International Students with low scores at MIT?

<p>I'm curious how many international students with relatively low SAT Reasoning scores are/were there at MIT. By low I mean <2100. [Anybody/Anybody who knows somebody] who was admitted?</p>

<p>Considering that taking the TOEFL is an option, and that it wouldn’t be if they expected every international to ace the SAT, I’d say yes. But I don’t know.</p>

<p>If you don’t get any responses, it’s probably more because most MIT students don’t know the SAT scores of anybody at MIT other than themselves, and I think most of us students/alums who post here regularly are domestic.</p>

<p>You can check out the decisions threads for the last two years (stickied at the top of the forum), but obviously that’s a small subset of international applicants and admits.</p>

<p>Absolutely, but even the domesticity of the posters isn’t the issue. I am an international EC, and I have no idea of the SAT scores of the students I have interviewed.</p>

<p>I can help you out on this one. I know a guy who got into MIT two years ago. He had a 1730 on the first SAT sitting. But he later had 2020, then got it. Another shocking one just occured last year, a girl from Nigeria got into MIT with the most shocking of scores. Her first score was 1860 and the next was 1770. Well, I think she had the “MIT Stuff” they were looking for. CRAZZZY.</p>

<p>What are the MIT Stuffs? And what are some common MIT students’ high school records like? </p>

<p>They can all be national/international medal winners can’t they? Or UNUSUALLY talented in science?</p>

<p>I’m not too sure about that YM1992; this quote is from 2005 but I think it’s still relevant today seeing that MIT hasn’t lower standards.
“Almost all international students admitted to MIT have earned some form of regional, national or international distinction in areas from leadership, music and art, to scientific research, academic competition and athletics.”
[MIT</a> Admissions | Blog Entry: “International Men & Women of Mystery”](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/international_applicants_helpful_tips/international_men_women_of_mys.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/international_applicants_helpful_tips/international_men_women_of_mys.shtml)</p>

<p>The “MIT Stuffs”, I think, is the match between an applicant an MIT.
[MIT</a> Admissions: The Match Between You And MIT](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/the_match_between_you_and_mit/index.shtml]MIT”>http://mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/the_match_between_you_and_mit/index.shtml)</p>

<p>Although I hope there are exceptions to the first paragraph I quoted seeing that as an international, I moved around to different countries >.<</p>

<p>Everyone who talked to me about MIT all agreed that MIT is truly “weird”. Scores and prizes is just one aspect. They look at it as a whole. There is no guarantee that a 2400 will make it, or 1900 won’t, especially when they offer another score choice for int’l student: TOEFL + SAT II, omitting SAT which is a real big disadvantage for int’l students.</p>

<h1>YM1992: Don’t focus too much on numbers. From my perspective, to MIT, numbers only cannot make you tick. I know there are many International Olympiad medalists who didn’t make it into MIT, even though they had pretty (and even extremely) high GPA, high rank, high TOEFL and SAT II scores.</h1>

<p>Of course a low score on SAT may lessen your chance. But that won’t hurt much as “wrong” attitude.
However I don’t think there is somebody out there who knows what “MIT stuffs” are, except the adcoms.</p>

<p>“Almost all international students admitted to MIT have earned some form of regional, national or international distinction in areas from leadership, music and art, to scientific research, academic competition and athletics.”</p>

<p>Crap. There goes the last hint of hope I had of getting into MIT. :(</p>

<p>I disagree with this. I am an international EC, and over the years I have seen quite a few students admitted and I would definitely disagree with the idea that “Almost All” international students have some regional distinction in some way. Some do, absolutely. But many do not. The simple rule is that the admissions criteria is no different for internationals than it is for Americans, it is simply more competitive. You definitely do not need an IMO medal or the equivalent. I have certainly seen ordinarily good students get in. These are all kids who did well in their secondary schools and took advantage of the opportunities available to them </p>

<p>That being said, every year I meet brilliant, talented, wonderful candidates who are not admitted. It is a numbers game, and MIT simply does not have room to take all of the wonderful candidates who apply.</p>

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<p>Acually that quote should be the other way around!</p>

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<p>Don’t worry buddy, you dont have to be national/international medal winners to get into MIT.
Read MIT Admissions: The Match Between You And MIT, particularly last one.</p>

<p>You can imply that MIT cares more about net succes of the students not net succes of particular student.
My rule of thumb, it is kind of adding vectors. If you think your magnitute( For example say you dont have national medal) is small, but think you have different kind of things/direction than the others (Forexamle say you have some kind of experience) than they will probably choose you.</p>

<p>If you are a number theoriest, you will probably not like this rule, that is why they don’t give Noble Prize in mathematics :(</p>