<p>Please note that this isn't a "chance" thread, asking whether I'll get in. Instead, I want to know if I could cut the mustard at MIT, academically. I'm not asking if I would breeze through, but if I would be capable of keeping up with other students or at least maintaining a respectable record. </p>
<p>My test scores are all in the MIT range, as is my ranking, but I'm worried that I may simply not be smart enough. I haven't done any research, haven't taken really advanced math or science courses [I'm in AP BC Calculus, Bio, and Chem right now as a senior], haven't done any heavy computer-programming or robotics work. But I do like math and science, and enjoy reading and discussing about both fields [physics especially.] But I don't think I'm the next Feynman or anything.</p>
<p>So I guess another question would be: to any MIT students or alumnae who didn't take multi-variable calc and do independent research in high school, how have you found your academic experience as an MIT student?</p>
<p>I didn’t take multivariable calc in high school – I didn’t even take any AP science classes. I graduated from MIT with two majors, authorship on a paper in a major journal, and got into the top graduate programs in my field.</p>
<p>I really struggled first semester, because I hadn’t really seen any of the material before, but first semester is pass/no record, and I started out in the easiest and most basic versions of all the freshman core classes. I passed all of my classes (by varying widths of the skin of my nose), and by second semester, I had figured out what I needed to do to get the grades I wanted. I also felt that I was more or less caught up to the people with better preparation than I had coming in.</p>
<p>Ultimately, your preparation is only one aspect of what’s necessary to succeed at MIT. It’s more important to be able to dig in your heels and do the work you need to do, even if it’s tough. You also need to be able to deal with failure in an appropriate way – everybody at MIT has a test or a class or a semester that doesn’t go the way they’d like, and you have to be able to deal with that without totally shutting down. It helps a lot, too, if you have an abiding love for what you do.</p>
<p>My background was weaker than yours, and my first term was definitely a struggle - and it lessened over time. But decently possible? Definitely. Trust me, MIT gets lots more qualified applicants than they need - if they let you in, it’s because they know you’re capable of succeeding here. So why not let them, the truly qualified people, decide?</p>
<p>Note, capable of succeeding does not mean you’ll be the top of your class. Most MIT students aren’t, and this is sometimes hard to accept :D</p>
<p>All right, thanks for your perspectives. Good to know that it’s possible to be a semi-regular person in high school and do well at MIT. Thanks especially for the blog entry!</p>
<p>Just a question out of curiosity, though: do you think the top of the class at MIT is along the top of the class in high school [may not be brilliant but works hard]? Or some combination of absolutely brilliant + works extremely hard?</p>
<p>First of Mit has diversity[I’m speaking from what I read, I’m just a applicant like you not a expert/alum like Mollie or Piper ]mit has brilliant people , hardworkers, and combinations of them.</p>
<p>But I know some things about being brilliant, thanks to my Mensa membership I met with lots of brilliant people.You know what they have in common?(nope not hardworking)… problems.Gift like being brilliant almost always comes with a curse.I know persons can understand hardest concepts in minutes but cannot able to study more than one hour a day, I know a lady who is magician with numbers but she is hast OCD sometimes she can no stop washing her hands.More extreme examples are savants, they can calculate 1598*5624 in seconds, they can tell you date of thirth sunday of sept.2053 but they cannot answer even the easiest verbal questions, some of them draw like Davinci, some of them memorize a book(eidethic memory) without effort but many of them cannot live without special care.
What I trying tell with all of these examples here(other than I don’t have date for sunday night and I’m bored) is; yes there are brilliant people can do better than normal persons with lesser work, but believe me almost all of them has their own share of problems to deal with(if you don’t believe me believe Aristotle-No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.").After all being brilliant isn’t about brain working faster its usually about brain working different.
Whatever the level of IQ,talent,skill you have if you use what you have efficient you can get into MIT.</p>
Nobody really knows who’s at the top of the class – MIT doesn’t rank or award honors at graduation, and students don’t talk much about their GPAs.</p>
<p>My feeling is that one doesn’t have to be outstandingly brilliant compared to the rest of the student body to be successful at MIT, but one does have to be smart enough to be admitted in the first place.</p>
]mit has brilliant people , hardworkers, and combinations of them.</p>