<pre><code> Hello, I'm a high school sophomore and since the start of this year I have been trying to work on my extracurricular activities. My dream is to get into MIT, so I've been trying really hard to make myself impressive. Since the start of this year I've become treasurer of my schools KEY club (I technically start in April), and since the I'm the youngest officer I think I could become either the vice or president in next years elections, and I'm going to attend the leadership training conference at the end of march (I'm not sure if this makes a difference?). I've also been accepted to an engineering program for this summer in NYC. It's called BlueStamp Engineering, and it's a hands on engineering program in which I build a robot with instruction from real engineers. I get to keep my robot and they feature me on their website. Is there anything else I could do to hopefully boost my chances of admission? I am also planning on starting a hiking club or something similar, since I also want to incorporate some of my regular hobbies into my ECs. I plan on doing SAT prep in the future, but I have yet to start.
Is there any contests or competitions that I could enter with my newly built robot once I finish BlueStamp? I'm planning on building something related to solar energy, but I'm not quite sure what it will be. I've been told that awards like these really help you stand out! Please give me your suggestions, it's my dream to attend MIT, but I'm overwhelmed by the negativity of my peers and their constant talk about how unrealistic it is for a white male from my school (which they claim MIT "dislikes") to get in. If it helps at all I have over a 4.0 GPA.
I would especially appreciate suggestions for meaningful things I can do over the summer, since I'm very short on time during the year, especially since next year is my junior year.
</code></pre>
<p>First off: if you’re doing it to make yourself “impressive”, you’re doing it wrong.
The people that schools like MIT admit are impressive not just because of the things on their resumes but for the passion they portray, that even if college admissions didn’t exist they would still have done all the things they did.
If hiking is a regular hobby, perhaps you could tie that to your engineering program somehow? I dunno, a tracker robot for lost hikers or something? Just thinking aloud…and since it’d be related to something you (really) enjoy doing your project would never be a drag.
Because of the nature of MIT’s app, if your robot is really good you won’t particularly need to enter it for any competitions. You can submit its specs, etc as part of your Makers portfolio, and it’d stand out to the adcom if it’s innovative. A kid from my school didn’t have the time/resources to actually build his engineering project, so he just submitted his designs with an explanation. And he got in. 
And I don’t know, but the last time I checked there was an appreciable number of white males at MIT. So ditch the haters :)</p>
<p>Thank you. I would appreciate input from anybody else willing to help :)</p>