Aspiring International Applicants to MIT. How did you all get in?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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I’m a Malaysian, Intel ISEF 2014 best category award winner and aspiring to get into MIT for Chemical Engineering. I am in my last year of high school and plan to take A-levels the following year. I know that even if I get a super high GPA it doesn’t mean much as it is very competitive. The question is, what is the main thing they are looking for? Grades? Social activities? Or what?

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FJMcGarrett:
This site is filled with advice for how to get into MIT. Much of it is written by people from MIT’s admissions office.
Two favorites include:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/939227-reminder-no-one-not-even-me-can-give-you-an-accurate-chance-at-mit-p1.html

http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways

You may want to spend a few hours reading the many discussions on this topic in this MIT forum over the past few years.

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And of course the original questions: “How did you all get in?” is flawed. The basic rule is that there is no one thing that gets you into MIT (or for that matter Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.).