I am currently deciding my schedule for my senior year in high school. I am trying to take all STEM classes possible in addition to all advanced classes, yearbook, and becoming a student aide for a teacher. However, I am troubled in the decision of continuing to do tennis, a sport that I have done for all of my high school career. My junior year in particular has made tennis a very cumbersome task, and it has been impacting my grades. However, I understand that MIT searches for diversity amongst students and I hoped that being in a varsity sport would help with that, but the load is just becoming an awful lot to bear. Should I continue to play tennis, or should I not? Which option will leave me with the greatest chance of getting into MIT?
Note: If athletic diversity is what they are looking for, I am a third degree black belt in tae kwon do.
A varsity sport for an applicant that is not a recruited athlete is no better and no worse than any other EC. There is no magic answer as to what might get you accepted, but playing tennis solely to “impress” colleges is not the answer.
@skieurope That is exactly was I was thinking, but my tennis coach and mom kept insisting that it was. My mom used a nearby student who was accepted through soccer as an example. The student primarily believes that soccer was the only reason she got in at all, but I found this to be against the philosophy of MIT. Thanks again for your response. It was very helpful.
@Everythingology - I have a co-worker who’s son WAS a recruited pole vaulter at MIT. He had official visits and campus visits. He has better than a 4.0 weighted GPA and a 34 ACT with a 35 in Math. When they sat down with the coach he told them that he had very little ability to influence the acceptance decision. In the end, he was denied admission to MIT. He ended up choosing to go to Dartmouth.
Correlation does not imply causation, and a sample size of n=1 is meaningless. Good luck.
Good point. MIT is a D3 school, so its coaches have less pull than in a D1 school. MIT coaches in particular (there may be a couple of exceptions). have no pull for recruits, so imagine the effect for a non-recruited athlete. While varsity athletics can help an applicant in personal development, leadership, etc. which can come across in the application, just being a varsity athlete is certainly not going to be the golden ticket.
They don’t. By all means, continue doing it if you love doing it. There are plenty of third degree black belts and tennis varsities to choose from. Just show that you are doing it because you want to, not because MIT wants you to.
I don’t know what else you do besides tennis and school. One thing that separates college from high school is the number of potential outside activities you have in college. A demonstrated ability to handle outside activities while still maintaining your GPA would be one criteria that I believe colleges look at.
Here is some advice:
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Go to the MIT Athletics webpage and go browse the current roster of players. Here is a link http://www.mitathletics.com/sports/m-tennis/2016-17/roster
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See how your stats compare to the current players
This will give you a sense if you are competitive enough. If you feel that you are in the same range of athletic ability as the players on the roster, there is no harm in contacting the coach. It looks like the MIT coaches have very little pull with admissions. But hey, every little bit helps.
My sister was recruited this past year by MIT. The coach threw out a statistic that slightly <50% of the athletes she writes a recommendation for to the committee get accepted. Sister was not MIT’s top recruit, and only began contact 2 weeks before the deadline. She was accepted.
It is absolutely a benefit to contact the tennis coach. His/her recommendation may have a non-trivial impact on your admission.
I decided to not play Tennis next year and have decided to take electives that would help me in my major, like robotics and scientific research and design. Thanks for everyone’s contributions. They were very helpful.