A paradoxical question?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>How much does pure luck as opposed to passion/desire play into admissions to MIT? Obviously, if we knew how much pure luck you needed, it wouldn't really be pure luck anymore. But nevertheless,I read a lot of stuff here about how MIT and other prestigious universities are flooded by so many qualified applicants that they must turn them away for no other reason than space restraints. Obviously, MIT will not applicants through picking numbers out of a hat, but I often read about "underqualified" students getting accepted over "overqualified" students. I know that they were accepted for some reason that varies on a case-to-case basis. I also have to think that if there were a group of applicants that were seemed very similar to each other (not to say this actually happened), such as 10 asian males who all played the violin, played tennis, and conformed to stereotype, MIT would reject all of them. Even if all the [relatively] ordinary applicants were all rejected, I'm still pretty sure there would be a bunch left...a bunch meaning way more than MIT could fit. In this case, how would MIT compare apples to oranges? If both applicants are exceptionally unique, have traits that the university wants and are obviously very different from each other, who gets accepted and who gets rejected?</p>

<p>This leads me to wonder about the importance of an interviews and essays. Because these pieces of the application cannot be quantized, it appears to me that they should be the deciding factor in admissions. From what I read here, however, I appear to be wrong. Can someone please tell me if I'm right, wrong, or asking a question that cannot be answered? </p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

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<p>You should read through Ben's and Matt's blogs and get the story from an Admissions Officer's eyes. It's quite revealing.</p>

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<p>I have. Several times over. Still, I'm confused about the importance of essays/interviews vs GPA/scores/etc.</p>

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<p>I think it's difficult for us to dissect the relative importance of each factor from the outside, and of course there's certainly no formula which gives grades a certain weight and the essay another.</p>

<p>The common</a> data set gives MIT's official answer: "character/personal qualities" are "very important", and almost everything else is "important". You might interpret that to say that parts of the application which reveal character and personal qualities (the interview, the essay, the teacher recs) are quite important for applicants who are already seen to be qualified by their courseloads/GPAs/test scores.</p>

<p>Ben has said before that a large percentage of the applicant pool is qualified to be at MIT. On the outside, we tend to interpret this as meaning it takes some intangible luck factor to get in, but I think it's a little more clear-cut when you have everybody's application in front of you.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the response mollie and mootmom! Though I'm sure that there's no possible way to say this with any certainty, what happens to the applicant with a passionate, oddball talent but who does not have the perfect GPA/scores/etc? Ah well, it's not a good question any way...too general, and it would be impossible to narrow down what I mean.</p>