<p><em>waves</em> I have a superscored 2400 and I was accepted EA. In my stats in the EA thread I put my non-superscore because I didn’t think it counted as a real 2400, but now that everyone’s thinking there’s a 2400 taboo… make of that what you will.</p>
<p>You also forgot 3. being a URM. Not to sound offensive, but it truly is the reason why people with lower stats and average ECs get in. But you also must note that fitting one of these three is in no way a guaranteed acceptance. For #2, you can’t have a “low” academic record unless you of course mean low in terms of every other applicant. You still need straight As mostly, and solid stats. And don’t forget that things you think make you special don’t always do so. Suffering tragic deaths of many family members, for example, is very sad and very uncommon, but you need to be able to incorporate it into your own philosophies/life.</p>
<p>I just did a really quick (How To Make It in America is on soon!) Ctrl+F through the EA thread. Of the 2400s: 5 accepted, 3 deferred, 0 rejected.</p>
<p>But again, with this small of a sample size, it’s really pointless to try to make some sort of theory based around the data.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Then I’ll apply EA. :)</p>
<p>^ Oh snap, didn’t think of the EA decisions.
Yeah, I agree about the sample size. It is pretty soon to tell, especially with the small-enough CC community.
And by the relatively low academic record, I meant really, really relative. As in, 3.75 gpa or an SAT score around 2200. Just to clear that up.</p>
<p>@187 - </p>
<p>See my posts in the thread regarding attribution error. We pay very little attention to scores after a certain point. That certain point is “if you score below this number we are worried about you being able to do the work at MIT”, and the point is, statistically, somewhere in the high 600s low 700s. </p>
<p>@everyone - </p>
<p>There is no 2400 taboo. We accepted plenty of people with 2400s and lower. Again, from the admissions standpoint, there is no difference between someone with a 2400 or a 2300 per se. Rather, that difference itself does not make the difference between an accept and a reject. Once you’ve cleared our “scary” zone of scores, the utility assessed to your scores as a dispositive factor in decision making decreases markedly.</p>
<p>Everyone needs to understand how difficult it is to choose 1600 out of a pool of 16000 extremely talented applicants. You cannot, based on a set of “stats”, compare one applicant to another. And the “2400 taboo” is completely ridiculous in the sense that those with perfect scores were rejected purely because they had perfect scores. There may be a trend because these applicants may have spent all their time studying for the SAT rather than living their lives and being real human beings. We should not hate MIT or feel that they made the wrong decision. You must be academically talented to get into MIt, but once you pass a certain threshold, you are no different than people with perfect everything. What matters is not only “obscure talents”, but unique things about you IN ADDITION to academic excellence.</p>
<p>Thanks for your postings, MITChris. My child will be applying next year, and his best buddy applied this year (and got in too). His buddy took the SAT once and was happy with his score (which I think was in the 2300+ but not 2400 range). My child is hoping to do the same. He took the SATs yesterday, and based on his comments and his PSAT , should be fine.
I see too many folks obsessing about minor score differences when they should be focusing elsewhere. (I’d say going outside and enjoying the day, but well…we live in the Boston area which is Noah-ville right now.)
Two minor questions for MITChris - if my son’s bud does go to MIT, could my son do some sort of semi-official overnight with him next year - and how would they do that? Secondly - do we need anything official for AMC/AIME/Mandelbrot scores? My son never gets anything printed, but knows what he gets.</p>
<p>Thank God MITChris is here to knock some sense into you guys…</p>
<p>nemom, people could go out and enjoy the weather here right now if they had a canoe. And, I guess, a really warm wetsuit. ;)</p>
<p>@neomom: I don’t know with certainty about AIME or Mandlebrot, but AMC is self-reported. There was also a place on the application for AIME score, so I assume that’s self-reported as well. Mandlebrot is likely the same.</p>
<p>
I assume you’re responding to my opinion on URMs. I know several people with “low” stats (SATs of 1900 - 20xx) and “average” ECs comparatively. The only reason that these people got accepted in lieu of the massive and amazingly qualified applicant pool is purely due to being a URM. However, every time I must discuss URMs, I must also repeat that I aim not to be offensive in any way. I am merely stating a fact that would not occur had the person been, for example, a SoCal Asian male. I should also state that I am not presenting my opinion on whether this is right or wrong. I am merely stating that this is happening.</p>
<p>187, you are confusing opinion with fact. It is very easy to do, and I know it may feel cathartic, but it is in no way true or meaningful. It’s the argumentative equivalent of pounding on your desk after dying in a computer game.</p>
<p>I don’t believe I’m misconstruing anything. Denying what I said would be saying that MIT does in no way support affirmative action, which is obviously untrue. I am not angry because I understand the reasons behind affirmative action. I’m just saying it happens. Perhaps you misinterpreted my post.</p>
<p>“The only reason that these people got accepted in lieu of the massive and amazingly qualified applicant pool is purely due to being a URM.”</p>
<p>I don’t think I misunderstood anything.</p>
<p>What are you arguing? Of course there’s people who wouldn’t be accepted if they weren’t a URM. There’s also people who wouldn’t be accepted if they didn’t get that high of a SAT score, or wrote about a different subject in their essays. We’ll never know who these people are specifically, but when arguing that admission is based holistically, a change in some specifics can certainly still change the whole decision; it’s just not very likely. And yet I’m only stating that it does happen.</p>
<p>LOL , molliebatmit! At least the reservoirs will be nice and full for the summer.
On the comments by 187/cgarcia - consider that getting mere 2000 or so on the SATs if you come from a lousy school, with no support and little access/ability to prep exhaustively probably indicates as much ability as a 2300+ from a candidate from an excellent school, with lots of support and prep.</p>
<p>@nemom - </p>
<p>You can arrange overnight stays with our office. </p>
<p>As for the AIME scores - not sure. We generally trust students. Once it gets up into the higher echelons (USAMO, etc), we get confirmation from the math folks directly. </p>
<p>@187 - </p>
<p>You are correct. There are individuals in our pool who would not be accepted if they were not URM. There are also students who would not be accepted if they were not first generation to college. Or a valedictorian star athlete. Or a researching hopskotch whiz. </p>
<p>Again, everyone - URMs included - has to clear our basic “uh-oh” score/grade bar. Once you’ve done that, then comparing scores is a meaningless enterprise. </p>
<p>There is, from the standpoint of our process, no dispositive difference between someone who scores a 700 on the math sat and someone who scores a 780. Its predictive value is statistically insignificant and thus not an important part of our evaluation. </p>
<p>Keep in mind, too, that the biggest predictor of SAT scores is the income of your parents. In this sense, SATs are themselves contextual - admissions officers may not be wowed if the child of a lawyer and a doctor scores a 2400, but if the child of uneducated, working class parents scores a 2400, that tells us something about academic success in context. </p>
<p>I can’t stress enough how much “in context” and “holistic” matters here. This is why places like CollegeConfidential tend to provide poor feedback to students. The characteristics of applicants that are easily postable online - raw SAT score and GPA, location, race - are NOT characteristics we pay close attention to, or rather are not THE WAY we pay attention. </p>
<p>Think of it as the difference between individual bones lying on a table and a full skeleton. When people post scores and ask for a “chance”, they’re looking at the bones. We see - and care about - the skeleton.</p>
<p>@nemom: The problem with that is the inability to quantify the information you provided. It’s simply too hard to tell if a person has “no support and little access” or has “lots of support and prep”. Sure, you can try narrowing it down through race, but it won’t help much. Will that person with a mere “2000 or so on the SATs” with little support be able to obtain a 2300+ with lots of support? And will a person with a 2300+ with lots of support be able to obtain at least a 2000 with little support? It’s too hard to tell, which is a problem that many colleges must face.</p>
<p>@MITChris: Is MIT aware of a person’s financial status when reviewing the application? I don’t remember stating any income or anything along those lines in the application. How would you know if we were rich or poor? There are certainly poor Asians just like how there are rich Black or Native American folk.</p>
<p>I can speak a bit to MITChris’s point as well. I know a bunch (maybe six or so) high school juniors whose basic stats put them all in the ‘plenty good enough to succeed’ at MIT category. Boiled down to a few markers, they would look fairly similar. But they are very different from each other in a pile of ways that I think the admissions folks will see from interviews and essays and other details. Which would be the best fits for MIT, I cannot judge, although I could make some semi-educated guesses.<br>
Point decidedly taken about the SATs. I almost wish the CB would limit the number of times students could take it to maybe three.</p>