<p>Hello, CC!
I am currently a Sophomore and I'd like to get a feeling of what more I should be doing in order to increase my chances of getting into MIT. A bit about myself:</p>
<p>Year of Graduation: 2015
GPA: ~4.1</p>
<p>SAT II: Biology (800) [I will be taking Math II come June and most likely Physics next year]</p>
<p>AP: Calculus BC (N/A, taking this week, results come back July), Comp Sci (same situation)</p>
<p>Fields of Interest (no implied knowledge or expertise): Mathematics, Cryptology, Computer Science, EE, Mechanical Engineering</p>
<p>Accolades: School scholar's program, it entails working on a project of my choice with my mentor over the school year. My project falls in the fields of CS and Cryptography.</p>
<p>Extra-Curriculars: Teaching martial arts to kids ages 3-15 pro bono (4 times a week), Programming Club, Math Team, Math Newsletter, I play a bit of banjo</p>
<p>I would like to know what I could be doing to boost my chances of getting into MIT. All help is appreciated!</p>
<p>I’m taking Linear Algebra & Multivariable Calculus over the summer, so I’m not even sure what my school has to offer when I come back from summer break. If I’ve “leveled out” of the math at my school, I might take courses at my local college. If I had to choose what courses I would take next year it’d probably something along the lines of probability, number theory, or some sort of statistics.</p>
<p>I’m doing some of that stuff in programming. I live in the city (in an apartment) so it’s kinda difficult to do DIY. I was looking for some “insider tips”, just <em>something</em> that I wouldn’t be able to guess or know otherwise.</p>
<p>Update: (can’t edit OP for some reason) My foreign languages are Hebrew and Spanish.</p>
<p>Don’t do it. I did, and regretted it. Take it over a semester. You need the time to let it soak in while you are learning it.</p>
<p>Statistics is good. Just make sure you take statistics for math or statistics majors (not business majors, not biology majors, not even engineers). You want the rigorous theory behind it, not just the application. take classes through multiple regression analysis. Learn about financial investments - alpha, beta, gamma, and delta as measures of risk/return.</p>
<p>I’m guessing that Statistics is really beneficial in Cryptography.</p>
<p>See if you can do any research or internship work in Cryptography.</p>
<p>Note: there are a lot of intelligence/military uses for cryptography. Maybe see if there is a way to leverage some financial aid for college.</p>
<p>Try to do EC’s related to your field of interest. You want to show a passion in your application. Something close is robotics. See if there is a High School First Robotics team you can join. What you want to do is vision processing - autonomous driving and aiming of the robot. There is a lot of pattern recognition, which I’m guessing basic cryptography skills could be applicable.</p>
I’m a pretty quick learner. I knew next to nothing about calculus 3 months ago and I’m now gearing up to take the AP. The course is held at Stanford and is over the course of 8-weeks.</p>
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Good point. All that stuff must be figured out in the future.</p>
More specifically, Cryptanalysis. I wonder what kind of statistics would be most applicable, though.</p>
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I can’t this summer but next I already had a cryptography company in mind I’d like to intern for. How would I do research? Is it implied that it would be in a group of cryptographers or would I work alone?</p>
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Financial Aid isn’t really an issue for me but I guess I’ll take whatever I can squeeze out :P</p>
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This is actually the part I’m having most trouble with. My school offers next to nothing in that respect. Robotics is tough when you’re on your own and don’t have a hackerspace. The only way I see to express my interest in the field is to program things solely for my computer, phone, and calculator. Beyond that is just a barrier. I tried robotics last summer and the summer before. It’s a real pain. The problems I encountered last year were the same as the year before and they all stemmed from cheap, inconsistent parts where “calibration” meant tuning it every run. The programming was hardly the difficult part. If the cryptography thing doesn’t work out, I’d try to get an internship at a big tech company with complex critical systems so that I can learn how things scale and whet my appetite to see distributed computing at its best. How would you recommend I go about your suggestion in my particular situation?</p>
<p>Yes, it seems like the reinvent the wheel each year. And, a lot of programming is learning the basics. But, that is why there is a team. Let the rest of the programmers figure out the basics. You can focus on figuring out Vision. This year, there were two main purposes for vision: Autonomous driving - driving to a Frisbee, picking it up, and shooting; and Shooting (autonomous and operator modes): Targeting, aiming, distance, shooting.</p>
<p>Vision processing is not a trivial problem for a team that has never done it before. How do you discern the targets from the mass of pixels? </p>
<p>If your HS does not have a team, find another local team and ask if you can join.</p>
<p>Don’t set your sights too high on an internship. Just be happy to get one. I would suggest:
Identify potential companies
Identify the groups within the companies that do what you are interested in
Identify managers in the groups
Attempt to “network” with those people. The “purpose” is to find out about careers related to you areas of interest. Not to ask for a job.
During your contact with the person, ask if there are other people he can suggest you talk to to find out more about careers.
After you have talked with the person, send a letter thanking them for their time, and mention you would be happy to be an unpaid intern to help with special projects.</p>
<p>Separately: Contact the Human Resources department and find out if the company offers internships.</p>
<p>If there are colleges/universities, similar process, but contact the professors. There, you can be more direct. They are used to dealing with students. You do want to find out about careers, and also ask if there is research you could help with.</p>
<p>OperaDad: I’ve done some thinking and I think I’ve realized that I just don’t enjoy robotics as a whole. It doesn’t interest me. Other than robotics would you have any idea what more I could be doing to boost myself? As for internships, I’ll try not to set my sights too high. Anywhere where I can learn a thing or two, have fun, and write about on my application is good enough for me. Thanks for your advice!</p>
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<p>I suppose I’ve got the essentials of these 3 down but they could always use improvement. I will definitely work on all of these things. Thanks for sharing the link, jpm50.</p>
<p>Like the article said: Pursue your passion. I can’t decide that for you. You have to find out what is available in your area. If you lived in Washington DC, your options would be a lot more than Nome, Alaska.</p>
<p>There is a lot of hard work in college. Not all of it is fun. Sometimes you have to do the grunt work to make it to the next level. Robotics is just one way to gain experience in recognizing patterns in otherwise random data - which I presume is a fundamental skill of cryptanalysis. If you are an expert in it, then I suppose robotics would be a bore. If you are not, then it is one way to gain real world experience. It is not a trivial problem for a computer to take a picture and try to find the targets, especially under real world conditions (something in front of you blocking part of the picture, lighting, etc.). And, then do it real time within the constraints of the CPU and other work the CPU must do.</p>