<p>Well, if people from your school with records like yours have gotten in and done well there, I guess you have an honest shot.</p>
<p>Well im goign to improve on the verbal, took a practice and got almost a 700</p>
<p>would you believe be if i knew someone who got in w/ a 480 from my school?</p>
<p>well if that's the case, I'll break with the Board and say you got a solid shot if these people from your school are holding their own there. They seemingly like your school to fill the Studs Terkel quota</p>
<p>Sounds good and now i have a different question</p>
<p>they say that the two most important things are secondary school record and character/personal quality. How do they determine your character/personal quality and what is the definition of secondary school record?</p>
<p>1.They read your Application
2. Your High School record</p>
<p>As far as the SAT thing goes, it's more important to have a good math score than verbal score -- if your math score is good, they're probably not going to care a great deal about verbal. But it's true that SAT scores just aren't the most important factor (haha, I got in with a 690M SAT I).</p>
<p>Areas in the application that show "personal qualities" include your ECs (since there are only room for 5, the ones you pick tend to say a lot about your priorities/passions), your essay, your short answer questions (one of them is "Tell us something you do in your free time"), and your interview.</p>
<p>Your teacher rec's will also speak to your personal qualities and characters. When you as for recs, mention this to the teachers as nicely as you can. If they can include a little vignette in the teacher showing what sort of person you are, it will distinguish you from the herd of other really smart kids that are applying to MIT.</p>
<p>I followed the MIT/Caltech results in April (just out of curiousity - my son didn't apply to either). I was surprised that there were not more cross admits. MIT wanted excellent stats - and a spark of some sort. Caltech seemed to demand a higher level of perfection academically. </p>
<p>For MIT to see that spark, you have to communicate it in your words as well, as mollieatmit has noted. Start the essays early - you don't want them to be rushed or poorly thought-out.</p>
<p>molliebatmit ~~
what did you write about on the free time section,,
i dont get it..
im also trying to apply to MIT ED..</p>
<p>Haha, I don't remember. It may not even have been on the application when I applied (I'm a senior at MIT this year... college applications were many moons ago for me).</p>
<p>They really do want you to be honest about what you do in your free time -- it doesn't have to be something like "trying to cure cancer" or "working toward world peace". (Matt McGann talks about how one of his favorite admits wrote that he(/she? can't remember) liked to daydream in his free time.)</p>
<p>think you have a decent chance</p>