Chance Me - Bad Senior Year Grades (Applied EA to MIT)

Greetings,

My first marking period grades have been really bad. I have a 86 in AP Statistics, 89 in AP Lit & Comp, and 89 in Honors Latin 4 (the rest are in the 90s). If I manage to get high 90s in my second marking period, will that make up for my 1st marking period grades for regular decision Ivy League Universities?

Also, what chance do I have getting in MIT EA if my ACT is 35-36 and my SAT is 1540-1600, according to the stats below?

I’m currently rank #9 out of 577.
My weighted GPA is a 101.66/100.

I have 5s on 4 AP exams:

  • Calculus BC
  • Physics 1
  • Physics C: Mechanics
  • United States History

and I’m taking the following AP exams this year:

  • Statistics
  • MacroEcon
  • MicroEcon
  • Physics 2
  • Physics C: E & M
  • Lit & Comp
  • CompSci A

I took the ACT on Oct 24th, and will take SATs on Nov 7th.
(don’t know scores yet but probably will report them)

Main Awards:

  • Intel ISEF Nominee
  • National History Day 6th place (nationals)
  • National Classical Etymology Exam Gold medal
  • Got in and attended Gov School (engineering and technology)
  • NJIT internship
  • and some minor stuff

4 Main Extracurriculars (that I put down):

  • Captain of Robotics
  • Captain of TSA TEAMS team
  • “CEO” of our Samsung Solve for Tomorrow team (state finalist)
  • Captain of Tennis team

Thank you for your time!

You have a fantastic application. You have exactly what the schools you seek are looking for. Everything you listed is impressive to elite schools (maybe minus your current term grades, but still they are better than you think). With a profile like this, you have a great shot at getting into any of the most selective schools in the world. I see that you haven’t tagged any schools outside of the United States, but there are many outstanding universities that would like to admit a student like yourself.

I appreciate that you may feel uncertain about where you will be next fall, but you should know that someone as incredibly driven and accomplished as yourself will end up somewhere spectacular.

Thanks for the insight, the motivation is nice; though unfortunately I think that almost every other applicant has about the same stats so I don’t much of a chance.

Your username is really peculiar, you didn’t happen to make a separate account to reply here, did you? If you did, that’s very nice of you, thank you for that haha.

I’m afraid you are more accurate than your enthusiastic supporter.

Yes, your profile is very good. It’s certainly enough to get through the rough screen that narrows down the pool. But as you say, at that point there are still 6-8x (or more) as many qualified candidates as positions. Evaluating essays, interviews, match to school needs, is impossible, so it’s hard to predict much more.

You’re in an elite pool with an acceptance rate of maybe 2-3x most applicants. But that’s still 15-25%, I’d guess. An odd position of being more likely than most but statistically unlikely.

On the positive side, most who actually are admitted are in the same position.

If you get strong grades 2nd quarter, yes it can help. But it can still raise questions. At your hs, is an 89 considered an A- (still in Excellent range) or high B?

Our grading system doesn’t use letters, and on our transcript, our guidance counselor said that colleges cannot see the first marking period grades when we apply early.

Our grading is only out of a 100, as it shows up on our mid-year transcript, so that’s all I know, sorry.

Colleges know that an 89 on an honors scale is like an -A. Your app is competitive