<p>Greetings!
I was wondering, how does MIT know what resources you have at your disposal (in relation to your activity during highschool)? Do they take into account your income/ the rurality of your area if you don't mention it in your essays?
A preemptive thank you for any responses :]</p>
<p>Yes. 10char</p>
<p>lidusha’s response is certainly correct in that admissions officers take into account (or at least attempt) the resources available to an applicant. This doesn’t answer how exactly they estimate resources available. Furthermore, I think this a much more important questions than usually realized. In particular, I suspect there are non-negligible supply side issues resulting from such policies i.e. perverse incentives. Consider the following (fairly-realistic) example of a local high school being located next to a public university. Initially, the students at the high school cannot take classes at the university but a state law is passed allowing students to take classes at the university for free. When evaluating applications from the high school do admissions officers perceive an increase in available resources for (1) all students at the high school regardless of whether they take classes at the university or not, (2) only the students at the high who take classes at the university, or (3) none of the students at the high school? It’s clear that all of these options are problematic. In case (1), the policy may hurt students at the high school in college admissions in aggregate despite increasing learning. In case (2), students at the high school who would otherwise benefit from taking classes at the university may decide not to because of college admissions. In case (3), we are not taking into account resources available to those high school students.</p>
<p>In case (1), attractive applicants might be taking advantage of resources in many different ways: some will indeed take classes at the university, some will instead spend their time volunteering to teach science at a local elementary school, some will do neither and build cars in their garage. There is any number of other “resources” you can take advantage of (or create). It’s a lot less about what resources you are and aren’t taking advantage of and a lot more about where your curiosity and drive to make the world a better place take you.</p>
<p>I think what MIT means when they talk about resources is that they will not penalize you for not taking college courses or AP classes or competing in an olympiad or other stuff when comparing you with other applicants if you didn’t have those opportunities available to you. If you read the line on the application for AIME scores and you don’t know what that means, it’s okay. If, on the other hand, you do have those resources available to you, they do not become a list of requirements that you must fulfill if you want to get in, though if you’re interested then of course go ahead. In other words, don’t let what other people are doing limit your creativity in seeking out new and interesting opportunities to learn and change the world in ways that interest <em>you</em>, because that will stand out to MIT and, more importantly, contribute to your personal growth and happiness, more than anything you do to fulfill an imagined requirement.</p>