<p>I know this board is frequented by alumni, so I thought it would be interesting to ask: do you think you would or would not get into MIT today given the admissions and acceptance rate?</p>
<p>Beth, I may not have been accepted, but times were very different back then when we rode dinosaurs to school. (I loved my stegasaurus.) Many of us only took two AP courses; usually only AP Calc, AP Bio, and maybe AP Chem were available in our high schools. National/Int’l competitions were not quite as common, so state and regional awards, demonstrated leadership and teamwork, and initiative (e.g. starting a club or team) were enough for ECs. Today, I am seeing many accepted students doing things on a national or international level. </p>
<p>However, I think our standardized test scores and GPAs were similar to those I’m seeing today, keeping in mind that SAT scores in the high 700s were harder to achieve back then. (The test has changed.) Note also that few of us studied much for the SAT other than taking a couple practice tests the weekend before; many of us only took the PSAT and the SAT once each. I was a National Merit Scholar, so that probably would have helped. Only one student in my large high school took an SAT review course on the weekends; we all thought that was pretty extreme. Heavy prep meant buying a review book. I also think that course rigor was higher back then in honors courses than what I see today at many schools; consequently, extra SAT prep wasn’t as necessary. We learned grammar, vocabulary, and math in middle and high school, not in prep courses.</p>
<p>I also believe that lower travel costs, increases in financial aid, and ease of college research (i.e. the internet) also has broadened the applicant pool, increasing the number of potential applicants today. It would be interesting if anyone in MIT Admissions comments who has data or a long term experience because I am just throwing out educated guesses here.</p>
<p>DDHM, what do you do today, more than 10 years after graduation?</p>
<p>I had a decade long career in medical research, but I retired when I realized that the educational system doesn’t work well for academically gifted kids. I have been a full time (unpaid) volunteer in the public schools and community for the last 12 years, in addition to providing for my kids what the public schools would not. Lidusha, you will find that MIT makes you into a good problem solver, which will be important in a career, a family, and especially in community service. Good luck!</p>
<p>I like to think that I would be granted admission into MIT today. I graduated from MIT almost 40 years ago. </p>
<p>I really loved the STEM subjects and did just about everything right to put myself in the best place to gain admission. Although at the time, I had no clue that that is what I was doing. I was doing it just because that is what I wanted to do. </p>
<p>Most high schools did offer AP classes in those days and mine did not. I took all honors classes except English. The honors classes were “enhanced” versions of the regular classes and we got the best teachers in the school. But, even those honors classes didn’t challenge me much (so going to MIT was a real shock). As I grew up in the suburbs of Boston, I was able to take part in a series of classes for high school students that MIT offered starting in my junior year. They were taught by the students and all you had to do was pay a small fee and show up. I was there initially to take calculus but found all kinds of other interesting classes. </p>
<p>After graduation, I moved to SoCal and went to work for a large aerospace company working on rocket engines and later the Space Station. I retired from there a few years ago (i.e. almost 35 years with one company) and have done some consulting since then.</p>
<p>A couple of things to consider when trying to compare the admission rates of my time with now: </p>
<p>MIT has increased the class size by around 100 students (i.e. about 10 %) from my day to today. </p>
<p>The birth rate is such that the number of 18 year olds in the US is about the same today as it was in my day.</p>
<p>About 40% of MIT admits in my day were internationals, leaving far fewer spots for US students. Fewer internationals admitted today (making it really tough on those interantional students). </p>
<p>Women were discouraged from going into STEM careers in my day (not overtly, but more by social pressure), making the pool of 18 year olds to draw from less.</p>
<p>MIT did draw students from all over but a disproportionate amount were probably from the Northeast as one tended to want to stay more local for college. </p>
<p>Today, students apply to many more schools than in my day. I applied to MIT (where I wanted to go) and WPI as my safety. My son applied to about 10 schools, my daughter about 12. </p>
<p>So, is it harder to get into MIT today than it was in my day? Good question!!!</p>
<p>I did not attend MIT but was accepted about 35 years ago … I always figured I was the absolute last person accepted that year … and there is absolutely NO WAY I would be accepted now … the current applicant pool blows me totally out of the water.</p>
<p>My feeling is - given that Wilma Flinstone was my roommate and I too road a dinosaur…</p>
<p>That given access to all the new technology available, I might still be a candidate. What I have loved about watching the MIT admissions process is that they think very broadly about their student mix - and are inclusive of a number of non-STEM pursuits. They look for well rounded students who are passionate about math and science, but many other non-quantitative pursuits.</p>
<p>We all say that we’d probably be rejected, but I don’t think that is true. We applied having done extraordinary things with the limited tech available at the time (no personal computers, calculators only did basic functions, I still have a slide rule although rarely used it, etc.). Back then, my desktop computer was an HP calculator. Still have it. Still runs great, btw.</p>
<p>So I think, despite the increased competition - what spark lead the Institute to choose us, is likely the same spark that would manifest if we were going through the process today.</p>
<p>Exie: I still use reverse polish too to do my calculations! 
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<p>Kids today would be surprised that we did SATs and APs without calculators and with pencil calculations, interpolation, and trig tables! :eek:</p>
<p>Given that thought, perhaps few kids today would exceed what we did on the SAT. :D</p>
<p>Technology has certainly changed things. Some for the good and some for the bad. It is hard to believe that some people can’t do simple arithmetic without a calculator. But you have to admit the number of candidates to many of the top schools is increasing and many with excellent qualifications. All that with tuitions that are just out of this world - crazy. I heard somewhere that student loan debt now exceeds credit card debt in the US.
For some (perhaps not MIT grads) colleges are sueing students who are not paying back their loans and these grads are stuggling with getting a job and trying to pay back a $600 or $800 per month loan. So yes things were very different then - I bet MIT did not ask your sexual preference on your app (I am not saying it is good or bad- just a statement). I once attended an open house for a high school. The school was actually from K-12. It was one of the more elite schools in our area. When it came time for Q&A, I thought people would ask about the courses and curriculum. They did not, it was all about how to get their child into the kindergarden! I agree, most honors courses were probably harder then and grades were not inflated. You did not go home and tell your parents about something a teacher did to you because then you were the one punished. Your parent did not call a teacher to complain (I am generalizing here). We all know it is very competitive out there and there are many kids who work super hard to get to where they are. I just wonder if we as a society are doing the right thing.</p>
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<p>I froze up a bit when I saw this :O</p>
<p>I’m not an alumni (rejected from MIT this year) but I read something recently that I found interesting. The article suggested that it hasn’t become more difficult to get accepted. Rather, more people are applying who otherwise might not have, partly because of the common app (I’m talking more broadly and not just MIT). So that’s some food for thought.</p>
<p>Just shy of 19,000 applications this year. Up from 13,000 a decade ago. It’s insane. MIT isn’t on the Common App so I have to wonder what caused the huge explosion in interest. I once thought the Common App was freeing up time for students to then pursue MIT independently, but my child was applying to colleges this year and each school on the Common App had large supplements with essays that couldn’t be duplicated across the board. So that doesn’t explain it.</p>
<p>What I do know is that the number of applicants is meaning that many, many highly qualified students are being turned down. My D (not an engineer so no conflict for me) just received a space in a highly coveted degree program that takes only 30 students (can you imagine?) but was then declined by another program that specified that they’re applications were up to 30,000 and they had more qualified students than they could take. Not a good year to be a college applicant for many students who will see this as a reflection of themselves but it isn’t.</p>
<p>One note, though - I see the most disappointment, after interviews, from families who spent a decade or more “preparing” and “prepping” and focusing solely on grades and scores and missed that perhaps “imperfect but well rounded” might have meant more in the application process.</p>
<p>One thing for sure, college admissions isn’t as warm and fuzzy as when we were in the pile. It’s starting to look like a “Hunger Games” type blood sport where we send our children into an arena and only one or two emerge unscathed.</p>
<p>I was an MIT student about 30 years ago. There are enough similarities between the applications of my time and those of today (test scores, interests, etc…) that I think most former students would be competitive applicants if they were applying today. However, to my mind there is quite a bit of randomness in the admissions process and so the fact that I was admitted once before probably just means that at best I’d have a 50-50 shot.</p>
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<p>I didn’t bring a calculator to the SAT!</p>
<p>I hope I would have been admitted, but I do not know that I would have been admitted. I got in EA, and today, I’m not sure I would have done that, but who knows, a lot of it is about match, and I matched pretty well.</p>
<p>My sixty-year old brother-in-law would still be admitted – he was a Westinghouse Talent Search Finalist back in his day. He did not end up graduating from MIT though; he dropped out his senior year and joined the army. Eventually, he got a BS in engineering from San Jose State University, co-founded a laser company, sold it at age 50, and retired. So all’s well that ends well.</p>
<p>But there’s an interesting gender side to all this. When my daughter expressed an interest in MIT, by brother-in-law simply could not see any match between her and the Institute. He seemed sort of bemused by her entire application process. I don’t know if this has anything to do with the fact that there were so few women there in his day. She graduated from MIT in physics a couple of years ago and is now a grad student at Harvard in High-Energy Physics (HEP), so perhaps now he understands.</p>
<p>I’m just grateful that MIT admissions saw what he could not, back when she applied in the fall of 2006.</p>