<p>What qualities does MIT look for in international students? Does it only admit IMO/IPhO/IChO-level ones?</p>
<p>If you had read their awesome admission blogs, you would’ve known by now :)</p>
<p>To the first question - same thing MIT looks for in all its applicants:</p>
<p>[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>Second question - no.</p>
<p>What if I reword my question: Are more than 80% of the international students admitted at the IMO/IPhO/IChO level?</p>
<p>I know a few international students who were accepted to HYP but none of them got into MIT, and I really wonder why.</p>
<p>They probably didn’t fit in. It’s not all about the scores…</p>
<p>^HYP acceptances are not just about scores either.</p>
<p>^Exactly; they’re about how well you fit in with the culture. Though it is “culturally diverse”, I think we can agree that those who would thrive at Harvard would not <em>necessarily</em> thrive at MIT, and one of the biggest factors adcoms look at is how well applicants will mesh at their school and how much they’ll give back.</p>
<p>
I don’t know any hard stats, but thinking about the international students I knew at MIT, I would say no, emphatically. You can check through the decisions threads for the past few years (the most recent is stickied at the top of the forum) – most people identify themselves as domestic or international.</p>
<p>It’s incredibly competitive to be admitted as an international student at MIT because of the international quota, but it’s certainly not that being part of an IxO team is necessary (or sufficient) for admission.</p>