<p>I was wondering whether novel ideas and research (either a research paper or advanced experimentation) help much in the MIT application. I know it must be hard to quantify, but would you know what percentage of applicants with a research background are rejected and what percentage of applicants have some sort of research background. I know these must be hard to provide, but its worth a shot!</p>
<p>Also, anyone with interesting stories of acceptance/rejection within this context, please post.</p>
<p>Matt has said before that the majority of their accepted pool does not have any research experience.</p>
<p>However, it's important to note (especially if you follow CC) that there have been some students with incredible research experience that didn't make it.</p>
<p>All in all, I'd say that a good essay is more important than research experience, but then again, I'm no adcom.</p>
<p>Well here's the simple way to look at it...</p>
<p>"Do novel ideas / research / advanced experimentation help much in the MIT application?"</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>"Do they help more than other kinds of accomplishments, assuming the same level of passion?"</p>
<p>Probably not. Like I said in another thread, you should have a healthy appreciation for math and science, as they are the foundation of our culture here. But beyond that, your passion is your passion.</p>
<p>I believe that it's slightly different at Caltech, where the things you've mentioned would likely eclipse other types of passions (back me up Ben G.?).</p>
<p>So no statistics : ). Thanks for the clarification. Now I just have to find out what "other kinds of accomplishments, assuming the same level of passion" means! Thanks for the responses.</p>
<p>I generally agree with Ben J. that Caltech would value a serious research project in math, science, or engineering significantly higher than similar levels of achievement and passion in another field like music, with a certain caveat discussed below. Before the caveat, just to give a concrete example: all else equal, if we were choosing between someone who had gone to the Intel finals and someone who had gone to the most prestigious piano competition, we would pick the Intel student first. To make it at Caltech, you have to love science, and it is good when your choice of activities reflects that.</p>
<p>But here's the caveat: none of this applies to students whose opportunities are limited. For instace, say a student's passion is debate team, and that he is an extremely good debater. If that was the only thing of any quality available nearby, then it would be ridiculous to judge this to be inferior to scientific research done by students at schools where it is pretty much expected.</p>
<p>So we evaluate each student in his own context. If scientific research is available and the student excels at it, it counts in his or her favor more than other kinds of activities; but it is not available, no student is penalized for not being able to do it.</p>
<p>This is probably a dumb question, but how do you know what a student's opportunities have been? Do students write, "I live in the middle of nowhere so have had no research opportunities," or do you infer that from the rest of the application?</p>
<p>Ellen, the large essay this year leaves openings for such allusions however I would not make that a focus personally. Part 7 of the second part of the application contains a completely optional portion to say anything you would like. If for some reason you have not had the opprotunity to participate in certain activities you could mention it there. Also MIT will have a school profile sheet which would list certain things such as classes available, activities available, etc... and can serve to give MIT an idea of what has been available to you. In general I suppose some things will be peppered throughout your application, if you feel that you need to say more there are several options.</p>
<p>Hi Ben. Just wondering, but do a lot of people have novel idea's in their research? I did all my research independently, so when the time came for a novel, I kinda gave into peer pressure, and used:</p>
<p>"Sentient Machines[name of a video game i dreamed of making]: A novel approach to the evolution and development of inter-neuron connections in an artificial brain"</p>
<p>How's that for a 16 year old? ;)</p>
<p>I was kinda upset and discussed with my mentor that I didn't have any confusing letters or serial codes to put in my title. My abstract was pretty down to earth, and I wished I could mention crazy serial codes in their for stuff. Looks nice when you show it to people.</p>
<p>It's a lot more appealing than my papers' titles.</p>
<p>"Systems and Mechanics for a Bipedal Five-Link Semi-passive Walker"
"Pneumatic Interfacing and Varaible System Control Structures for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems" (work in progress)</p>
<p>Yeaaaaah, I think I'm just going to describe the experience. I doubt anyone wants to take a look at the code for torque calculations (imagine a variable, followed by an equals sign, ~100 lines of code, then a semicolon, with functions for derivatives, sins, cosines, secants, tangents, vector and scalar products), or look through the math for calculations regarding the heat produced by the actuator and its effect on the ability of a leg to recoil.</p>
<p>Frankly (and I think this will help many applicants), I think MIT wants to know more about what you learned from the experience rather than what you learned from the experiments, if that makes any sense. After you get in you can go show your course 6 or course 2 professor your work and see if you can get a UROP, but I believe the <em>you</em> side of it is more important than the <em>data</em> side of it as far as admissions go.</p>
<p>
[quote]
but how do you know what a student's opportunities have been?
[/quote]
Well, that's an issue. We don't know for sure. Often we can infer by geography (middle of a big state with a small population usually equals not that many opportunities). But also, since we have been doing this for a while, all the places with lots of opportunities are well known. When a student comes from a school or an area that is pretty obscure, we give him or her the benefit of the doubt.</p>
<p>But, to leave the uncertainty out of it, you might mention in one of the essays that you really wanted to get involved in scientific work but nothing was available; presumably, that is one of the reasons one wants to go to MIT/Caltech/whatever in the first place.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Just wondering, but do a lot of people have novel ideas in their research?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, lots of people have the word "novel" in their titles ;-). Hmm: the point of research is to do something new, but the number of papers from high school students in which something meaningfully new is done is not that large. But honestly, it's not that big of a deal, because we at Caltech (and presumably MIT) care more about what you learn and what you find out about the nature of science. (Good call, Timur.)</p>
<p>So, don't worry too much about how your paper (or its title) compares. Write compellingly about how research affects you. That is what will matter.</p>
<p>Not a problem, Ben. :D. It's very doubtful that pre-frosh will get to do something truly groundbreaking. The first project I'm working on has already had variations at Cornell, Delfts, and MIT, and the second one is still in very early stages of development (getting the system to recognize external pressure). Am I doing anything that will cause a technological revolution? No. However, what I'm doing could one day enable surgeons to perform surgery from across a continent. Instead of focusing on late nights writing line after line of repetitive code, I'd focus more on the what I've learned about how research is conducted, and why I wanted to participate in that research.</p>
<p>When you go to science schools (MIT/Caltech/Stanford), remember that the institution you're attending is first and foremost a research institute (especially Caltech!). They're going to train you to do research, or at least to be fit for it. What you have to demonstrate is that you would love dedicating the majority of your time to that research, or at the very least science and math.</p>
<p>say I just wanted to ask...is a research project only considered if I have written a thesis of sort.
I mean I like computer Science so basically what I have done is made some softwares and one of them I am quite proud of. So are these type of things also called research projects.
If you are interested both the Ben's I'll send you info abt the software via PM (I dont want to discuss it on the thread)</p>
<p>Vampiro I did talk about such a no money no lab bedroom 'research project' on my app (there is a prompt which asks for something You have created). I don't think you have to have a formal published paper or anything.</p>
<p>Thanks Ben G. This is good news, because I certainly learned more from the experience than the actual research. The project I entered in Siemens was my own, so it is not as mature, as I haven't take formal courses in a lot of the topics I discuss. I think next year(senior year), I will be able to pull of an awesome research project, since I now have realistic ideas of what resources are available, how to deal with unexpected stuff(well, to an extent ;) ), etc.</p>
<p>This question is for both Ben Jones and Ben Golub:</p>
<p>I am a student from India and have passed my 12th from CBSE board this year.
I had an All India Rank of around 6000 in Manipal Medical Entrance Exam (MAHE UGET), in my First attempt, in which I guess around 100,000 students appeared. Many candidates who wrote that exam were 'repeaters', who had passed their 12th exam earlier than 2005. So, will my MAHE UGET rank be considered as a good one or just an average achievement?</p>
<p>P.S.- Manipal was ranked 3rd in Medical College Rankings done by India Today Group in 2004.</p>