<p>So I've been reading all the "underage threads" and I'm just curious, how many people actually apply early (i.e., what percent of the applicant pool is underage)? </p>
<p>Why do people apply early anyways? Is it because it's easier to get in, or what? Is the acceptance rate any higher?</p>
<p>I'm underage (16) but I'm still a senior. Does that count?</p>
<p>Like you skipped a grade?</p>
<p>The girl across the hall from me entered MIT when she was fifteen, but I think she skipped a few grades. I know that her MIT experience isn't all that different except she needs her parents to sign a consent form at the beginning of each year. Yan, an admissions blogger, applied as a junior and was accepted. I don't know which of these two examples is what you were thinking of as underage.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Like you skipped a grade?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, I skipped 8th grade. I also know a guy who applied as a junior and was accepted. He pretty much hated high school and was taking most of his classes at Purdue anyway.</p>
<p>The skipping grades scenario is very common at MIT -- I was average age for my grade in high school (February birthday), then came to MIT and was older than a rather larger number of people in my year.</p>
<p>Matt has a blog</a> entry on this topic -- he himself entered MIT a year early. I strongly suspect that it's a great deal harder to be accepted applying as a junior, because your application has to be as strong as those from people who have had a full extra year of high school, and because the admissions office has to carefully scrutinize your application and decide if coming to college a year early is the best choice for you.</p>
<p>But I think people apply a year early when there's nothing productive left for them to do in high school, as they've maxed out all the classwork and opportunities available. Like goldenratiophi's friend, they tend to be taking almost all college classes at that point anyway.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, I mean the people who had to answer the questions about graduating early/ without a diploma. So did you guys have to answer that question if you skipped a grade in middle school or earlier?</p>
<p>Oh, and how did you guys answer the graduating early question anyways? Did you guys actually reach the 400 word limit?</p>
<p>Sorry about a third post... </p>
<p>I'm just really curious as to how people can get their ideas across without showing off, espeically with the graduating early question. </p>
<p>How did you guys answer that question without bragging about your accomplishments?? I mean not only with that one question, but the rest of the application too. If you guys are graduating early, then wouldn't you guys have to brag even more in order to be considered equally competent?</p>
<p>I do not think much underage people apply to MIT, unless I think really dumb. I wish I could have applied to MIT earlier at the age of fifteen when I entered college in INDIA, now I am doing my 11th and 12th grades again in spite of the fact that I could already have been junior in my college and gotten a PHD at the age of 22. I hate myself. But still, I love US high school system.</p>
<p>S skipped a grade early on. The only person at his HS who knew was his GC, and not until the end of junior years, and only then because we asked whether he should mention it on his apps. (BTW, she said no.) He did not report "being young" on his MIT application other than giving his birthdate. IIRC, the specific question was whether one was graduating early/before the end of four years of HS. That was not the case in his situation.</p>
<p>We know others who applied after junior year and have done quite well at MIT.</p>
<p>^^^Thanks for sharing the info.</p>
<p>BTW, I never skipped a grade and still entered college at the age of 15, because I started school early, I guess I was too mischevious to stay at home and that's why my parents threw me in school at the age of 3. But I still love them, He He.</p>
<p>Yeah, thanks for the info. when the question says "Explain circumstance", does that mean "Show your personality" or "Show why you are equally competitive and why you will be equally likely to succeed"? I'm just scared I misunderstood the question...</p>
<p>I think you should fuse both of them together topped with a scoop of the things you have learned from the incident or whatever you wrote in your essay.</p>
<p>GOOD LUCK!</p>