1::male:female. Now it's about 55:45. American society has changed to the point that girls are expected to do as well in math as boys, and it's showing up. I've had a chance to talk to a number of them. MIT has not dropped it's academic requirements, let me assure you. And at least now a guy has a shot to get a date on campus (not that there aren't plenty of places to go in Cambridge or Boston to get a date), and one who he can talk to about the travails of student life to boot. It always put a damper on my social life when I'd be standing around with a bunch of B.U. students who'd be talking about their classes and how tough they were and then one of them would ask me about mine. Any honest answer from me would pretty much kill conversation.