<p>Hi I'm currently a sophomore in high school. I was just interested to know if the achievement of awards a big factor in the admission process at MIT. It just occured to me that I've never earned any award - big or small. I know that I have a couple of years to go but will this hurt me in the long run if this trend continues?</p>
<p>A big award can definitely help, and small awards help but are more neutral in my opinion. You should definitely have some sort of award/s coming out of high school. When I though about this, initially I was like “I have no awards”, but then I realized there was actually plenty of awards I could list. You don’t have to win huge competitions, but a least have somethings to put down.</p>
<p>[MIT</a> Admissions: Before MIT - Stuff You Can Do Now](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/before/menu.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/before/menu.shtml)</p>
<p>It’s not that you need to have awards, exactly, and there’s certainly no need to have specific or national-level awards. But given the competitiveness of admission to MIT, you do need to put together an outstanding application, and that often includes having awards and other kinds of recognition of your amazingness.</p>
<p>People who apply to MIT and get in are normally pretty awesome at something and awards and recognitions for it basically tell MIT that other people think you’re amazing and act as confirmation of your skills. And there are plenty of awards and competitions out there, a lot of it is about playing to what your strengths are and giving MIT a better idea of them.</p>