GPA: 3.96 UW, 4.4 W
Class Rank: top 3% of about 500 students
SAT: 1490 superscored (yea I know not the best)
Subject Math Lvl. 2: 780 (yea I know not the best)
Subject Chem: 790
AP Chemistry: 5
AP World: 5
AP U.S Hist: 5
AP Lang: 4
AP Physics 1: 4
Current APs taking: Calc BC, Bio, Physics C, English Literature, Stats, U.S Government
Low-income East Asian male from Southern California
ECs:
5 summers internship where I worked at a pharmacy doing everything except working with patients
Laboratory research internship at local university, focused on materials science/chemistry in a field that was only created about 30 years ago, still working with an assigned graduate student on the weekends even during school
Band all high school years, a very big time investment, especially now because our district is going to be marching in the 2020 Rose Parade (this Jan. 1st!)
3 years in STEM competition club where I won a couple of awards at local competitions
Founded video game club and working as technical manager for school multiplayer server
Leadership position in club which reviews and helps other seniors and juniors with college essays and scholarship opportunities, etc.
Personal programming projects with Python and the Raspberry Pi platform, because my school doesn't have programs or connections to free-ended robotics/programming events/competitions and I want to do some cool robotics, I try to learn Python though the internet and other resources for about 2 years
Attempting to gather a group of friends to join Intel STS fair and other competitions
Minor time spent in community service club
NOTE: I wasn’t able to fit all of these things into my application, so would I be able to talk about these things with my interviewer?
Rec Letters (they all have excellent things to talk about me):
English teacher
Physics teacher (class I’m particularly known to be the de facto teacher in)
Research professor (she even told me I work harder than some of her students!)
You have pretty good stats but a major factor is how you portray your character in your essays. If you’re able to show through all your experiences the type of person you are then you will have a good chance for MIT.
According to MIT’s stats, only 1% of all applicants who got less than 750 on the math section of their SATs were accepted, and, if your highest score was at least 750 on the math section, that would mean that your highest ERW score was 740, of which 6% were accepted.
Overall, early applicants had about a 50% higher chance of admissions than the average acceptance rate.
Your ECs seem very good, and demonstrate consistency and perseverance, which is often seen as better than awards. Congratulations at being chosen to perform at the Rose Parade, BTW!
Most colleges only want LoRs from teachers and your GC, so unfortunately, the professor for whom you worked will not be providing one.
It would likely be a high reach, but not an impossible reach. If MIT is your favorite college, than you should apply.
That being said, if you have a college which you like as well, but for which published ED/REA acceptance rates are generally above 20%, I would apply there instead. There are many amazing colleges at which your SAT scores would put you, at very least, in the mid 50%, and your academics would be in the top 25%.
As of now, I wish to work in Chemistry, however I know that I have an entire year to finally decide what I want to do.
I forgot to mention that my guidance counselor also wrote me a rec letter.
I focused most of my essays on portraying who I am, an inquisitively-minded student who won’t let failure or disadvantages drag me down, genuinely enjoys academics (I can literally chat on for hours with people about math, science, or history) as well as video games, and who is still slowing building in the process of trying to become outgoing and extroverted.
MWolf’s advice is on target. If you want it, go for it, but add some top quality universities to your list. One’s that you can get excited about! They are out there!!