Hi! I’m a junior and I’m very interested in the possibility of attending MIT because it has a competitive d3 collegiate program for the sport I play and I love math and science, however I’ve heard that sports don’t have as big of a pull in admissions at MIT as at other colleges.
I just got my ACT scores back and I scored a 33 Composite, 33 English, 35 Math, 32 Reading, and 33 Science.
I got an 800 on the Math II subject test and plan on taking the physics subject test this spring as well as the AP BC Calculus, AP Lit and AP Physics 1 exam. I go to boarding school and have a lot of extracurriculars so my GPA isn’t amazing but its around a 3.7.
Do you think I’d have a good shot at getting into MIT with these scores? I have a lot of leadership positions and I also am an avid filmmaker, however I haven’t won any math/science related awards or anything. Should I take the ACT again? I’ve done the math and I’d need to get one more point on any of the subscores to get a 34. Does that one point really matter? I feel like it does at a competitive place like MIT.
If anyone could offer their thoughts that would be great.
Have you won any awards as an athlete in your sport? Despite being division 3 it can still be tough to be deemed good enough at your sport to be recruited by MIT. Also, MIT may not feel as though you could handle their academics along with a sport as your gpa is a little on the low side. Definetly try to bring that up. Best of luck!
First thing to do is get in contact with the MIT coach for your respective sport. Even better, would be for your current HS coach to have an initial conversation and/or letter of introduction (including a highlight tape) to the respective coach.
And yes, it can be a hook that in an uber competitive environment gets you in the door. My D is at an IVY and had a ACT one point below you, and she was was a recruited athlete. She actually got into two Ivy schools.
@jvapor12 Yes, I’ve been named an all-star in my region and I am the captain of my team. I’ve been in contact with the coach for a while, and I’ve been to camps at top d3 schools for my sport and they all have expressed interest in me.
My gpa isn’t a 4.0 but that is partly because I go to a really competitive prep school. Grade deflation is a prominent thing here. I’m also not a natural genius like many MIT students might be… I have to work hard but I get it done and I think the hard work is worth it.
Contact the MIT coach and start preparing your MIT application for this Fall, but with a 3.7 GPA, I don’t think you’re going to get too strong of a response, even if you are a shoo-in for the team.
A girl from my daughter’s class was a recruited athlete (volleyball) for MIT last year. She was a good student, maybe top 20 in the class, but not Val or Sal, and I doubt she had a perfect score because I think we would have heard of it. I also don’t think she was NMF. So, does being a athlete help? Yes. Do you still need really top grades? Yes.
Ok it sounds like you should be good in terms of getting recruited but they have athletes of your caliber also applying who have near perfect gpas so to really boost your chances increasing your gpa is vital. I know they may understand that it is difficult at your school and you took rigorous classes, but keep in mind that MIT is also a rigorous school and want applicants that can handle their workload, especially if that student will be playing a sport on top of everything.
In this case, I would imagine that MIT would know this boarding school and that a 3.7 there might easily be a 4.0 at other schools. I would not focus exclusively on that number.
One of my son’s best friends is a recruited athlete at MIT. Your academics are good enough. For you at this point it’s all about the sports. As has been recommended above, be and stay in contact with the coach of your sport. He will hopefully make it clear if he wants you or not. If he does, he’ll guide you through the rest of the admissions process.
MIT is really competitive in a number of D3 sports. They definitely recruit. Best of luck.
like $asleepatthewheel, one of my son’s friends is a recruited athlete (Men’s crew) headed to MIT next year. As far as state I am pretty sure he got a 34 on the ACT, GPA is hard to compare because he is an IB kid and the scale for those classes is different. I know some other boys who have been recruited for football and basketball over the last two years. As far as I know, if your sport is one MIT actually cares about (crew in particular) and the coach wants you, his support can help get you over the line with admissions. If it is a sport the school doesn’t care about, not so much. It used to be widely believed that MIT didn’t care a whit about football, although I hear that is changing a bit over these last few years and maybe that coach has some juice now as well.
Son’s former club coach was a MIT coach for a while, and he seemed to suggest that he had a fair amount of pull in bringing in recruits. No one from the club went there, so not sure how accurate that was.
While we’re on the topic, when I was in college (a very long time ago) there was a basketball game where BC was kicking the snot out of MIT, and the MIT side was cheering:
“That’s all right. That’s OK.
You’ll be working for me someday!”
Hi there, I’m also a junior in high school, recently committed to play baseball at MIT. Sports at MIT are no joke (I turned down many many D1 schools, including Harvard and Notre Dame), so you still have to be rather good at your respective sport. The weight of the sport can be dependent on the type of sport. For example, football may carry more weight than, say, squash. Your scores are great and all, but definitely not enough to get into MIT on their own right.
From what I’ve heard from the head coach in my case, sports hold roughly the same weight as a decently significant extracurricular, but will not allow for admission on their own.
If the coach is truly interested, he/she will make it rather clear.
This is different from the way things go, according to my experience. Maybe things have changed.
If the recruiting coordinator in the case of baseball (not the head coach) is interested he will tell you that your application will be “highlighted” when it goes to Admissions. If the recruit is interested in MIT he will not “commit”…because there is nothing to commit to…instead he will tell the recruiting coordinator he will apply EA. Depending on the recruit’s personal risk tolerance this may or may not be at the exclusion of other applications.
Anyway, that’s the way it used to be.
@fenwaypark – that’s an important piece to add. And it’s also important to remember that it’s EA, not ED. So it’s not binding. Of course the downside is that it precludes applying to any of the SCEA schools.
Is baseball an ncaa sport?
How can a high school junior make a binding commitment?
Oh, superdomestique, children as young as 8th grade are making ‘commitments’ to D1 and D2 schools; there really is no ‘commitment’ to a D3 school as far as the sport goes. These ‘commitments’ are not binding on either side and probably more than half go by the wayside before the student signs the NLI or is admitted to the school.
It is not just the student who wants this. The athletic departments are listing these students as ‘committed’ long before the NLI. Even the Ivies. Several Ivies already have 2016 commits posted in my daughter’s sport. They assume the grades and scores will be okay. I do know several who committed to BC, Army, Air Force, and other schools as sophomores, and they did go to those schools.
I am pretty sure the NCAA prohibits identifying a recruit as committed until after the appropriate signing date. Other people may be posting that certain kids have committed here or there, but at least in Men’s sports, I think even talking about a specific recruit is a violation
On that list parents, coaches or the school can post that they are committed, but in the cases I’m thinking of (Yale and Brown) the posting is clearly done by the school because the kids are all from different high schools but their posting numbers are all in a row (done at the same time) so they had to have been done by the school. The coach at my daughter’s school doesn’t post until after signing. I posted my daughter’s a few weeks before the signing day so her number is isolated, but other are clearly done by the schools. I’ve seen pictures of Yale rowers who announced commitments before admissions were announced, with the coaches in the pictures.