<p>5 or 6
how do u miss 100 days of school?
thats like almost an entire year of school minus 20 days?</p>
<p>MIT is the hardest school to get into the country. Those kids have the best test scores, highest gpa’s, most rigorous course loads and those kids have amazing science extracirculars. Many are Intel semifinalists, captain of award winning Olympiad teams and robotic captain, many are published researchers. Many are captains of math team. </p>
<p>Btw most MIT kids are not that lopsided. They excel at everything.</p>
<p>Legcay, race, gender, sports means very little at MIT when compared to other top schools.</p>
<p>“MIT is the hardest school to get into the country.”</p>
<p>no</p>
<p>I would actually go with one of the teachers who wouldn’t remember you, preferably Teacher 2, because s/he can look back on his/her records and see you got A’s. Approach him/her and make it seem like his/hers was the best class you had ever taken and that you loved him/her as a teacher, give him/her a resume, and you should have a decent rec!</p>
<p>Otherwise, teacher 7 sounds the most neutral.</p>
<p>3.7 won’t get you into MIT. And it’s highly suspicious that you would have a 3.7 if you got “Cs and Ds” in multiple classes.</p>
<p>yep…3.7 is closer to 3 than is suitable.</p>
<p>umm MIt is the hardest school to get into. Prove me wrong.</p>
<p>^ lol. I think HYP is.</p>
<p>I agree with those who say pick a teacher who gave you an A. A teacher who gave you Cs and Ds is going to have something very unflattering to say, even if he think’s you are a genius. He’s say you’re “a very bright student who doesn’t always work up to potential” or “who doesn’t always apply himself.” MIT doesn’t want lazy people. If it has to be somebody from junior or senior year (that’s certainly preferable), choose the one that gave you Bs.
Note: somebody can get mostly Cs and Ds in a class, but what shows up on the transcript may be a B if they do well on major tests and exams. Maybe that’s what the OP means. If he really has Cs and Ds on his transcript, I think he may be disappointed by MIT and Caltech, unless maybe he’s a major award winner. He may learn that those humanities courses were “real” courses after all.</p>
<p>
MIT Acceptance Rate: 13%
Harvard Acceptance Rate: 9%
Yale Acceptance Rate: 9%
Stanford Acceptance Rate: 11%</p>
<p>Don’t you have any foreign language teachers?</p>
<p>Oh, I forgot about my foreign language teacher… I got all A’s, but then got a C, because she wouldn’t let me make up tests… She thought I was a genius, but doesn’t really like me any more, since I dropped her class and always hated her, lol.</p>
<p>Also, I have C’s and D’s on my transcript. But in the classes I have C"s and D’s in, I also (for the most part) have an AP/SAT score that proves that I still learned everything I needed to in the class. I don’t think MIT cares if I don’t do homework, I think they care that I do enough homework to learn the material and know it well enough to get excellent scores on tests–the things that actually test knowledge, instead of ability to mimic what the book (or whatever else) shows you how to do.</p>
<p>The entire point of grades is to coerce students who do not care about learning into learning the material through homework, etc. If I learn the material on my own or without doing homework, then the grades have no meaning, since I do not need any more reason to learn than the enjoyment I get from learning.</p>
<p>Personally, I think MIT and CalTech would love to hear that explanation.</p>
<p>Also, discussing “the hardest school to get into” is pointless. There’s absolutely no way of proving this, and acceptance rates have absolutely nothing to do with it. For example, CalTech has a higher acceptance rate, but that’s because the people who actually know about it and are interested in it are generally smarter (no one else at my school has ever heard of CalTech), and Yale has a low acceptance rate, because idiots have heard the name and apply there on the off-chance that they get lucky and get into what they think is one of the most prestigious universities.</p>
<p>Personally I don’t think knowledge is a substitute for effort but if that’s what you want, I’ll then rest my case. Though the school with the most difficult admissions should not affect your choice, I’d implore you to consider the fact that Caltech and MIT are among the most highly recognized institutions of higher education in the nation and that they continuously reject applicants with amazing stats and accomplishments every year. </p>
<p>For your recommendation, you don’t seem to have much of a choice. I wouldn’t care to face most of your teachers anywhere, especially for a recommendation. Remember that you could be misjudging their perceptions of you and asking the wrong person could be disastrous. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, I wish you luck on the search for your holy grail.</p>
<p>I’d pick Teacher number 6. That teacher wants you to succeed.</p>
<p>Even if you’re smart enough to get 5’s and 800’s on whatever tests, that’s no excuse for not doing your schoolwork. Schools like MIT and Caltech are infinitely harder than any standardized test or class you have ever taken over the entire course of high school. You don’t want them thinking you’re a slacker and can just get by because you’re smart enough to do well on the tests on your own. I’m sure they would take a hard worker over someone who is just naturally smart, because that won’t get you very far at an institution like Caltech over MIT.</p>
<p>Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.</p>
<p>Ben Franklin can’t be wrong…</p>
<p>“I don’t think MIT cares if I don’t do homework.”</p>
<p>I think they might not appreciate your attitude…people who think they are smarter than their teachers are generally not too impressive to educators. Make sure you try to hide your attitude if you get an interview. I assure you that you will not impress them with the attitude that grades are meaningless, and that you will only do the work if it interests you…why would they expect you to behave differently at MIT?</p>
<p>Is there a reason you can’t ask all of them then pick the best letter?</p>
<p>The MIT letters have to be sealed by the teacher and mailed by them as well, so you can’t read them before they are submitted.</p>
<p>lol at the op for even considering mit/caltech…are you joking?</p>
<p>the reason they reject apps with perfect scores is because they probably figured out the person is just an empty shell who doesn’t know what to do with themselves after they’re done pleasing one higher set of authority.</p>
<p>although they’ll probably just channel that ability to their wanting to impress grad school admissions staffs</p>