<p>MIT won't take you unless you're qualified, so you have nothing to feel guilty about. While it's true that many qualified applicants get turned away, there is no one litmus test for which of the qualified applicants is more or less deserving. And if there were, it sure wouldn't be the SAT. MIT is smart enough to know that the SAT has limited predictive validity for how well a person will do in college.</p>
<p>One thing MIT does (as do most schools, or so they say), is to try to evaluate the students' accomplishments in light of his or her opportunities. Ethnicity aside, a student from a state with a historically poor educational system (like many states in the South, where you say you're from) who has done well enough to qualify for MIT...that says a lot about the individual student and what his potential might be in a place like MIT. </p>
<p>To use a metaphor, suppose we wanted to decide who the better money manager was. At the end of a year, person A has $10,000 and person B has $20,000. It looks like person B is the better manager, till you consider that person A started with $1 and person B started with $25,000. Colleges like MIT try to look at who has done the most with what they had. </p>
<p>It may be that people you know who apply to MIT and don't get in might try to make you feel guilty if you do. That says more about them then it does about you, and you aren't responsible for their perception of what happened. A lot of people respond to disappointment by trying to oversimplify and blame. I can promise you, if they don't have your URM status to use an excuse, it will be something else. (I've seen white kids do the same thing to each other, "You only got in because of ...."). It's part of human nature; the best you can do is try to understand where they are coming from and not take it too personally.</p>
<p>And if you get the opportunity to go to MIT, do your best; that way you'll never have any regrets!</p>