chances for ea

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

<p>i already posted this in the chances thread and didn't get much response, but i wanted to see my chances for MIT alone since i'll be applying ea</p>

<p>c/p - ok this is basically my final chances thread..</p>

<p>State: OH
School: Public
Race: Asian (boo)</p>

<p>Class Rank: 1/306
GPA W: 4.76
GPA UW: 4?</p>

<p>AP's taken: AP American History (5), AP Calculus AB (5), AP Biology (5)
AP's currently taking: AP Lit & Comp, AP American Government, AP Chemistry
(basically all the AP's my school has to offer)</p>

<p>PSAT: 232 (80 M 78 W 74 R) - national merit semifinalist
SAT I: 2370 (800 M 800 W 770 R)
SAT II US History: 760
SAT II Bio M: 780
SAT II Math II: 800
Taking SAT II Chem in October</p>

<p>Senior Year classes:
Honors Physics
AP Chem
French Conversation (Honors)
AP Government
Orchestra (Honors)
AP Lit & Comp
Science Research IV (Honors)</p>

<p>EC'S (in order of importance):
Science Research - 2 independent research projects, one about high fat and cancer, the other about designing a possible antibiotic, that i will be submitting to Siemens and ISEF... won various awards and scholarships at regional and state science fairs</p>

<p>Science Olympiad (3 years) - awards at regionals and states... our advisor doesn't let anyone have officer positions</p>

<p>Orchestra (4 years) - school, regional, chinese, international, you name it... concertmaster and president</p>

<p>Speech & Debate (3 years) - public forum, just some awards at regional tournaments</p>

<p>Interact (3 years) - calling committee member, 250+ volunteer hours</p>

<p>NHS (2 years) - we don't really do much lol.. except tutor?</p>

<p>French Club (3 years)</p>

<p>Senate (1 year) - student government commissioner</p>

<p>Other:
math competitions like the AMC 12/AIME, OCTM, GTCTM</p>

<p>summer internship at a research lab in the Medical University of Ohio</p>

<p>Recs:
1 will probably be very good, from science research teacher, i also teacher-aided for her (she's also Duke alum), for all schools</p>

<p>for the schools where i need one math/science, and one humanities/social studies, i'm asking my french teacher of 3 years for the 2nd rec, she knows me pretty well</p>

<p>for the schools where i can use any 2 recs, i'll probably ask my AP calc teacher for the 2nd rec, good/very good</p>

<p>i also think i'm getting a supplemental rec from my internship mentor (Stanford alum...)</p>

<p>Essays:
i'm a workin' on them...</p>

<p>Schools:
Reaches:
MIT (early action)
Harvard
UPenn
Stanford
Caltech
Columbia</p>

<p>Semi-Reaches:
Duke
UChicago
Cornell
Johns Hopkins</p>

<p>Matches?:
Northwestern
UMich</p>

<p>Safety:
Ohio State University</p>

<p>oh yes and i want to major in biochemistry</p>

2

<p>UMich as a match? Come on.</p>

<p>Your matches are more like: Columbia, UPenn, Duke and probably Caltech.</p>

<p>Your chances:
MIT (early action): 20% accepted, 80% deferred.
Harvard: 20% accepted
UPenn: 70% accepted (95% accepted if ED)
Stanford: 20% accepted
Caltech: 60% accepted (Caltech probably wouldn't care you've no EC sports.)
Columbia: 70% accepted</p>

<p>Duke: 70% accepted
UChicago: 80% accepted
Cornell: 95% accepted
Johns Hopkins: 99% accepted</p>

<p>Northwestern: 80% accepted</p>

<p>UMich: 99.9% accepted, with some merit-based scholarship</p>

<p>Ohio State University: 100% accepted, with handsome merit-based scholarship</p>

3

<p>Percentages are useless. 99% at JHU? Cmon now. I had scores very similar to OP's and I was waitlisted at JHU.</p>

4

<p>Telling anyone that they're a shoe-in at Johns Hopkins, or that they have more than a 50% chance of being admitted to Caltech, strikes me as ill-advised, and the problem with giving percentages is that it makes them sound more solid than the educated guesses they are.</p>

<p>To the OP: You have fine stats, a strong course schedule. Your research shows good initiative and creativity, and your orchestra activity shows discipline. Bonus points if you can illustrate in your app how they, or any other activity you did, taught you patience and resilience. You look like a very strong candidate and will likely have a better-than-average-for-the-school chance anywhere you apply, but with the most selective schools there will be a lot of luck involved in the end.</p>

<p>Because the rest of your app is strong, good essays will be key. They could still break you if you mess them up badly enough.</p>

<p>Don't forget, with MIT EA, that a large number of deferred applicants are admitted regular action. Sometimes there are people who are deferred whom MIT will almost certainly take later, but MIT has a cap for what percentage of its admittees can be admitted EA. If you do not get in EA, do not give up hope.</p>

5

<p>Well, I am being realistic here. Let's take a look at OP's stats.
Academically, he is top 0.3% at his HS and top 0.1% nationally. - His SAT I score is among the top 1,060 scores out of 1,491,749. (<a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/composite_CR_M_W_percentile_ranks.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/composite_CR_M_W_percentile_ranks.pdf&lt;/a&gt;) If the world was an academic meritocracy, he could go anywhere he wanted. And His ECs show his passions and consistency. </p>

<p>As far as JHU, I did leave him 1% chance for making a glaring mistake on his app. For 2006, JHU admitted 3,698 out of 13,863 applicants and enrolled 1,160 for a yield of 27%. Now you tell me JHU isn't a shoe-in?</p>

<p>So here's to the OP: write solid essays and present the real you. You'll be proud of yourself next April. And come back here to tell us the results.
Best of luck still!</p>

6

<p>JHU isn't a shoe-in.</p>

<p>I'm an alumni interviewer for JHU and I've interviewed students with similar scores and ECs who were not admitted. </p>

<p>But since the OP asked for "chances for MIT alone", there's not really much point in our debating his chances at the other schools on his list. (And since I don't do chances threads, I'll wish you best of luck with your applications!)</p>

7

<p>pwafflesprinkles, I feel that you are qualified for MIT. But realize, for every 7 or 8 qualified applicants, only 1 will be admitted. So, something has to make the accepted student stand out in a unique way among this amazing applicant pool. And also, much has been said about how MIT is looking for certain traits to fit MIT that are not shown by grades and scores. One thing you should do is plan on doing an MIT Interview (this will be done locally by an alum). It is very difficult to be admitted EA to MIT IMO, but about 80% of the EA applicants will be deferred into RD and treated equally with all RD applicants. Also, follow all of MIT's unique application rules: teacher recommendation forms, essays, SATII's, etc.</p>

<p>I also feel you already have a very good handle on your chances to your college list. To me MIT2011Dad's advice, while interesting, is fraught with danger. These days no one is a match at any Ivy, Stanford, or MIT. Admissions is that competitive. For schools using ED, I do believe admissions chances are higher when declaring an ED application.</p>

8

<p>This is turning interesting. Maybe JHU is attempting to improve its 27% yield by rejecting high scoring academic outliers? Because they are nerds or otherwise?</p>

<p>To the OP (who appears to be a perfect, normal student): You'd be prudent to listen to the others in this thread, unless you move to the Dakotas. And please aim high, prepare for and do well in your interviews (by telling the interviewer that you are "normal" and love the college, etc.) and write solid essays.</p>

9

<p>wow thanks to everyone who posted on this thread! i do agree that essays and interviews are very important so i'm definitely going to work hard on those</p>

<p>while these chance evaluations are more positive than i expected, i'd rather not get my hopes up too much lol</p>

<p>p.s. i forgot to mention, i'm a girl :P</p>

10

<p>Congratulations... I think you've just improved your odds by ca. 3 folds at MIT (Am I talking a 60% chance, ill-advised or not!). So EA looks increasingly promising. You'd love it at MIT.</p>

11

<p><a href="mootmom:">quote</a></p>

<p>JHU isn't a shoe-in.</p>

<p>I'm an alumni interviewer for JHU and I've interviewed students with similar scores and ECs who were not admitted.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>OP is statistically at the top of JHU applicant pool, and also high in its subpools of applicants who are Asian, female, or both. Unlike your interviewees in "Bay Area, CA", she is from a geographic region that does not present a disproportionate number of highly qualified applicants, certainly no disproportion of Asian applicants, and is probably from a high school for which she is atypically good. I don't know if PSAT scores are reported on the application, but combined with the other information, they show her as a likely candidate for National Merit scholarship, something that JHU may care about much more than the top 6 schools. Taken together it sounds like a lock for admission unless JHU practices yield management. Do they?</p>

12

<p>OP is among the top applicants for any school beyond HYPSMC, anywhere in the nation. Bay Area/Cal isn't that untouchable. In fact its PSAT cutoffs are quite mediocre nationally. Instead of practicing yield control, colleges such as Penn, Columbia, Brown and so on could entice their top admits with merit based scholarships, etc. to win the yield battle. Yield management by waitlisting/rejecting just appears sad for the school... - I am not suggesting the named schools practice it.</p>

13

<p>mit2011dad...readjust for a 24% admission rate. that is the rate for 2007 admits. 27% was for 2006.</p>

<p>Also, with regard to your theory about JHU perhaps rejecting kids with high stats...don't thinks so; my son scored a 1500 and was accepted.</p>

14

<p>I was referring to JHU's yield. Actually it was around 31% in 2006, which was on par with some top LACs.</p>

<p>OP's SAT score of 2370 is equivalent to 1580 on the pre-2006 SAT scale. The score would place her in the top applicant pool for JHU based on JHU's statistical data. I was arguing that she would be a lock for JHU based on her academic merit (the very top ranking at her HS and top 0.07% nationally) + her ECs. Actually I believe she is qualified for any college in the nation. I didn't intend to propose a theory, nor will I ever, since I am no expert in undergraduate admission.</p>

15

<p>Just a quick comment about JHU (sorry for derailing the thread) - they have outstanding, prestigious bio/biomedical programs. As a result, I would expect them to get large numbers of top applicants who want to do bio-related stuff, more than their departments have the resources to handle. So it wouldn't surprise me if it were harder to get into JHU as a bio-related applicant than as an applicant interested in any other field.</p>

<p>Back on topic: OP, all that you have said indicates that you are an excellent applicant pending good essays and interviews, and I would say you have as good a chance at MIT as can reasonably be expected (MIT EA is fluky enough that I don't really want to touch that, except to say not to think you don't have a shot if you get deferred). You've shortened your odds for the crap shoot as much as possible, and hopefully you'll come out on top.</p>

16

<p>


</p>

<p>If MIT2011Dad is implying that those schools offer merit aid, he is misinformed. No school in the Ivy League offers merit scholarships. FYI Stanford, MIT, and Northwestern don't either.</p>

17

<p>Well that's a problem for them. And, no, I wasn't implying. I knew the "lower ivies" didn't offer merit scholarships and that they had lost most cross admits to HYPSM. There is probably some kind of agreement among Ivy schools (and others including MIT?) on that policy, which would be unAmerican, wouldn't it?</p>

18

<p>Continuing the analysis of JHU, it does sponsor National Merit scholarships, and the OP is deep into the PSAT + SAT + GPA range at which a NMS award is likely. If California or the Bay Area (aren't the cutoffs statewide?) has low PSAT ranges as stated above, that would further improve the odds. JHU gives merit awards and cares about NMS specifically. The OP sounds like a lock for admission there, and since the JHU interviewer said otherwise, it would be interesting to hear her take on what kind of students with similar profile have been rejected.</p>

19

<p>Also interesting are the stories of HYP etc. rejecting those who scored 2400 on SAT I. There are just 269 of such students from the HS class of 2007 in the freaky entire nation (or the whole world?). - It's easy to understand why MIT rejects many perfect scorers in SAT Math because there are about 10,000 of those every year. (<a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/SAT_percentile_ranks_males_females_total_group_mathematics.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/SAT_percentile_ranks_males_females_total_group_mathematics.pdf&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p>

<p>Since I am a believer in a strong correlation between SAT scores and overall performance by a student, I wonder how true the stories were and why those students were rejected.</p>

20

<p>MIT2011Dad: First of all, I'm curious as to why you believe there's a strong correlation. The studies I've seen go both ways.</p>

<p>As to your question...SAT I score alone isn't all that useful without the rest of an application. For instance, there are plenty of kids with very good SAT scores who don't have good high school grades, whether because of poor work ethic or something else. Also, college admissions at top schools are not simply straight up stats-ocracies (which seems to be to be a more accurate term than "meritocracy", as stats are not the only indicator of academic merit). MIT Admissions is not a stats-ocracy. A kid with perfect scores whose application (through recs, essays, etc) indicates that they are emotionally unable to handle setbacks is unlikely to be admitted. A kid with perfect scores whose application indicates that they are lazy is unlikely to be admitted. A kid who has very high but not perfect scores who has won scientific research awards, worked as an intern at a mechanical engineering firm since they were 15, or made major contributions to an Open Source software project, probably gets the edge over a kid with perfect scores but nothing else to recommend them academically.</p>