I am hoping to gain admission to MIT via transfer, and I was wondering about the kind of students that get accepted. The general consensus I find online is that many people who are qualified for admission apply, but generally those who are accepted are uniquely interesting. Many of them are international students or are students who have created/founded projects that set them apart from others who have just as stellar academics and test scores. Is this an accurate conception of the application process? Should I work to develop a unique “spike” within my application to stand out from the other students with exceptional GPAs and SAT scores?
FWIW the last common data set I looked at said that MIT accepted 23 transfer students out of 523 applicants.