Intended Major: Biology or Genetics or Biochemistry
ACT: 36
GPA: Somewhere in the top 5-10% in my class
Coursework: Pretty much the hardest classes my school offers (Advanced Bio, Molecular Genetics, Machine Learning, Organic Chemistry, Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra)
I am going to do an internship with a U.S. Senator in the spring term of my senior year. This will be on my transcript.
AP scores: BC Calc: 5; Biology: 5 (My school is not an AP school so most people don’t take APs)
Extracurriculars:
Captain of Varsity Tennis Team for two years; nationally ranked
Head of two community service clubs on campus
Head Peer Tutor
Dormitory Proctor
Senior Class Secretary
School’s STEM Magazine Online Director
Concert Choir
School Participatory Action Research Collaborative
Independent biochemistry research project outside of school w/Professor (not published yet)
Tennis Coaching/ Math and English Tutoring outside for money
Essays: Haven’t written anything yet, working on it
LORs:
My bio teacher and my English teacher. Both know me very well and like me. I worked on some genetics research with my biology teacher, and I’ve performed extremely well in my English class.
Targets: Georgetown, BU, Case Western, Northeastern
Safeties: State Flagship
I really like MIT, but I also know the college admissions have been really tough these past few years. I want to maximize my chances of getting into a school at the top of my list. I am thinking about applying somewhere ED and also MIT EA, but I’m not sure. I’ll take suggestions for schools to add to the list too. I mostly want to stay on the east coast close to NYC.
At a school like yours your counselor will know much more than anyone here as I am sure they know well where the seniors with different levels of credentials land. For higher chance you could ED Columbia or Penn both of which strongly favor ED applicants.
I love an easy one right out of the gate on a Sunday morning!
Which one matters to you more? Not asking for you to tell us- looking for you to take a hard look at yourself. Bluntly: is getting into UPenn worth giving up an acceptance to MIT? ED only if you have one place that you will cheerfully jettison every other acceptance you could get- so only where you really want to go.
Given the kind of school you are in, and your level of achievement within that school, I can take a decent guess at how important the name of where you get admitted will be over the next 10 months. Here’s the thing: next May you will graduate, and the weight of that name will drop by hugely. Come August/September you will roll up to your new home and face the reality that you are going to live there, that those people will be your people for the next four years- whether that school was your 1st choice or your 5th choice or your last choice.
ps, how much time have you spent at MIT? It is a really strong ‘fit’ school- it suits you down to the ground, or it really, really doesn’t. Most of the students that I meet who are really excited about MIT have never been there and/or never met current students. If you haven’t had direct experience, get it.
pps, really Columbia and Brown? Have you read this page: The Core Curriculum
and clicked through to all the links?
This isn’t completely true is it? My understanding is that a coach’s letter at MIT has pull and the admission rate for those kids is a (relatively) stratospheric 50%. Having said that, it is true that it is far from a guarantee and I have seen recruited extremely qualified kids get rejected from MIT (and have seen qualified kids get in where it seems clear that it is the coach’s support that made the difference).
Yeah, it’s pretty true, and the coach should be forthright with the applicant. And they usually are.
Is it a blanket statement? Probably not. There may be some MIT coaches that do have a bit of pull. Even then, it’s nowhere near the level of coaches at that place up Mass Ave or the ones across the river.
The plural of anecdote is not data. Without seeing the entire application and being an MIT AO, nobody can say why someone was admitted.
True but there are school specific patterns that aren’t hard to discern and plenty of times even the parents freely admit this is what got their kid in… Having said that, agreed, coach support at MIT is nowhere near the guarantee of admission that recruitment is at the other selective schools. The 50% number came from coaches and is certainly a huge difference from the chances of an unhooked qualified kid otherwise.
If you are nationally ranked as a tennis player and are recruitable by MIT, have you contacted the coaches at HYPS? Those 4 schools are all REA so if you are trying maximize the probability of getting accepted into a reach, a recruited athlete at one of those is more than 90% assured of admissions, and you will have preserved your option of applying to MIT and the others RD.
I do think you need to take a harder look at what school fits you better. The reaches you list offer very different experiences.
Right now every school on the list is a reach school except your flagship. If we play the odds, you’re either going to get rejected or lowballed on financial aid from every one of them except for the flagship. For a flagship, how competitive is the major you’re trying to get into? It may not be a safety.
My suggestion, I would advise adding more target and safety schools that you know you can afford. The last thing you want is a list of acceptances of schools you can’t afford, or a flagship that rejects you for the major you want.
Without seeing the entire application and being an MIT AO, nobody can say why someone was admitted.