Thank you for your responses.
We need a lot more information about you. So have you taken chemistry, physics, and calculus at the college level and passed? How many AP and IB credits do you expect to have, and what are your scores? Also do you want to study yourself and take MIT final exams? You can do that. If you want to do all that, I believe you can graduate in less than four years. But MIT may have a three year requirement, I have not looked. Most private schools have a three year requirement that you pay them for three years. You can just take a lot of graduate classes at MIT with no barriers, if you are ready, and probably use some towards credit requirements but check. The physics department has junior lab, which its not too likely you can pass out of, so you will have to take that. You have to pass a swim test
and take 8 humanities and social science classes, so look at how many of those you can skip. There is a physical education requirement, a writing requirement, and the freshman subjects, biology, chemistry and calculus are required for everyone to get a degree. How much physics have you taken and was it at a rigorous state school or what sort of program?
Self study is rewarded at MIT,
and i know kids who took 8.04 by studying between freshman and sophomore year, at home , took the 8.04 final
the first week of classes in sophomore year, and passed the final exam. The sky is the limit at MIT, and the physics department is more flexible than other departments in fact, about letting you self study if you are ready. Its still nice
to take some lecture classes though, and helpful to most students, to do homework, take quizzes and tests,
and take their time learning physics. It may be more fun to stay at MIT for four years if you can afford it as well.
If you plan to get a PhD, it will be helpful to get a UROP, and that can be done for credits toward your physics degree as well. UROP is research work in a physics lab. Many are open to undergrads, including very complicated labs like tokamaks (fusion reactors). I did a UROP in the old Versator 2 lab at MIT. It was fun!
I agree with @Coloradomama that we need a lot more information about you to answer this question.
However, I suspect that you may be underestimating how academically challenging MIT is. You should keep in mind that pretty much every student there was at or near the top of their class. If you got 800 on the SAT math, then you are average at MIT. Many have won various awards before arriving at MIT. However, in spite of this, students there still find MIT to be academically very challenging and a lot of work.
Personally I was happy to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in four years.
Not in 2 years unless you’re a transfer student. The 8 humanities classes and unit limits during freshman year will prevent you from graduating sooner than 2.5 years.
@Coloradomama I’m considering taking the following APs:
AP Physics
AP European History
AP English Language
AP Calculus AB
AP Computer Science
AP English Literature
AP US History
AP Chemistry
AP Calculus BC
AP Statistics
AP Spanish Language
AP Economics/Government
Also considering AP Physics C Mechanics to replace one of these classes.
Assuming I pass all these courses, would I be able to skip enough courses and take enough courses per semester to finish in 2 years? I might be able to do classes during the summer.
Thanks for your response.
@brassratter I’m going to take a lot of AP classes, so would I be able to skip a lot of the classes?
@DadTwoGirls Any tips for getting accepted?
A brief search for “AP credit policy”on the MIT website would have given you the answer you are looking for. And the answer is “no”.
Direct credit offered for a 5 on AP Calc BC and 5s on both AP Physics C exams only. All others considered for elective credit only, and do not qualify as credit for your humanities prerequisites. You can test out of some classes if you want to attempt the MIT exams, but the AP exams are not accepted other than what I have already mentioned.
Those 8 humanities classes must be taken while enrolled at MIT. You can’t place out of them. A super genius willing to work day and night could graduate in 2.5 years at the minimum.
Except they’d miss why people go to MIT in the first place - the community of scientists and unique experiences afforded by a top notch school.
AP classes aren’t really equivalent to what you learn at MIT.
And if you go fast, you take graduate level classes.
Why would anyone want to attend MIT and not use the four years they have to push themselves to the max?
@jmtabb Just to clarify, so to place out of a physics class one would have to take BOTH AP Physics C: Mechanics and AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism, correct? Just doing one with a 5 score would not work?
That would defeat the purpose. You have four years to develop ( skip classes and go deeper if you want) and come out with amazing contacts and stellar knowledge. Rushing though means you don’t really get the point of learning. So many MIT people COULD rush through but no one does because they get that it is not a race but a marathon. Many who go onto Phd programs begin to formulate their ideas while an undergrad. Everyone at MIT is genius level ( some are world class even as teens). That doesn’t mean that they are all in a race to finish.
Note that 5s in AP Physics C (yes, both) give credit only for the 8.01 version of physics 1 and MIT. If you are a physics or astrophysics major, you would likely want to take 8.012 in order to be well-prepared for subsequent physics classes.
My son is at Caltech as a physics major (so some similarities and some differences). He took both AP Physics C tests and got 5s with very minimal preparation. He has found he is well-prepared to take physics classes at Caltech, but wouldn’t want to have skipped the first physics class by testing out.
Also, a degree in 2 years would be foolish because you would only have one summer to focus on research. Your CV for getting into grad school would be very thin, because you would be competing against students with 3 summers of research.
Why do you want to graduate in 2 years? You haven’t given a reason.
You’ve already got the answer here but yes, you have to take both physics c tests and get a 5 on both to get credit for 1 MIT physics class. You have to take the tests, and you have to get 5s on the tests for credit. “Passing the class” without getting 5’s on the AP Test doesn’t count for anything.
And most kids who attend MIT don’t use these tests and scores for credit. They still take the classes and tests to prove that they are ready for the rigor needed at this school, and either go into the honors classes or retake the regular classes. What you get at MIT will be more in depth than what you usually get from AP classes.
The whole point of going to schools like this is for the experience, to do it “the hard way” and to immerse yourself into the learning environment. If trying to get through as quickly as possible is the goal, then this probably isn’t the school to do it at.
“@DadTwoGirls Any tips for getting accepted?”
Most of what I could suggest is pretty obvious. High GPA, high grades in math and science, and high test scores are a good start. There are many students at MIT who had multiple 800’s on various SAT tests.
Personally I would take only as many APs as you are interested in and as you can do well in. However, since I attended a high school that did not offer AP classes, this didn’t apply to me. Freshman calculus was a relatively small class since there were so many other freshmen who had AP’d out of it.
There is one thing that I did which probably helped me but which is not so obvious: In high school I never thought for one minute about what I needed to do to get into MIT. I participated in extracurricular activities that I wanted to participate in. The result is that I did very well in my extracurriculars with multiple awards. Most of them (Sailing, Skiing) were not at all obvious ones for a potential high tech major.
Also, I had a safety that I liked a lot. Anyone who applies to MIT needs a solid safety as well.
The other thing that I can suggest to high school students thinking about MIT: You really need to make sure that is it a place that you would actually want to attend. It is very academically demanding and requires a lot of work. I have heard a few high schools students offer the opinion that if they attend a highly ranked school then they will be pretty much set for life. Reality is more like if you attend a highly ranked school then you will be required to work very hard for four years just to survive. Obviously MIT admissions is pretty good at selecting incoming freshmen who are very likely to survive it for four years, but none of them are going to find it easy.
MIT admissions has changed completely from the 1970s and 1980s. Today, a full 20% of students are first generation college students and about 25% of students hail from California. The campus is more diverse and 49% girls. If
you fall into any of those categories your chances May go up. Just don’t over focus on MIT and Harvard, find a variety of programs that may suit you.
Also getting 800s on both the Math 2 SAT subject and the Physics SAT subject now pretty common, so that will not get you into MIT, but may help a lot at a variety of other schools, and MIT does require the tests, so take them. (any science test, but physics seems to be the easiest for those that have had physics).
Think about taking the AMC 10 and AMC 12 math exams. Not required, but may be helpful for admissions to a variety of colleges. Carnegie Mellon even has a box for those scores!
A strong curriculum helps, you seem to have that nailed. What you do in the summers will determine a lot about what you learn, and where you get into college. Find something you love to do, try to learn more in the summers about topics of interest and get new experiences over the summers, whether that be debate, music, science or horseback riding. MIT does not care what you do as much as they care how deeply you delve into your interests.
There are a fair number of unemployed MIT and Harvard graduates, its not a recipe for being set for life. But it does
allow you to jump around to new careers more easily than some other educations, ,as you will learn how to solve tough problems, and learn to be flexible.
lol