the Sam Jackson College Experience

Today my friend Greta and I decided to venture out to M.I.T. for a visit. We’d intended to do such things this week, and couldn’t conceive of anything else for today, so it wasn’t a bad idea. Greta came over a bit before twelve and we pondered for 30 minutes what we might do while I cooked some snacks; we ate them and thought some more. All this thinking came to naught so we opted for a college visit instead.

Interestingly, our information session was given by an Exonian! Namely, E___ Macci. I’m sorry I forgot your name, class of ‘99 girl whose name I think began with E, sister to Vince Macci ‘05. I discovered her Exeter-past when, having stolen a newspaper from the paper-only recycling bin, I made a passing comment to Greta about the Exonian. “You’re an Exonian!,” I hear: why yes, of course, indeed, I am. She was a senior there at M.I.T. and gave us some lovely information and nicely answered questions. Most interesting fact? MIT has such an extensive publically accessible tunnel system that one can go from any building on campus to any other without needing to go outside. Also cute: there were Pi Day celebrations this 3/14; pie and ice cream in the student center. Most appetizing MIT feature: the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program. MIT’s UROP was just really cool, and the more we learned about it the cooler it seemed.

Then we had a tour, which was a little bit redundant in its coverage but at least showed us around. We saw the athetlic facilities, the chapel, looked in at the newer buildings mostly but still caught glimpses of rooms and things. Our tour guide was very nice, though he had a questionably tasteful hairstyle. Not that that mattered; he was friendly, albeit very bad at walking backwards. He was lucky to not seriously injure himself walking into something, and hit more than a few puddles.

Pleasant!

College admissions officers in Massachusetts and elsewhere yesterday scrambled to deal with the applications of thousands of students whose SAT scores were too low because of a technical glitch, one of the biggest mistakes ever made on the high-stakes exam.

Ooops! Someone messed up. Ostensibly, a computer, but really there’s a human behind it in the end. This was covered by the NYT yesterday, but now the Boston Globe has some interesting notes about how it affects Massachusetts colleges.

Officials at The College Board, which administers the test, said technical glitches led to errors in roughly 4,000 students’ October 2005 tests, resulting in some students not getting credit for some of their correct answers. …

The College Board said that 83 percent of the incorrect scores were too low by 40 points or less. Five percent involved 100 points or more, and 16 students’ scores were more than 200 points off on the 2,400-point exam.

Sucks to be one of those ~4,000 people, I suppose.