I went to MIT 20 years ago. Plenty of people smarter than me failed out. MIT seems to do a pretty good job of screening out people who won't pick up the material fast enough. In my experience, the ones who failed out were the ones who were plenty smart but didn't adjust fast enough to having to work hard for the first time in their lives. If you get into MIT, you've probably gotten special treatment from teachers your whole life, and not really had to work hard before.
My high school had just shy of 4,000 students in 4 grades. My senior year, I took slightly over a "full course load" at the local state university, plus went to high school 1/4 time. Technically, that wasn't supposed to happen, but administrators look the other way for smart kids. I wasn't really competing against others in my grade. People asked if I was smarter than the girl a year ahead of me who went to Harvard. She was my competition. I'm sure something similar happened with a kid a year behind me.
I knew that at MIT, I'd probably just be an average student. However, I really underestimated how hard it is to learn to work hard when you've been able to coast through your first 18 years, despite taking honors courses at the nearby state university, etc. I think the SATs are probably generally pretty good at measuring how quickly students learn, but there's a certain grit it takes to succeed at MIT that the SATs don't cover at all.
Edit: I'm also an Eagle Scout, but I came through after it became significantly easier. It seemed to me that probably at least 10% of the men at MIT were Eagle Scouts. If nothing else, it shows an ability to stick with something for at least a few years, despite it being uncool for most of your peer group.
I, too, had a disastrous freshman year due to my attempts to laze through it like I had all through public school. Fortunately, I was able to change before I was forced out.
I also got my comeuppance about being "smart".
At the time, being an Eagle wasn't cool anymore, either, and I never talked about it. I was reluctant to even mention it here. Also, these days, it seems that being an Eagle is a project for dad, while the kid is along for the ride. My parents had zero involvement with scouting.
MIT has a ~95% graduation rate, so most students really do graduate. And for the 5% that don't it's unclear how many dropped out due to the workload vs dropped out to found a company, etc. MIT has tons of internal resources to help you if you're struggling.
The shock for entering freshman is very real. I really like the practice of making your first semester Pass/No Record so that there's less pressure to try and get an A, and if you do fail it won't even be on your transcript. Second semester still treats F as No Record as well.
There's a certain subtle ego disorder that creeps up on you slowly when you're used to regularly being introduced as the smartest person someone has met, and you let that slowly become part of your identity. The people I knew who failed out had too big of an ego to seek help, and even were afraid to work too hard, because that made them feel less smart. They didn't outright brag, but were used to others doing their bragging for them, and had a kind of false modesty about them.
My high school had just shy of 4,000 students in 4 grades. My senior year, I took slightly over a "full course load" at the local state university, plus went to high school 1/4 time. Technically, that wasn't supposed to happen, but administrators look the other way for smart kids. I wasn't really competing against others in my grade. People asked if I was smarter than the girl a year ahead of me who went to Harvard. She was my competition. I'm sure something similar happened with a kid a year behind me.
I knew that at MIT, I'd probably just be an average student. However, I really underestimated how hard it is to learn to work hard when you've been able to coast through your first 18 years, despite taking honors courses at the nearby state university, etc. I think the SATs are probably generally pretty good at measuring how quickly students learn, but there's a certain grit it takes to succeed at MIT that the SATs don't cover at all.
Edit: I'm also an Eagle Scout, but I came through after it became significantly easier. It seemed to me that probably at least 10% of the men at MIT were Eagle Scouts. If nothing else, it shows an ability to stick with something for at least a few years, despite it being uncool for most of your peer group.