<p>I am a sophmore at the Academies at Englewood in new jersey and I really really want to get into MIT. I know it sounds kind of childish and i may not be able to get what i want but hopefully somebody could tell me what more can I do to improve my chances of at least being considered by MIT. </p>
<p>Here are my stats so far:
GPA=3.886 (9th grade gpa)</p>
<p>9th Grade classes (h means honors):
US History I - A
Biology H - A
Phys-Ed - A
English H - A-
Health - A
Algebra II H - A
Painting I - A
Shakespeare - B-
NonRoutine Prob Solving - A
Criminology - B
Weight Training - A
Fitness Training - A</p>
<p>In the next two years I plan to have 2 ap's on my belt which include AP Stats as well as AP Chem. Senior year I will add 3 to that one of which includes Physics as well as Calculus BC. For extracurricular activities I have about 100 hours of community service split between my local hospital as well as my local government which included data gathering. I also used to work at a cleaners just about 22 hours a week even while school was in session and right now i have moved to a different job with more money. I will be working there 20 hours a week until i turn 16. That is all I have for extracurricular activities. I cant do sports because i work and i don't know what else i can do. My family is kind of low on money and that is why it is important i work so much. Plzzzzzz someone give me advice. A lot of people say i need a leadership position yea well next year ill be joining the Spanish as well as national honor society. Does that count as a leadership position?? I don't know what else to do??</p>
<p>engage in academics competitions. here are just a few, Science Bowl, USAMO, Chem Olympiad , Physics Olympiad, Biology Olympiad, science olympiad, USAMTS, FIRST robotics, Science Olympiad, Intel Science Fair, Siemens Science competition. The list goes on and on dude. </p>
<p>You need higher GPA and SATs of well above 2200. You need good teacher recs. And better have 800 on MATH II SAT and a 780+ on Bio, Chem, 0r Physics.
Ranks should be at least top 5%. </p>
<p>You need to aim HIGH. Goes beyond what your school offers. So get busy</p>
<p>Wow, thank you for setting subjective and arbitrary standards based off of what you think would make a top school application. Although admissions is extremely competitive there’s no reason to make people panic over it.</p>
<p>Note that he said that he couldn’t do sports because he had to work. How do you expect him to do academics competitions?</p>
<p>Also, I really want to get into MIT too, but I realized that it isn’t the end of the world if I don’t get in. It’s not bad to try new things but doing something to deliberately get into a certain school is just a lot of extra stress and wasted time.</p>
<p>Academic competitions are very instructive, and will prep you a lot better for MIT than any high school education you can get (USAMO etc…). However, you don’t NEED that to get into MIT. Lots of those things are good things to do, not because you NEED it to go to MIT, but rather, because it will prep you well for the MIT experience.</p>
<p>If you are going to do those just to go to college, I have a hard time seeing you do well. It takes a whole lot of work to be successful at those.</p>
<p>Having finished my disclaimer though, I have to say that I find those academic competitions really stimulating (and so does a lot of MIT students), and anyone with a strong interest in math/science who is left unchallenged by the High school curriculum should check those out right now… go on the website Art Of Problem Solving to learn more about those.</p>
<p>If you like olympiads, please do it, and you’ll distinguish yourself at it because you like math/science. If you don’t, find sth else you like and be good at it enough so that MIT will recognize you.</p>
<p>It’s always nice to have the high GPA and SAT scores but like a few others said, it isn’t necessary.
I think the first step for you is to ask yourself why you want to go to MIT?
Once you identify that the rest should come naturally.
Don’t ask others what you should do to get into MIT - take it upon yourself to identify what it is about MIT that attracts you and try to incorporate it into your life.
I know my advice is vague but it’s that way because I don’t want to do the thinking for you.
Hope this helped :)</p>
<p>wow thanks for everyone replying so fast…it seems that MIT is just as hard to get into as i figured. As for these science competitions/Olympiads i don’t know if i can do them. The reason why I have not done one yet is because I am no inventor. I have no idea on how to make really cool stuff or build interesting things, but I really really want to learn which is the reason why I want to go to MIT and become an engineer. And Djokovic, how high does my gpa have to be? I mean my school does not rank because everyone is on different levels when it comes to math and language. So the grade point averages are based on a 4.0 scale. Seeing how freshman year is the hardest I am sure i can raise my gpa to at least a 3.9 but hoping for something higher than that is pushing it. With work, volunteering, and school I dont know if my mind will allow me to do anything more. I mean I am not a genius. I dont study excessively but i do study. Studying takes time and after all of the stuff i do, there is not much time left to take up and take advantage of a hobby. If anything, I weight train a lot just because it really relieves the tension. Does that count as something that will help pick me out of the bunch that apply to MIT? Would it be advantageous for me to join a weight training competition?</p>
<p>I didn’t do most of them because they were either too demanding or completely out of the way. I briefly did Science Olympiad, though. And don’t worry. I’m applying there and I didn’t cure cancer or anything. I have a few personal projects but none of them are really dazzling either.</p>
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<p>GPAs really vary from school to school. In a perfect world, you’d get a 4.0 unweighted and be the valedictorian.</p>
<p>I personally don’t think anybody is qualified to say how you should spend your life, other than doing whatever suits you. There’s no reason to spend a year or two of your life trying specifically to get into one particular set of colleges if you’re just going to hate it.</p>