<p>You have to consider that MIT has seen it all. Your not going to win so national contest and shock your way into acceptance. I mean make sure your grades and standardized tests are good. Naturally thingssuch as usamo and IMO would be very good for MIT. Really, just do what you like to do and write reAlly good essays about it. Also try other schools too, here a a few suggestions for math/science
Caltech
Harvard
Stanford
Princeton
Columbia
Duke
Yale (more for politics)
Harvey Mudd
Oxford or Cambridge (if you want to go international these are great options)
Also, make sure you have a safety school in case everything goes wrong. By the way, don’t take the sat 2 math I and II. If you are good at math and have studied through precalculus take level II. It has a super easy curve. If you do poorly then try I.</p>
<p>It is very hard to impress with academics. The competition is so rough. Admissions at most top schools is about the choices that you make around your education. For example, what do you do with your free time? Regularly, I meet MIT candidates who study for additional exams in their spare time, thinking that it makes them more competitive. But it usually has the opposite effect.</p>
<p>Most schools are looking for candidates who will have an impact on campus if admitted. Keep in mind that MIT, or any of the other top schools, can fill their class multiple times over with academically qualified students. So barring the truly exceptional (a handful of patents, lead author on a paper in a major journal, IMO medalists), you need some other way to stand out. </p>
<p>Do you play a sport? A significant role on a sports team can show a facility with teamworking (very useful for MIT and for the sciences generally), the possibility to demonstrate some leadership skills, and indeed the whole healthy mind in a healthy body thing. Some 20% of MIT undergraduates compete in intercollegiate sport and roughly 80% participate in the intramural program, so it does help. Or if you are not a sporty person, there are other ways to show teamworking and the ability to function in wider society. Joining a theatre troupe, orchestra, or other arts ensemble offers many of the benefits of sports in terms of what it shows about you. </p>
<p>Heck if you started a band in Junior High, then started another band in High School, then moved schools and started another band at the new school, then it is a reasonable bet that if you come to MIT, then you might well start up a band.</p>
<p>Contrast that with the kid who has some free time, so he spends it alone in his room or in the library reading textbooks in order to pass another exam that his school doesn’t offer. Yes it shows academic motivation, but it also raises the fear that if you come to MIT, you will spend all of your time in your room alone reading textbooks, which isn’t really what an MIT education is all about.</p>
<p>The best answer here is to do what you really enjoy. You only have one shot at High School and you should try to make it as rewarding for you as possible. Have fun. And ideally your idea of what it fun matches well with MIT’s idea of what could be fun, and you get in. Anything that you are doing purely to impress admissions officers is likely to backfire, and badly.</p>
<p>I agree that it’s hard to stand out through academic work alone, but hopefully MIT isn’t making decisions based on who looks like they will start a band. That doesn’t exactly fit with its mission. (And, in fact, that strikes me as an ivy-ish thing to do.)</p>
<p>ECs do matter, but I don’t think any of us who don’t actually work in the admissions office know how exactly they factor in.</p>
<p>Well, they are and they are not. I am talking about ways for the very-well-academically-qualified to stand out from the other very-well-academically-qualified. Clearly getting into the pool which MIT considers academically well qualified is the highest priority. That is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for admission. Once you are in that bucket however, the question then arises as to how to set yourself apart from the others. I was arguing that starting a band would likely have a greater benefit than studying to pass another not particularly meaningful test.</p>
<p>Now clearly if you can make yourself stand out because you have won a major olympiad medal or have a few major patents to your name, yes, that is a better way to stand out, but that is beyond the reach of most applicants, even the ones who get in. I have interviewed a lot of MIT candidates over the years, and to my recollection none of the ones who were academically gifted but only peripherally human have gotten in.</p>
<p>^^^ good call. I actually never though of it that way, but it makes sense that MIT would want to accept people who would do more than just go to class and study. I imagine if you had both (academic initiative and a life) that would be fantastic.</p>
<p>Well, to be fair, I believe Mikalye interviews abroad. People are more likely to take another exam and say to an interview that the only reason they did it was to increase their chances for MIT.</p>
<p>In the U.S., though, I’ve seen people do things just for the sake of getting into school, but they were things like starting a band. So the question of what is a sign of “humanity” and what is not is blurred. Kids are too savvy these days about the type of candidate colleges are looking for. I saw it in the mid-90’s. I mean, like, I saw kids that founded community service organizations that were basically B.S. to get into college, then after college went straight to Wall Street. I’m not impressed. It’s one of the reasons why I favor just taking the people that look like they are the smartest candidate, because I don’t think colleges can assess “character” or human qualities that easily.</p>
<p>In fact, I’d argue that taking additional classes durint the summer are a sign that a kid has true passion for the sciences, because no top school want to see that anymore outside of Caltech.</p>
<p>I do interview abroad and that has a number of interesting characteristics. First the applicant pool is much more self-selecting. I see almost nobody who applies to MIT who is genuinely not academically competitive (and of those who I do see they tend to be expatriate Americans). It is also much harder to stand out given the 3% admit rate, so I accept that I might have a skewed perspective.</p>
<p>It is also fair that the international institutions, which most of my applicants are also applying to, tend to value ECs much less in admissions than do any American institution.</p>
<p>That being said, I regularly meet students at interview who do boast about their love of community service and their fellow human beings. These are claims that I am able to probe in exacting detail at the interview, and many, many times I have indicated in my report that their community service rhetoric, and even what they have done over the past year or so, does not seem to match everything else I have seen, or does not seem to be motivated. This is one of the advantages of the interview.</p>
<p>^After reading Mikalye’s first post on this thread, I couldn’t wait to get to the end so that I could say, “I completely agree. That’s basically what I was going to say.”</p>
<p>But, I didn’t realize that Mikalye was an interviewer. OF COURSE, Mikalye knows what’s important for MIT! Duh.</p>
<p>What I was going to say, in a nutshell, shushuga, is that I see two basic things missing from your master plan: fun and thinking of others, rather than just yourself. So many kids, maybe particularly those applying to the top schools, seem to be very self-focused and come across to me as maybe a little arrogant or narcissistic (?) here on CC. If I were an admissions counselor (and I’m not), I would look for highly qualified academic students who have a solid awareness of the world (and other people) around them … not just themselves and their next “achievement.” (I like what Mikalye said: “only peripherally human.”)</p>
<p>Short version: I don’t see “fun” or “other people” in your plans.</p>
<p>Good luck to you! You are clearly motivated and thinking ahead. That should take you places.</p>
<p>Hello Folks, this is my new account, I’ve changed quite a bit, and I look with amusement at these previous threads I made with the shushugah account. </p>
<p>A quick update, about what I am doing now, I am enrolled in EPGY Stanford Online HS. I am taking 7 courses, I am taking WOOT (World Online Olympiad Training, from AoPS) a 2nd time, in addition to Olympiad Geometry, and mathematical tapas, which really widened my horizon on set theory and topology. </p>
<p>Despite considering math to be my forte, in retrospect, I realize, I didn’t and I STILL don’t know ANYTHING about mathematics. I was fooled into following the typical math sequence that colleges offer, you know, calculus, Linear Algebra, MVC and then Differential Equation, however I personally found set theory, analysis and dabbles of topology much more abstract and tasty for my personal interest. </p>
<p>I’ce taken many more math courses, read more books, and even wrote several lectures, thanks to a fellow CCer Shrig94 (who was the first person to comment on my original thread…) <a href=“http://onlinemathcircle.com/wp-conte…-induction.pdf%5B/url%5D”>http://onlinemathcircle.com/wp-conte…-induction.pdf</a></p>
<p>I was naive in my fetish for AP’s and contest awards, in fact I’ll be upfront about it…I suck at contests, and did pretty bad in ARML on NYC Math team, and also did mediocre on the AMC…not even making AIME. However, that didn’t deter me, I prefer Olympiad problems, and while I don’t have any official contests to back it up, my lectures and time spent online reflect that interest. </p>
<p>I am intimately involved with scouting still, and am very active on international level. I frequently host Colombian scouts who’ve I’ve met on 3 separate occasions, and now I am making plans for scout conclave in Ghana. </p>
<p>Since I am no longer in my hebrew day school, I am not allowed to participate in the Debate League, ironically I am allowed to serve as an assistant coach, and so I look forward to coaching my team, and improving on areas where we could improve in (such as spotting logical fallacies, and how to call of true but irrelevant premises). </p>
<p>I don’t think I’m much smarter, except perhaps a little in math, but I certainly am a lot more aware of how dumb I am. I will always be available to parents, or students, looking for advice on what NOT to do, EPGY, or Math in general, or anything else you think I may have a voice on. </p>
<p>There are more personal aspects to my life, but I’ve forfeited enough, and you can find my name and all about me on the web, based on the math link I sent you, hopefully you’ll read some of it too, :/</p>
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<p>This is from a while back, but I wanted to drop a small line - I think a few character traits like tenacity, etc are reasonable to glean from actual events and choices made during education, although certainly that should be considered only when looking at the highest academic achievement possible. My sentiments are generally the same, though.</p>
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<p>On second glance, many who appear to think of others are actually quite arrogant and narcissistic themselves - something too many people seem to miss and just drink without looking. I am of the belief that a lot of people with good will are missed, because they are not pompous enough to show it off. I say beware the words “come across” - whenever you focus on that, you’re focusing on what someone presents, not the truth.</p>
<p>^I think this is where the recommendations and interviews really shine, however it’s important not to be ultra rash or arrogant when describing your achievements. For example, USAMO is a significant award, but writing “I cannot believe how gifted I was for accomplishing such an extraordinary achievement” and writing “Yeah, I qualified 7x for USAMO since 3rd grade, it’s a really basic test that only idiots would fail to qualify for…” </p>
<p>:P Either one fails, haha</p>
<p>“I am of the belief that a lot of people with good will are missed, because they are not pompous enough to show it off.” So true.</p>
<p>If OP is still hanging around, check out RIT. Respected school for computer science (billionaire Tom Golisano has donated tens of millions), and home to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, the world’s largest tech college for deaf students. You will get a great computer education, including built in co-op experience, plus be around plenty of other deaf students. Your net cost will also be comparable to in state SUNY, around 20K per year (less co-op earnings).</p>