Chances of getting into MIT

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Objective:</p>

<p>SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay):
1st sitting---640 / 620 / 590
2nd sitting---740 / 560 / 650</p>

<p>SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay):
740 / 620 / 650</p>

<p>ACT (breakdown Composite ===English/Math/Reading/Science/Writing):
1st sitting---28===28 / 31 / 24 / 28 / 10
2nd sitting---29===30 / 33 / 27 / 26 / 8
3rd sitting---29===30 / 30 / 27 / 27 / 6</p>

<p>ACT superscore (breakdown):
30===30 / 33 / 27 / 28 / 10</p>

<p>SAT II (subject, score):
Math 2: 760
Physics: 680
World History: 610</p>

<p>Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0):
3.85</p>

<p>Weighted GPA:
4.2</p>

<p>AP (place score in parentheses):
AP Language and Composition (3)
AP US History (4)
AP World History (3)
AP Physics B (5)
AP Statistics (5)</p>

<p>Senior Year Course Load:
AP Macroeconomics, AP Calculus AB, AP Calculus BC, AP Physics C: Mechanics, AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism, Computer Programming/JAVA, World Literature, Humanities</p>

<p>Number of other applicants in your school: 2</p>

<p>Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): Eagle Scout</p>

<p>Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): Nat'l AP Scholar, </p>

<p>Honor Society's: Beta club, national honor society, national spanish honor society, mu alpha theta math honor society </p>

<p>Subjective:</p>

<p>Extracurriculars: space research program, Boy Scouts, Robotics Team leader & veteran, Math Team leader & veteran, science Olympiad leader & veteran, church youth group
Job/Work Experience: Life guard at Boy Scout camp
Volunteer/Community Service: City Soccer Association- concessions and field setup; Nursing Home help; history museum reanactor; Coca cola space science center tour guide and camp counselor;
Summer Experience: the volunteer work above and living in Nigeria with relatives for some summers</p>

<p>I'm probably forgetting some stuff</p>

<p>Space research program: we launch massive balloons that carry experiments and sensors to the edge of space and go on a chase to find them and analyze the data. We on the payload, we put magnetometers, accelerometer, temperature sensors, UV sensors, infrared sensors, Geiger counters, radios, 3 video cameras, ....We have to put together and program, CAD the designs for the payload on the computer, and we reach out to other schools so they can put experiments on our box, and it's a team of about 10,so it's a lot of work</p>

<p>Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):</p>

<p>Essays:</p>

<p>What You Do For Pleasure: robotics team stuff (6)
Department at MIT: nuclear science (8.5)
Trait Most Proud Of: good teacher/ relayer of knowledge (8.5)
World You Come From: immigrant parents from a poor country (with energy/power problems) which inspired me to to nuclear science (9)
Significant Challenge: teaching nuclear science to Boy Scout troop (getting others to know about what i love) (8)
Additional Essay/QB Essays: wrote about research with the school and city space program
Other (teacher's subject, 1-10 rating, details):</p>

<p>Teacher Recommendation #1: (10). Space Research sponsor, AP Physics teacher, and robotics sponsor; I've had him everyday for two years and he is obsessed with MIT. he gives us tests straight for their OCW.
Teacher Recommendation #2: (7.5 ) Spanish teacher- he let me see it. half of it was just the resume I gave him and the other half was original. He knew me outside of school from scouts.
Counselor Rec: she didn't even know me personally. Our school is too big
Additional Info/Rec: (8.5) i sent a 3rd rec from the math team coach/AP Calc teacher; she wrote about how I take initiative to learn outside of class and do pretty well at math competitions
Interview: (6.75)</p>

<p>Other</p>

<p>U.S. State/Territory or Country: Georgia
School Type: liberal arts college prep magnet
Ethnicity: African American
Gender: male
Income Bracket Range: less than 200,000
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): URM</p>

<p>Reflection</p>

<p>Strengths: research program, recommendations, essays, URM
Weaknesses: tests scores</p>

2

<p>Your test scores are amidst the average for most students, which is not enough for MIT. It’s not something which can “make or break” your application, but you have nothing outstanding which can cover it up. Your GPA is good, but most MIT applicants have a GPA around hat range as well. You say your essays and recommendation letters are good, but your perception may differ from the admissions officers. Your extracurricular activities are again good, but generally most applicants who are accepted to MIT have done something outstanding (olympiads, research etc). I see that you did do “research”, but it wasn’t actual research. You mainly just learned to, at a very basic level, handle some sophisticated equipment. Frankly, I think your chances of acceptance are fairly bleak, but it is not as if you are “out of the ballpark” in the sense that you can still be admitted. Good luck!</p>

3

<p>I think you have a decent shot because of your URM status as long as you play it up in your application. </p>

4

<p>Your GPA is about the same as I was. (I had a 3.86 unweighted).</p>

<p>To be honest, your test scores worry me a little bit (low 600s on SATs and 3s on APs). But as you have indicated, you already know this.</p>

<p>I’d like to see some more high school clubs on your list. Perhaps some student government, perhaps yearbook/newspaper. Maybe a sport.</p>

<p>It is a bit apparent that you are stronger in math and physics, and a bit weaker in the humanities. As such, I would love to see something that looks like you are putting effort into strengthening your weaknesses. Believe me, I was like that too. My math and sciences were stronger than my humanities. So I took some summer courses at local colleges while in high school, in order to bolster my deficiencies (in my case, I took classes in writing, classical literature and journalism… which was a struggle at times since I loved math/science a lot more, but I think in the end it helped).</p>

5

<p>Given your URM status, I’d say you have a very, very good chance. Otherwise a 2110 SAT normally would not cut it.</p>

6

<p>He does not have even close to a “very, very good” chance…</p>

7

<p>I would expect at least around the 25% with URM to be called a good chance. For MIT, the mid 50 was 33-35 for 2013. There were only 2 students admitted last year with ACT below 28 presumably with a combination of much better SAT scores, legacy, URM, first generation, etc.</p>

<p>By the way, OP’s superscore SAT is added up to 2010 not 2110 and all 3 section scores are below 25% with big margin (except for Math which is 10 below).
<a href=“Admissions statistics | MIT Admissions”>http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

8

<p>Being an unrecognised minority is an addition, but with grades which are generally considered average, I don’t think it will make a difference. </p>

9

<p>MIT is not a good choice, as a recruited athelte (if at an IVY) very good shot</p>

10

<p>Your SAT score is terrible, especially for MIT.</p>

11

<p>@SavedTatWhim‌
His SAT score is bad for MIT, but it is decent for other less-selective schools. However, that does not mean he doesn’t have a chance of acceptance - just not a very good one. </p>

12

<p>Probably not happening. Choose some realistic matches and safeties.</p>

13

<p>@wannabefeynman
URM is under represented minority, not unrecognized minority. URM does help admission, however, there are plenty of them with better stat too. </p>

14

<p>@billcsho‌
Thanks, just a typographical error. Unrecognised minority doesn’t even make sense. </p>