<p>Just how valuable is it? I have heard anything from race simply being used as a tiebreaker to it giving a significant advantage in applications. Also, when reading around, most African Americans who post here tend to get accepted.</p>
<p>The reason I'm asking is that I am not a particularly good student when compared to those applying to MIT. I am a first generation African American. I'm expecting to have a 2100 SAT I (already have a 770 math), 750+ on Math SAT II, and a 700+ on Chem SAT II by the end of the year. I took AP Euro last year and got a 3, and i will likely get the same score in APUSH. I'm expecting a 5 on Calc AB and a 4 in Chemistry. I'm in the top ten percent of my class (320 students), I play basketball, and my father attended MIT. Are these strong enough credentials to get into MIT? Should I bother applying?</p>
<p>Not valuable at all. Everyone assumes that there arw rampant affirmative action going on but for those applying without a hook, they are seeing the rejection letters in the mail. Work on getting high scores and a hook.</p>
<p>Definitely apply, but have other schools you are applying to ranging from safeties to reach. Take the search for those other schools seriously and get to know them so that you are happy with all of your choices.</p>
<p>It’s so funny how everyone assumes that race will get you in. DD was accepted to Dartmouth and we have friends from NYC who applied(2 females). One was wait listed(often times a soft rejection) and the other was rejected. DD did a medical research program at Yale Medical School last summer & there was a young man from TX who also did the program. He applied to Yale and was rejected. DD on the other hand, was accepted. There were also students in her class that applied and were rejected. </p>
<p>DD applied to 4 Ivies and was accepted to 3. The 4th one didn’t feel she was a good fit for whatever reason. The bottom line is this, you must be able to compete with everyone else. Please, don’t drink the you can get in because you are black kool-aid. </p>
<p>Race is part of context - it contributes to what opportunities you had. It’s not in itself a reason for you to get into MIT (nor is your father being a grad). MIT will look at what you’ve done with the opportunities you’ve had. We don’t know enough about you to say if you have a chance.</p>
<p>It can help you, but it is not anything you can count on. URMs are generally put into a special admissions pool and then evaluated within that pool rather than being assessed overall which usually results in better chances of admissions. Just as legacy, athletes, development applicants are. But there is no hard and set formula, so your chances depend on who else is in that particular applicant pool with you that year. </p>
<p>^Legacy is not even a tip factor in MIT admissions. There are no development applicants at MIT either.</p>
<p>Also, athletics is a hook, but they are not evaluated within a separate pool as they are in the ivy league. I forget what they call this–slot admissions? I don’t know if you mean that literally.</p>
<p>Race will help you, but admissions has become more difficult across the board so even top scoring URM’s may get rejected. The question of whether something “can get you in” is a semantic one. Anything which helps can put you orver the threshhold from the rejected pile to the accepted pile. </p>
<p>MIT is in DIvision 3; they are not in the Ivy League. Ivy League indeed has separate pools for athletes, absolutely they do as well as for legacy, Development, URMs and other special features. Whether MIT does or not, I do not know. I was told that MIT does not have legacy consideration. All schools have development and “friends of others” in terms of an undefined pool. Females are favored; the stats clearly show that. </p>
<p>Looking at one school’s Naviance data, I see two outliers on the data points for MIT in the past many years, and I know for a fact that one is URM, and one is the athlete, as I know both students–neither ended up going there, but they were accepted. There was a brougha over the URM acceptance, I remember. The athlete was quiet about it and few people ever knew–I only did as the person was a national athlete along with my son. The test scores and class rank/grades were far lower than the cluster clouds of acceptance for both.</p>
<p>This is at the very least not supposed to happen as it is clearly a quota which are considered discriminatory by Grutter v. Bollinger. The admissions department also asserts that race is considered holistically which is obviously at odds at that process.</p>
<p>Rule number one of stats: correlation does not equal causation.</p>
<p>Admissions has said many, many times, that the average female candidate is much stronger than the average male candidate. Men are more likely to apply to MIT on a whim; the female applicants are likely people who had to push through institutional sexism to pursue their interest in science.</p>
<p>Also, if I were you I’d work on getting those scores to maybe 2200+, avg 4+ on APs, but ESPECIALLY some strong, meaningful extracurriculars that you’re passionate about. Are you good at basketball? Or are you simply an extra JV player? etc. for all of the ECs that you do.</p>
<p>And definitely apply. Just looking at what you’ve posted, I think you have a shot. What I would do in your situation: assume race matters none in college admissions and then apply as if everyone were the same race (unless ofc one of your essays focuses on it or something). Then, since you are URM, it is more likely that you will be pleasantly surprised when decisions roll around. This applies to any college, not just MIT.</p>
<p>This makes no sense to me. The entire point of assessing your odds of admissions should be to get an accurate evaluation and there is strong evidence that URMs get a very significant advantage. Now in most cases it is not terribly important to get accurate evaluations of your chances but there are certainly some exceptions like whether to apply ED to other schools.</p>
<p>I find the statement “Admissions has said many, many times, that the average female candidate is much stronger than the average male candidate. Men are more likely to apply to MIT on a whim; the female applicants are likely people who had to push through institutional sexism to pursue their interest in science” very funny :)) . </p>
<p>Its like Donald Sterling saying he is not a racist. He just has only white friends because there are more white people than African Americans in America.</p>
<p>There are many strong male applicants that apply across the board to all the ivy leagues plus MIT and Stanford because they are all prestigious schools. Women tend to apply to MIT only if they think that they are a strong fit and not just because MIT is prestigious. The fit and the strong academic accomplishments of these women is what gets them accepted, not the fact that they are female.</p>
<p>I will repeat, you have to be a strong candidate. I’ve seen 6 kids not do so well this admissions cycle and guess what? They are black. Many posters want you to think that being black will get you in…ain’t gonna happen. It’s not the like that get out of jail free card in the monopoly game where they pick black out of the pile and VOILA! you’re in! You must put the work in, period. End of story.</p>
<p>I do know that athletes do get preference for MIT, though it is a division 3 school. Oh, yes, I know that directly And from the Naviance type data I have seen for a number of schools that deal with MIT, the clusters for females are well below that for males. I do not believe for one instant that they do not give females preferance the preponderance of data I have seen. I am a female who was admitted to MIT, by the way, once upon a time, though using myself as an example would not mean anything. </p>
<p>I have not seen enough URM admissions data to say anything about MIT giving preference to URMs. I don’t know a single AA who was accepted to MIT even, haven’t seen any data points. The one Hispanic admit I do know (and know him well) was such a top notch guy in terms of academic numbers that it wouldn’t have made a blip to have heard he was accepted. From what I have seen in cluster points, legacy does not count for much if for anything, and I’ve yet to see any numbers from any school on development, so cannot say. </p>
<p>I did take a quick peek at MIT’s common data info as provided by the school. MIT, has gone on record there to say that it does take first generation to college status and ethnicity into consideration for admissions. It also says it does not take legacy into consideration,. No mention of development or gender. ECs are considered and that can include athletic prowess.</p>