Game 3

In Game 3, you tried to be the best Missouri Institute of Taxidermy student you can be (go Beavers!). After all was said and done, vvasquez, with their play of 19 Sleep, 71 Social, and 10 School (#partylife), has won and will compete in the final game. In second place was ethann, and in third place was lcui. Learn more about our winner here.

Honorable mentions:

  • Best advice: amli for "everyone vote in november if u can"
  • Best dad joke: ashi-tori for "I tried eating a clock once. It was time consuming."
  • Jaden Smith award: wayzhao for "If you could pick any two of sleep, social life, and school, why would you pick none of them?"
  • Biggest brain: fionalin for "If I sleep in class, can I get points on both school and sleep?"

See below or here for full results and commentary.

Sleep, Social Life, School — choose 2 of the 3. We've all seen the triangle before, and we’ve all had to make the hard choices.

In this game, you have 100 points to allocate to Sleep, Social Life, and School. More points in a given area means that you’re better at it. Your job is simple — to be the best MIT (Missouri Institute of Taxidermy) student you can be. However, figuring out the best student is a bit of a complicated process.

In Round 1, we’ll take your highest characteristic, and rank you against all other students. Higher scores are better.

In Round 2, we’ll pair you up with one other student, and choose one characteristic at random. Your score in this round is (your value for that characteristic - their value for that characteristic). We’ll again rank your scores against all other students. Higher scores are better.

Round 3 is identical to round 2. We’ll pair you up with the same student, but choose a different characteristic.

To calculate a final ranking, your score will be (best rank + second best rank + 2 * third best rank). The student with the lowest overall score will win.

This game’s a bit of a complex one, so here’s a few hints to help guide your thinking.

  • The nature of the final ranking means that bad performance is pretty heavily penalized. So, your goal should be to do well in all of the rounds. Is this a metaphor for MIT expecting us to be perfect?

  • If you generalize and try to do well in all 3 areas, your score in Round 1 will be very bad. But, you won’t have as much risk in Rounds 2 and 3.

  • If you specialize, you’ll do well in Round 1; but, to do well in Rounds 2 and 3, you’ll need to predict how much other students prioritize each of the 3 areas, and exactly how much.

  • Surveys from MIT suggest that the average student has Sleep = 10, Social life = 35, and School = 55. They’re all a bunch of nerds who aren’t great at socializing and never sleep. Do with this what you will :)

Play Game 3 here.

The deadline for playing is Thursday, July 2 at 12pm ET. Results and Game 2 will be released on Sunday, July 5 at ~12pm ET.