Chance me for MIT

I just got my SAT back and people are telling me to apply to MIT. What are my chances?

GPA: 4.0 (UW) 4.52(W)
SAT: 1540 (800 M, 740 R)
AP Classes: AP Psych, AP Chemistry, AP Calc AB/BC, AP English, AP US History, AP Physics I, AP Computer Science, AP Earth Science, AP Physics 2, AP Physics C, AP Stats

ECS/Leadership:
DECA (9-12) - –
TSA (11-12) - –
LaunchX (Business Club) (11-12) - Webmaster (11), VP of Marketing (12), Team Leader (11)
Club that works with Nigerian Small Businesses (11-12) - Education Chair (11), Special Projects/Funding Chair (12)
NHS (11-12) - OOS Committee (11), Membership Committee? (TBD)
Innovation Club (11-12) - Vice President (11), President? (TBD)
Cross Country (9-11) - –
Track (9-10) - Captain of B Team for Sprints
Interned at two companies over summer and presented my experience with school leaders (11-12)

Awards: Lots of DECA State Awards, 5th Place at DECA Nationals (11), 1st Place in TSA States (11), A Honor Roll every Quarter, AP Scholar w/ Distinction.

Thanks. Let me know if I should even bother applying.

I’d also be applying to their engineering and/or business school

So, first things first: do some more homework- you don’t know enough about MIT to know if it’s the right place for you if you don’t know that you don’t apply to “their engineering and/or business school”.

Figure out what you want from college first, then find places where you are likely to find it.

I’ve done research and all I really care about from a school is a good program, decent financial aid, and opportunities. I know that MIT"s business and engineering school is #2 and 1 respectively. And most students pay 23k after financial aid. I’m just asking for a chance. Doesn’t mean I’m appying.

MIT requires 2 subject tests, one math and one science. Have you taken those?

I’ve taken Chem (740) and i’ll be taking Math 2 in october

“most students pay 23k after financial aid”

That might be the average. However, most students don’t pay that much. Most students pay somewhere between $0 and $70,250. MIT has pretty good need based financial aid. MIT does not have any merit based financial aid.

“a good program”

MIT is academically very challenging. It is a huge step up from high school in terms of how hard it is, how rapidly the academics are covered in class, how much homework you need to do, and how hard the tests are. If you go there, expect to work very hard for the full four years without much of a break. Studying at MIT has been compared to drinking water from a fire hose.

For MIT you need to be academically very strong. Your stats suggest that you are. You also need to want to do it. No one except you can say whether you want to do it.

There are a lot of universities, including MIT and perhaps a few thousand other schools, who have excellent professors who know their stuff. A big difference at MIT and a few other top schools is that the professors assume that you will be able to keep up even if they go very fast.

Your stats are excellent. MIT is a reach, but your stats do give you a chance to get accepted.

Thanks for the response! @DadTwoGirls

standard response:

http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/no_chance
http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways

Thanks for the articles. However, I do respectfully disagree with you to an extent. I don’t think CC is a bad thing as long as you base your decisions on yourself not others. Hearing another’s opinion is not a bad thing. The second article just furthers the view that top schools accept students based on luck rather than skill.

That’s just my opinion. Thanks for your view.

You probably already know that your stats put you in the running. Whether you have any of the other things that MIT Or any of the tippy top schools want is another matter. There are hundreds of threads here talking about the “extra” that top schools are looking for. If you have some hooks, that helps — URM, legacy, first gen, etc. You have some potentially interesting things in your background but whether or not you turn it into a powerful application is completely up to you. In essence, you have the numbers to open the door, but so do thousands upon thousands of others. You know the math. You know the percentage of acceptances. Put together the best application you can and make sure you have real safety schools on your list.

@student19234, you ask for chances on admission to MIT, then dis an MIT rep?

More importantly, you entirely misread the Applying Sideways post if you see it as saying that MIT accepts based on luck > skill.

You can disagree all you want. I’ll reformat a different post I’ve made.

If there’s one concept for all universities, it’s fit. Every school has a different fit. Some of that fit is a bit vague/nebulous.

For some colleges, part of the fit is academic. If we’re talking say Duke, the Ivies, UChicago, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, superlative academics are required, evidenced in grades [transcript], high school report, recommendations. standardized test scores. Some of these schools publish this information on their Common Data Set. Some of these schools will emphasize “being great at multiple subjects” or “being great in STEM subjects.” Some of them will say something like 95% of admits were in the top 10% of their graduating class or 90% of admits were in the top 5% of their graduating class.

You can also think about it in terms of core or general requirements. Does MIT have a humanities requirement? Does MIT require a non-STEM/Humanities teacher to write a recommendation? Why do you think that is?

If you don’t make the academic cut for many colleges, your chances aren’t 2% or 3.5% or 8% or 7%. Your chances are exactly zero. Unfortunately “academic cut” does not reduce down to a cutoff for GPA because of many complicating factors. Some schools have grade inflation. Some schools have different weightings for honors and AP classes. Some schools have different distributions for different grades. I’ve found school systems with up to 6.3 GPA (A+) in certain types of classes, so trying to compare this with a 4.0 unweighted scale is apples and oranges.

Some of the fit depends on that specific college, e.g., “you want a program specializing in backstage drama productions” or “you know you want to specialize in whatever engineering” or “you already know X ancient and modern languages so you want to specialize in medieval literature.” (If you want to specialize in medieval literature, don’t apply to MIT. Go to Harvard.)

Some of it is based on the culture and values of that school. Many public schools don’t bother with extracurriculars. Private colleges do – so what does that say about what they value? Some colleges are need blind in admissions and some are need aware. Many of the top colleges may want to see that you challenged yourself (given your context), you are a self-starter, you have taught yourself various subjects / topics, you’ve demonstrated leadership in your extracurriculars, etc.

What’s MIT’s culture, do you know? What are the values? (Like do you know the mission of MIT?) What’s the format of the education?

If you want just a generic good education, there are many colleges/universities for that.

There is a bit of a ‘luck component’ in the sense that outside of all the things you can control or have more control over (e.g., essays, scores, grades, whom one selected for recommendations, making sure to engage one’s interviewer), there are a lot of factors outside of one’s control – like how calibrated one’s recommendations are and what they have to say about an applicant’s strengths and weaknesses, high school counselor report, interview notes, who else is applying and their abilities, how previous students from an applicant’s school have fared and their grades, etc.

Even if an applicant thinks her or his recommendations are superlative and say that this applicant is one of the best students in the class, that doesn’t make it a good recommendation for MIT. (There’s a whole page on writing recommendations on MITAdmissions.)

There’s not a magical path or (some set of extracurriculars plus academic achievements) that will get you accepted. There isn’t a cookie cutter person at MIT. (One Harvard grad mentioned to me that applicants these days believe there’s a string of button pushes like in a video that will result in being admitted. Not the case.) That’s the point of Applying Sideways.

@student19234, you are “disagreeing” with a senior admissions officer at MIT about admission to MIT. =D>

I don’t mind the disagreement. It was expressed respectfully. No one should bow before me. I’m a dude, not a god.

Thanks for your responses. And no, I was not dissing him. I was just saying I disagreed with the opinion that chance threads were bad. His articles are well written.

MIT Chris- my daughter and I just came back last night from two days at MIT, and despite what you say, we do bow down before you! Nobody should apply to MIT just because of having the statistics, it is a radically different place than other colleges which will be great for some students and a bad fit for others who still may excel at another world class university. Take the time to explore, internet site content is not reliable enough to form the basis for making a life forming decision (although DadTwoGirls had excellent comments). And you need to sift through the content on this site, there is a lot of unreliable speculation mixed in with great insight. You can be a brilliant 17 YO but having the judgment to separate the wheat from the chaff isn’t easy.