Chance me for MIT!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

Title says it all. Formatting is a bit bad tho.

Ethnicity: Asian - Mainland Chinese. Ni Hao!

Major: Physics

I know people who got accepted to MIT EA. I guess that helps?!?!?

Stats:
SAT: 1580 (Not a perfect score. I know. I know)
Subject Tests: Physics, Math II. 800 on both.
GPA: Not a 4.0 (Really bad GPA in my school relatively) [Don’t really want to reveal GPA]
Class Size: ~600
Rank: School does not rank for some reason

APs(Prepare for a lot)[All 5 btw]:
-Calculus AB, BC
-Physics I, II, C(E&M and Mech)
-Computer Science A
-Lang Comp
-WHAP
-APUSH

ECS(Sorry for Formatting. I just copy and pasted):
●Robotics Club (9 th grade – present): Co-President; Competed in the FIRST Robotics Competition.
Organized meetings and managed communication between different subteams within the club in order to
complete a complex robot in 6 weeks. Taught programming to younger members. [Programming Captain in Soph and Junior Year]
● Science Bowl (10 th grade – present): Co-President; Competed in the NJ Science Bowl tournament.
Managed the organization of meetings, communicated with other teams within the area and maintained
the development of apps for the club.
● Science League (10 th grade – present): Co-President; Promoted teamwork and developed a new working
model for the club; 1st Place AP Physics I Individual and helped team win 2nd Place AP Physics I
Team in State
● Science Olympiad (9 th grade – present): Member; 2nd place Coding and Algorithms NJ Regionals
(2015); 4th place Astronomy NJ Regionals ; 2nd Place Regionals Team; 3rd Place
Regionals and States Team
● Math League (9 th grade – 10 th grade): Member; helped the team win 1st Place CJML Team
For these clubs, I pretty much exist and do not compete.
● Physics Club (9 th grade – present): Member.
● Chemistry Club (10 th grade – present): Member.
● Future Business Leaders of America (9 th grade – present): Member.
● French Alliance Club (10 th grade – present): Member.
● Model United Nation (9 th grade – 10 th grade): Member.

Volunteering:
●Volunteering at this place every week. (Consistent, good amount of hours)
●Tutoring in school. (Weekly, 1.5 hours a week about)
●Random Volunteering stuff through Honor Societies(Sporadic)

Sports(Nothing competitive):
●Tennis, recreationally for like 6 years
●Played football freshman year XD

Honors(Here comes the spicy part):
US Physics Team Member

USA Physics Olympiad
●Gold Medalist

●Silver Medalist

USA Physics Olympiad Qualifier: x3
● F=Ma: Scores of 21/25, 19/25 and 24/25
USA Math Olympiad Qualifier:

●AIME Qualifier: x 2
●AMC 12: 132/150 138/150
●Distinguished Honor Roll
US National Chemistry Olympiad Honors:

National Chemistry Olympiad Qualifier:

National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist

Presidential Volunteer Award Silver Medal

National AP Scholar

●AP Scholar with Distinction

●AP Scholar with Honor

Columbia Science Honors Program

Summer Stuff(I have no life):
Rutgers(State College) Classes:

●Calculus I A
●Calculus II A
●General Physics I A
●General Physics II A
●Intro To Linear Algebra A
●Multivariable Calculus A
●Graph Theory A
●Differential Equations A

Please be gentle senpai. And honest. Please be honest.

2

I have no credibility chancing anyone, but GPA really is one of the most important parts of your application so I would think that to get a fair judgement you should reveal it.

3

Your SATs are great, but you are going to need to also have a high GPA, particularly in science and math classes, to have any reasonable chance at MIT.

Given the number of classes that you have taken through Rutgers and done well in, are you applying there also?

4

I forgot to do the SRARS and now its over 2 weeks overdue(their deadline).

5

Also @AnthonyZ I don’t really like sharing my low af GPA. Sorry.

6

GPA and SAT scores are king in admissions.
If you have a low GPA, the adcoms will wonder why your emphasis on your ECs took precedence.

7

If your GPA is >3.87 I’d say you have a pretty good shot, but it’s mit so who knows. Good luck!

8

@“aunt bea” I pretty much was hoping that my ECs could out weigh my GPA.

9

“I pretty much was hoping that my ECs could out weigh my GPA.”

Admissions at the really top schools is a bit of a mystery. However, my understanding is that ECs are how they choose from among the many students with near perfect SATs and near perfect GPA. MIT is going to be a lot more difficult / demanding than high school, so a bad GPA is pretty much a non-starter there.

10

My GPA isn’t in the dumps. It’s just lower than normal. What would you call a bad GPA?

11

“What would you call a bad GPA?”

For MIT, anything that is lower than the top 1% of all students in your high school. Top 2% overall might be okay if you are the top in your school in math and science.

12

What about top 10%? or 5%?

13

Unless you did really poorly in other academic areas, your Physics Olympiad metals would more than compensate for a relatively poor GPA. GPA is the least significant quantitative measure since there’s no uniform standard across HSs. Almost all colleges, MIT included, would construct their own measure by taking into account the rigor of your courses and their grades. The colleges have regional AO whose job is to be able to access the rigor of courses at your HS, among other things (MIT doesn’t have regional AO but I’m sure they have people with similar function). Your test scores (including AP scores) are also used as benchmarks because they don’t suffer from the variability of course grades and GPA.

14

No one can chance you for a school that will reject about 19 of 20 applications.

If you make it to committee, your biggest strength will be your Olympiad stuff. Your biggest weakness will be that you have no life. And maybe your mysterious GPA. But I think they really want to you to have a life.

15

“your biggest weakness will be that you have no life”
lmaooo rip