I stated that I got a score of 10 on the AIME exam that MIT asks for. However, I did not specify that this was a mock exam and not an official one. I don’t want MIT to check and not see my name for a 10 score (I have already submitted my application). I do not remember what my official score is, which is why I listed my mock score. Should I correct this mistake, and how should I do it so that my chances for admission will not be lowered?
I think you should email them the correct score. AIME scores are not that easy to forget. If you forgot, then ask the teacher who got the official score. Especially, a score of 10 would put you in top 50 nationally among all high school students - so that is not something to ignore. I hope MIT will verify your self reported scores with what they receive officially from AMC so your application is in danger of misrepresentation, and thus it is something you need to correct. You don’t want to be tagged as something fishy.
In any case, any score you receive while practicing has no meaning. Students practice with last 30 years of AIME tests dozens of time, improving the scores by looking at solutions or what not. Those practice tests don’t amount to anything other than learning for the real test.
I agree with @cognizance. You need to contact MIT today and correct this error. Your application might be rejected immediately if they feel that you lied about your score – which is pretty much what you did. You should assume that they will check.
Agreeing with all:
You should contact MIT Admissions. Today. State the truth.
MIT does check many things.
Falsifying any part of your application is a no-no, would demonstrate an MIT anti-value. I have chatted with one of the admissions people and he did mention that they are aware (for random examples) people sent in falsified transcripts or fraudulent letters of recommendation.
It really does not matter how well-intention you may be. Falsifying your application = your app goes into reject pile.
This is a big problem. You didn’t take the AIME test. MIT doesn’t ask about practice scores. They do expect applicants to know the difference and answer correctly.
(This is like another recent thread where the kid “forgot” one of his scores. Um, no.)
Correct this with the colleges. Maaaybe, they’ll nod their heads that you did well on a mock. But maybe they’ll turn to thenext applicantwho took the official version and did well.
Okay. I plan to contact them right away. If I tell them what happened and my mistake, will I still get flagged? I just want them to know that I was not trying to mis-represent information as I am correcting it as soon as I found out.
What do you mean by getting flagged?If by that you mean will they wonder about why that happened, I’d say yes. When you say it was a mock exam, what do you mean? How was it administered? Who scored it?
Go ahead and clarify so we know you aren’t trying to pull a fast one. But for the public record – we do get all AIME results from MAA (at least, all those students choose to release, which is strangely not all of them).
@cognizance I don’t think scoring a 10 on the AIME puts you in the top 50 among all high school students. From what I’ve heard, the average USAMO qualifier scores 10 or above on the AIME and 120 or above on the AMC 12, and there are 250 USAMO qualifiers every year, most of whom should be high school students.
@lostaccount I’m guessing the mock exam was somewhere from AoPS (Art of Problem Solving). There are plenty of mock AMC 10/12/AIME/USA(J)MOs made on AoPS every year. You proctor the exams yourself (so technically there’s possibility of cheating by using the internet or going above the time limit) and you send your answers to the test creator and they score it.
@collegekid1001 Unfortunately I don’t think you really stand a chance at this point. As many previous posters mentioned, MIT will expect you to know the difference between a mock score and an actual score. At this point, they’re either going to think you were trying lie at first to boost your chances, and ended up realizing that you were going to get caught (after all, they don’t have any records of this mock AIME you took, so they don’t know if that’s real either), or they’ll think of you as disorganized.
@ktong777 Statistics of 250 per year for USAMO qualifiers include students from Grade 4 to Grade 12. (Yes, Michael Ma qualified in Grade 4 for USAMO). Not all of those are applying. Typically half of those qualify in Grade 12 (meaning after college admissions are over), leaving behind roughly 100 or less in Grade 11 who actually are applying in Fall of senior year.
For students in Grade 11 (most relevant), here is distribution of AIME scores: 15(3), 14(2), 13(3), 12(15), 11(15), 10(21) .
Above is from AIME of 2018.
Basically, total of 59 students got a score of 10 and above in Grade 11. Only 21 students got exact score of 10, out of whole country.
Luckily, the OP did not claim 13 or similar as there are only 3 students in whole country who got that score.
That’s why I said, it is useless to fabricate such statistics. All of the above students have been in math contest circuits for last 6 to 8 years. They all know each other. They are recognizable names. If someone got a 10 and did not partcipate in local or national math competitions, and won there, then it will be rare. I bet all of those 59 know each very well through math programs and competitions and such.
I attended a conference where a student referred to another girl not by her name but as “one who got 13 in AIME”. That is so important to these students that they remember AIME scores of others, just not themselves.
To fake AIME score is a blunder.
@cognizance Oh, sorry I misinterpreted. You said “among all high school students” in your original post, I assumed that meant 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders. It is true that 10 or higher is around top 50 among juniors.
I just explored the internet. MAA publishes amazing statistics on AIME http://amc-reg.maa.org/reports/generalreports.aspx
There is a Grade 9 kid who got a 15 in AIME. Fabulous achievement at that age!
UKMT (UK Mathematics Trust) doesn’t publish data anywhere close to that granularity.
The grade 9 student is probably Luke Robitaille. He is a wonderkid. Getting perfect scores since 6th grade or probably earlier, I believe, national Mathcounts champion (twice), next Avatar of Terrence Tao. AT Harvard-MIT contest, he beat all of the 12th graders to win.
If a kid does so well in the UK, Cambridge usually recruits the kid well in advance of regular admission process. Please note UKMT does not publish scores with such granularity. But, they publish names of 20 top kids from BMO2 (without specifying the ranking within that 20). A kid getting into the top 20 well ahead of Year13(Grade 12) will certainly get a special treatment.
Is it the same in the US in sense that MIT/CalTech tend to recruit such kids well in advance?
Yes. I heard a lot about Terrance Tao, Field Medal winner, among other achievements!
Maryam Mirzakhani is a role model for my younger one 
@Tamarix sometimes. And you should tell the UKMT folks to do it! Geoff is great 
ktong777, thanks for the info. We have Art of Problem Solving as workbooks or some such. I guess that dates me. And Chris Peterson (MITChris), you are such a rock star! You are so wonderfully kind to prospective students–and I’ve heard as thoughtful and considerate even when not in electronic form.
@MITChris Geoff is of course awesome! He puts in tremendous amount of time and effort.
When we contacted UKMT a couple of times, they refused to provide even the split between Grade 11 and Grade 12 kids, or the gender-wise split, of those getting through to BMO. Ce la vie! One plays the hand one is dealt
I’ve posted this before but it’s a good summary of how the recruitment happens in the UK:
https://share.trin.cam.ac.uk/sites/public/Alumni/The_Fountain_Issue_19.pdf
In particular “Trinity has the knack of attracting the majority of the UK IMO participants, with most students at the Easter camp going on to study maths as undergraduates at Trinity”.
Even if not focused on competition, an exceptional talent will be admitted no matter what, they just need to get a top score on the Cambridge STEP papers. I know someone whose kid was essentially unschooled and just did math for fun after 7th grade (i.e. no high school coursework whatsoever) who went to Trinity a few years ago. Nowhere in the US would admit him. I guess Ramanujan was a successful precedent they can point to.
@MITChris said:
When I spoke to my son about this, he didn’t think he released his scores from last year. He is a junior this year and not applying, but does it look strange to MIT to have a high score reported on the app, but not released to colleges?