MIT Dean of Admissions, Stu Schill, says the perfect applicant doesn't exist | Homeroom with Sal

Hi everyone, Sal Khan here from Khan Academy. Welcome to our daily homeroom live stream. For those of y'all who are new, this is something that we started doing, it feels like a lifetime ago now, almost two and a half months ago, when we started seeing school closures. We realized that, you know, it's our duty as a not-for-profit to step up even more and figure out how we can not only keep people learning, but how can we stay connected in this time of social distancing.

So, this is just a place to have interesting conversations about education, about the crises in the world, and anything else. And we have a very, very exciting guest today. But before we get to our guest, I'll make my standard announcement reminding everyone that Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization. We can only exist due to philanthropic donations. We were running at a deficit even before the COVID crisis.

You can imagine, with our usage being two to three times of normal, and we're trying to accelerate a whole series of programs to keep all of y'all learning, to support teachers and parents, and to support everyone as we go to this very unusual back-to-school that we're likely to face. The only reason why we're able to do that is with support from folks like yourselves.

I do want to make a special shoutout to several corporations that have stepped up: Bank of America, Google.org, AT&T, Fastly, and Novartis all stepped up in the last few weeks. This is above and beyond the many other philanthropists, corporate partners, and foundations that have supported Khan Academy through the years that have put us in a position to be able to support folks through a crisis like this. So thank you to all of them. But we are still running at a deficit, and there's still a lot that we could do. So if you're in a position to do so, please think about donating.

So with that said, I'm excited to introduce our guest, Stu Schmill, who's the Dean of Admissions and Financial Student Financial Services at MIT. Stu, welcome!

Stu: Thank you, Sal. Nice to see you!

Sal: Yeah, you know, when we had you on the guest list, I was like, what are we going to talk about? There's nothing interesting going on in college admissions or testing or colleges. It's just all same, same, same as always, right?

Stu: Yeah, it's been very boring and even nine to five—come home, and actually, it's not even come home anymore. Alright, you're home, stay home, you don't have to go.

Sal: It's all from looks like your attic—in your attic room.

Stu: No, no! In all seriousness, obviously, a lot has been going on in the world. I don't know, maybe tell me from your vantage point, you know, how has it evolved? How's your thinking evolved? What are you seeing from students? What are their concerns? And just how do you see this coming back to school changing or evolving for a place like MIT?

Stu: Yeah, so I think the pandemic, while it had been building for some time over the beginning part of this year, really took hold in our minds in terms of changes that we were going to need to make over the course of this spring relatively quickly, really get to the end of February, beginning of March. We made some very, very quick decisions on what our education was going to look like this spring.

Universities are not always, or haven't always, been known for very quick decision-making, and I was actually very impressed with the speed at which we were able to carry out some of the changes that we did. But also, I'm very impressed with, I know certainly the people on my campus at MIT, and I think this is true universally, is how much we kept the student at the center of all of the decisions that were being made and tried to make decisions that were in the best interest of the students.

Certainly, the decision to send our students home, or at least those that were able to go home, those who would be safer from a health point of view, sending them home very quickly was really in their best interest. Standing up, continuing our education along in an online fashion very quickly, also trying to ensure that students had the ability to continue to make progress towards their degree.

But also, there were students that had very particular circumstances. So right now, there are still a few hundred undergraduate students who are living on the MIT campus because it's a better environment for them than anywhere else they might have been able to go to. Really, a lot of the decisions that have been made were really made with the students at the center of this.

I know going forward because the last few months we've been planning on what's going to happen as we get near the fall. Maybe you or others might have questions about that as we go along here. We're also thinking about what is going to be best for our students and our entire community, both from a health point of view and then educationally.

Sal: And what do you see the scenarios? I know, I mean, I'm eager to talk about how even admissions has had to evolve or might have to evolve going forward, but just your vantage point in the university itself, what are the contingency plans you're hearing about for this coming back to school?

Stu: Well, we certainly know that with whatever happens and whatever decisions that are made by colleges and universities around what their educations are going to look like, it's going to look very different than it did last fall. The virus is still going to be with us, and it's still very contagious. You have to be very careful about very dense environments, and universities are very dense environments.

I think we, along with many other, or really all colleges and universities, acknowledge and recognize that online or rather in-person education is extremely valuable, and we want to see students come to campus. We just have to be able to do that in a responsible way.

What that will ultimately look like is not yet clear. It's not clear that we'll be able to have all of our students back on campus, or some of our students on campus, or where that line is drawn. Regardless of ultimately what happens, it will be different because even if students are on campus, there will be different expectations for what we'll be able to do—in terms of living in the dorms, we'll have to be a little bit less dense, perhaps, than we have been in the past.

In the classroom, we'll have to be less dense. There will be guidance around or guidelines around social distancing and wearing face coverings. Will there be parties and sporting events and all the rest of that? We're not going to be able to have the same kind of large event programming that colleges are, well, in some cases, famous for. Certainly, it's one of the things that students really love about college, so those things are going to change a little bit in the fall.

Sal: And what are you hearing from the class that you just admitted, the people who would be freshmen? You know, I'm hearing in the general press a lot of students thinking about, well, you know, freshman year, maybe I take a year off or I take a gap year. How accommodating are you to all of that type of thing, or how are y'all advising students who are thinking that through?

Stu: Yeah, so right now we're getting a lot of questions; students want to know what's going to happen. I think most everybody is really hoping that they're going to be able to come to campus in the fall. We're hoping the same thing, so we're getting a lot of questions about that. We have had students ask us, or say that, well look, if I can't come to campus in the fall, then I may take a gap year or I may defer my enrollment.

The thing about that is, I think students are saying that without really even knowing what are their other options going to be. So take a gap year to do what? So that's not clear. Also, I think students, particularly new students, are thinking, well, either on campus, and if it's not on campus, they're thinking that the online experience that we may be able to offer in the fall is going to be like what their online experience has been in high school. I don't think that's true.

In fact, I know that our faculty and many of our other instructional professionals are working very hard to ensure that any of the online tools that we have for teaching students are going to be really very high quality and very different than what students have seen and experienced this spring.

I think in any scenario, even one scenario where students are on campus, there's going to be some online learning that will be happening, particularly again because we have to limit the size of classes, etc. I think the quality of that online instruction is going to improve. So students are, I don't think they have enough information yet to know whether they really do want to defer their enrollment or not.

For our part at MIT, we're going to be very open and essentially let students make the decision as to what they think will be best for them once they have all the information as to what our fall program is going to be like. But I don't know how universal that will be. I think there are a lot of considerations that colleges and universities will have around how many students that they can allow and afford to let defer for a year. MIT happens to be in a relatively privileged position there that we can withstand that from a financial point of view.

Sal: It's fascinating, and I mean, we could talk more, especially if people ask questions. Just remind everyone, if you have questions—and a lot of questions have already started to come in on Facebook and YouTube—please ask them. But I think that's a whole other dimension of it: sounds like places like MIT are going to be able to weather the financial storm of this, but there's a lot of colleges and universities that were already kind of on the fence pre-COVID and this might put them over, so that's a whole other interesting topic.

One question, just because there's been so much in the news lately, I'm sure you are aware, you know, the University of California system really kind of stimulated by COVID, they're like look for the next couple years SAT and ACT will be optional. Then they've essentially, it's not testing optional; they've essentially said two years, three years out they're not going to consider something like the SAT. Places like University of Chicago, we had Jim Nondorf on the show, I guess that's what we can call it a show, they're testing optional; they still have ninety percent of their students take the SAT.

Stu, how are you thinking about it? And, you know, there's several questions from Facebook, you know, Agam Bhatia, what's the process of judging an applicant in context? I think that's, you know, people hear that, so what's your view on these standardized tests and how do you put them in context?

Stu: By the way, big fan of Jim Nondorf, and I think what he's done at the University of Chicago has been great in terms of the way they've approached their testing because that works for them. I think generally the conversation around testing—nobody loves testing, or very few people love testing.

I'm kidding! Yeah, well, there are people who do. I know there are people, and in fact, you know I know when I was in high school, I wouldn't necessarily say the SAT was the thing that I loved to take, but I went through the math competitions and loved all that stuff. So there are students out there who do.

But by and large, people don't love testing, and I think what people really acknowledge is that a test that is so high and therefore stressful and pressure-filled that determines so much for a student—that's not good. I think we would all agree that, you know, sitting for one test shouldn't determine a student's pathway going forward, and also people look at the tests and they see that there are disparate outcomes. So low-income students, students of color tend to have lower scores on average.

There's a sense that there's some unfairness in that. So my take on this with MIT, though, is that the tests—the SAT, the ACT—really are one and the only consistent measure of some academic output that students can offer. We have students applying to us from all over the world, but even in the United States, there's such a diversity of K-12 systems and high schools in the U.S., and we're not familiar with all of them.

So those standardized tests are the only real consistent academic measure that we have, and we also find, at least through our research, is that the tests are the best predictor of success in our curriculum. And MIT, right from day one, is a pretty challenging place, and we want to make sure that any student that we admit is going to be academically ready and prepared to do that work, regardless of where they come from. The tests give us that confidence to be able to admit students knowing that they're going to be successful.

The tests give us that confidence in ways that grades alone do not. For us, the tests play a role. They are not the only thing that we consider. We also are fully aware, as I mentioned earlier, that there are different groups that will perform differently based on resources. In fact, you know, family income is maybe the best predictor of a student's SAT score.

All that said, we're aware of that, and we're aware of that in the admissions process. So you asked a question, or one of our listeners asked a question about what does it mean to do college admissions in context, and what that means is really understanding the environment, the opportunities, and the resources that students have had and making an evaluation of their talent and their potential based on where they come from and how they've performed in their context.

You know, one way to think about this is, you know, imagine two runners racing. People think that, okay, that's fair; you line up two people and you let them run, and whoever gets to the finish line first is a faster runner. But you also have to consider the fact that the two runners may be running under different conditions. One may be running into a headwind while the other has a really strong tailwind.

If you really want to judge the talent and the potential of those runners, you have to understand the environment—the headwinds, the tailwinds that they may have—in order to make those fair assessments. So that's what it means to do admissions in context: understanding the environment, or the headwinds that students have.

Sal: Makes a ton of sense! And just more tactically short-term, because some of the testing administration dates had to be pushed back; some of the tests got canceled here and there. How are you all thinking—this is a question from Arnov Sawat from YouTube—what about SAT and ACT for this coming admission cycle? How are you all thinking about that?

Stu: Well, we know that it's possible that students may not be able to have access to tests—that's possible. And if that's true, we'll adjust our admissions process. My admissions process takes in quite a number of inputs, so the test is just one of many, many inputs that we have. We like to have it because, as I mentioned earlier, it's helpful for us. But if we don't have it, we can still make decisions using the best information that we have from the rest of the application.

We haven't made or set or changed our policies for next year, as a number of schools have. Quite a number of schools have said that they are, for next year, going to be test optional, in anticipation of the fact that many students won't have access to the tests, and that may come to pass. But we're waiting just to see how things develop in the fall in the hopes that there will be some ability for students to be able to take those tests.

Sal: That makes sense! And you know, one question—this is from YouTube, Lauren Crowe—does MIT measure the passion a student has in the area they are applying for? And I'll just add to that, you know, there are kind of these two schools of thought in admissions. One is kind of what you hear word of mouth, and a lot of especially, I would say, competitive high schools where there seems to be institutional knowledge.

But there are a lot of kids joining tons of clubs, taking a ton of AP courses. You know, they might be taking the SAT or the ACT three, four—I've heard horror stories—more times than that. You know, and there's this kind of stereotypical application, and these kids are kind of in this pressure-cooker environment.

They're kind of check boxing—that's one school of thought. But then whenever you talk to an admissions officer, they're like, no, no, no, no, that's missing the point. We care about, you know, your whole being. We want to see people who have a passion in one or a few areas who have this potential. So, you know, and then I think the people that first school of thought say, oh, well they just say that. You know, that's kind of the correct thing to say, but they really want us gunners. So clarify, what's the truth?

Stu: So, the truth really is—it's the latter—that we really, we—I'm going to tell you what all admissions officers have been telling you for years, and that's the truth. That is the truth. And the reason why it gets confused—well, here's the reason why it gets confused, is because students and parents make judgments on very few data points.

In fact, data points that they don't even know fully. They see who gets admitted to our schools and they make assumptions about why they may have been admitted to our schools.

It's never the volume or the quantity of what a student does; it’s never that. It's always, you know, who they are as a person, their talent, really their match with our mission. You know, for MIT, of course, we’re a school that is centered on science and technology, so we like to see that interest.

But we’re also a place that’s trying to make the world a better place—in fact, right in our mission statement to apply science, technology, and other areas of scholarship to best serve the nation in the world in the 21st century. We’re looking for students who we think are going to resonate with that mission.

And if all you are is cranking away, loading up on activities and advanced classes and all the rest of it, it’s very hard. In fact, I think students do themselves a disservice when they do that because they don’t leave themselves time to cultivate their interests and to think about how they can make an impact on their communities.

We actually pay attention to that; you know how much are students helping the people around them. I think if students are just flat out and on overload, they really do themselves a disservice because they can’t put the time and the mental energy into the things that really are interesting to them and develop those talents more fully.

Sal: And how do you discern that? I mean, to the question from Lauren, you know, how do you how can you separate—or, you know, folks who are maybe even very sophisticated at applying? You know, maybe there's obviously cases of consultants—some of which, obviously, famously have been illegal—where, you know, these perfect applications versus kids who are truly authentic about those passions, and they would have had those passions even if they weren't trying to get into a selective university, right?

Stu: Again, I mention earlier, we get inputs from a range of places. So on the academic side, you know, the test scores, the grades, and there are other ways that students can demonstrate academic talent and ability. We ask students to write essays to tell us about themselves, and actually, I think while, yes, there are consultants out there and students can basically tell us anything they want to, we generally trust that students are speaking from the heart when they write those essays.

But we also get letters of recommendation from teachers and counselors in schools, and those have to align. Teachers and counselors often do a pretty good job at describing who the students are and we make sure there’s some alignment there. We also offer an interview, although not every student has access to the interview, but many, many do, and the interview can shed more light in ways that are harder to game.

We think that we are able to discern when students are being authentic, you know? It’s so interesting to me that after we admit students in a given cycle and I have the opportunity to meet with them when they first come on campus, so many of them come up to me and they ask me if they were admitted by mistake or they feel like how is it that they got admitted.

To me, that says a couple of things. Number one, I mean, I love the MIT students, and there’s a real humbleness to the group that they don’t have this over-inflated view of who they are, but I think also they recognize that they’re just regular students; they’re not perfect; they see their own flaws.

And we don’t admit perfect people; they don’t exist out there. Everyone has flaws, and that’s fine. We’re not looking for that perfect applicant, that perfect student because they don’t exist out there, and I think that if students could relax a little bit and just focus on doing the things that are most interesting to them with as much energy and enthusiasm as they can and not to forget that they are family members and community members.

They need to pay attention to being good contributing members to their family and their communities in pursuit of something else; they can’t give that piece of it up. Because we’re looking for all of that, and I think if students could just relax a little bit and not try to make themselves into the perfect applicant but just to be the best person they can be and let the applications flow from that, I think students would have a much better experience in high school, and ultimately, the world would be a better place.

Sal: You know, and for anyone who doesn't believe Stu, you know, I'll even use my own personal example as kind of a case in point. You know, many people know that I was an undergrad at MIT, and you know, I went to a school that had never sent anyone to MIT. I was somewhat naive about the process, but I did just kind of very authentically put my best foot forward.

It looks like I'm clipping up a little bit—my internet might be acting a little bit shady, my apologies. But that, you know, I remember after I had applied, I had met some kids who went to some of the fancy schools at a math competition, and they almost laughed at me when they found out that I was applying to MIT because my school was just kind of completely off the radar type of place.

I was actually, frankly, very intimidated by them because when they told me how many who had applied from their very fancy school in the past and maybe hadn't got in, I was like, oh, I guess I was naive about this process. But only later when I did get in and I kind of reflected about the process, it’s exactly what Stu was describing: a lot of, you know, a lot of those other applicants were kind of engineered applicants.

And I think whoever your predecessors were, Stu, you know, kind of spotted that while they were looking for, you know, I don’t want to make it sound like they did a great decision admitting me—I wouldn’t even ask y'all whether I was a mistake—but I do see that for real. That people's perceptions before college and then what you see there, what admissions officers are telling the reality now—a related question to that, you know, obviously I had one, you know someone asked me, what was my experience at MIT look like?

I had a wonderful experience at MIT. I met my wife there, many of my best friends, some of my best memories. I still have very positive dreams still of times that I'm at my, you know, sometimes I forgot to drop a class, and that kind of was a stressful dream.

But I had very positive experiences there, so I couldn't endorse it more highly. But what do you say to folks? You know, there’s also this sense of like name brandism. Oh, I’ve got to go to an MIT; I’ve got to go to Harvard; I’ve got to go to Stanford; otherwise, you know, it’s the end of the world.

What do you tell that to families or students who are feeling that type of anxiety?

Stu: Again, this is where I feel like students would do well to just think about—don't think of themselves as college applicants first, but just to think of themselves as students and community members first, and then let the college admissions process fall where it may. Because the reality is that, you know, if MIT is a great place, it’s not a great place because, you know, from up on high it’s been deemed that, you know, MIT is this magical place.

It’s only a great place because the people that are there, and the students and the faculty and the staff that are there, they make it so. If you’re a great student, you can go anywhere and have a great experience and make that place just as magical and great. It’s really true that, you know, college is what you make it, and any college in the U.S. has more opportunity than any one student can possibly take advantage of.

So students can thrive wherever they go to school if they find a place that they feel like really fits the style and the environment that they want to learn. Any student who takes advantage at any college is going to be successful, and you don’t need to go to an MIT or, you know, another name brand college—you just have to cultivate yourself as someone who’s going to engage wherever you go, and that’s how you build a successful life.

Sal: Now, that completely resonates. A lot of what we've talked about at this live stream before is kind of what you put out—the energy you put out is kind of what you experience. You know, I even gave the example— I think I've given this on this live stream before—when I was in business school, you know, I went with some stereotypes of business school, but then when I got there, you know, I was kind of open-minded about things.

I was very vulnerable, open to folks. I was like, oh, they're just like that; they're very open and vulnerable to me, and they care more about friendships than, you know, in some ways being competitive. But then I remember meeting someone who’s like, you know, can you believe this place, how competitive everyone is? I can't trust anyone here!

I was just like, are you in a different universe? We are sharing the same air! But I think I didn't tell him, but I was like, yeah, I think you're projecting that.

Stu: Absolutely.

Sal: You can go anywhere and have an amazing experience, and you can go anywhere and have a horrible one, and it's not always your fault. Obviously, like, I'm not going to say like everything that happens to you is like what you're projecting, but a lot of that, a lot—whatever the context is—can often be shaped by what you're projecting into it.

Stu: Yup!

Sal: Absolutely.

Stu: So, any final thoughts?

Sal: Well, let me ask, I’ll finish with a big question. What do you think are going to be the lasting implications on admissions on how people view college and how colleges might change because of all of this?

Stu: Well, I think we’re learning a lot. We’re forced to learn a lot because we’re doing things in a new mode right now. I think any time you’re forced to make changes, you learn a lot. I think ultimately when we get back to whatever that new normal is, I hope it’s not exactly the way it was in the past.

I hope there are things that we can take with us that go forward. I think about certainly online learning as one—a way that I think we’re going to learn a lot about it. Perhaps take hybrid learning into the future as well. I mean, Khan Academy is a great example of an exceptional online learning experience, and it is possible to do that.

If we can take that forward into the universities, we can understand what matters most and optimize what matters most. I guess that’s really my final thought: in the pandemic, colleges and universities, and students—we’re all thinking about how to take care of ourselves and the people around us as the absolute top priority.

I hope that when we do get back to the other side of this pandemic, those values remain—that we think about how can we take care of ourselves and the people around us as a top priority and not get caught up.

We call about getting caught up in engineering oneself as the perfect applicant and all these other things that are just sort of noise in the system, and I hope we can all remember really what matters most and take that with us when we get to the other side of this pandemic.

Sal: No, thanks for that. That's super helpful. And Stu, thanks for being part of this. I'm sure that there's a lot of tough issues that y'all are working through, but it sounds like you'll have a good handle on it. So thanks for joining.

Stu: Great! Thanks, Sal. Great to see you and appreciate everyone who’s watching as well. Good luck with everyone, be well. Thank you!

Sal: So thanks everyone for joining this live stream. My apologies, my internet is breaking up, and if I haven't been at the top of my game, I’m having a horrible toothache right now. So I might have to do some COVID safe emergency dental type of thing, so wish me luck!

But you know, I thought it was a fascinating conversation. I think, you know, the biggest takeaway I think from Stu is—maybe the COVID crisis is there's a lot of things that we take very, very seriously in our lives, and it creates kind of this artificial stress in our minds that only humans, you know, other mammals don't think about. Like, oh if I have to go to this college and I need this score and all that.

To some degree, you know, we have a lot of good things as humans like, you know, air conditioners and, you know, sometimes computers and things like that. But like we oftentimes create our own stresses in our brain.

The real takeaway is if you take that away and you just be your authentic self and you just always put one foot in front of the other and just try to make do with what you have—as I've quoted Frozen 2 in the past, do the next right thing—then not only will you probably be enjoying life more, but probably other people will want you to be part of their community or gravitate to you. So it's a win-win!

So with that, thanks for joining, and I believe tomorrow we're going to have Tom Friedman if I saw the calendar correctly—either tomorrow or in the near future. So that's going to be a really interesting conversation, and hopefully by tomorrow I will have my—actually, I think my appointment is right after this, so my tooth will probably be hurting even more—but I look forward to seeing all of y'all on tomorrow's live stream!