<p>When you’re talking about super selective schools like MIT, then merit matters, but hardly anyone is a shoo-in for MIT. </p>
<p>My father served on the admissions committee for a top 10 national university (not MIT). He said he always felt great about the applicants they admitted and anguished about those they turned down, because a lot of them were top-notch. They just can’t take 'em all. He also said if the committee had come back the next day and started over from scratch, they would have admitted a very different class. There would be a lot of overlap to be sure, but for the applicants on the bubble, there is definitely an element of chance.</p>
I haven’t read any of the posts above me (MIT student, no time) but I would like to comment that in a way, it is - and in a way, it’s not based on luck. This is because you have to remember that besides the quantitative things (GPA/grades/SATs) there are also things you will never see about other applicants (recommendations from teachers, employers, research advisors). Lastly, there are truly only a finite number of spots, so even though MIT would be thrilled to admit all of its brilliant applicants, it must make a very difficult choice between them for a very limited number of spots to make for a balanced class.
On the flipside, getting or not getting in to any school (not just MIT) does not necessarily mean luck or bad luck. It could be an outcome of your respective compatibility with those schools, and maybe the ones where you do get accepted to are the ones where you will really thrive and belong.
Personally, I got deferred, then waitlisted (and then withdrew my app) from my #1 school when I applied for undegraduate, and I do not regret it at the least.
All those saying that it is not luck-based are just encouraging this soft-criteria bullshit, pardon my French.
It IS luck-based within a particular tier of applicants (think 2200 SAT, top 10 of class, some volunteering, etc).
Looking at applicants as “people” is just an excuse for why they have to turn certain applicants down for no reason that can be measured with hard metrics.
Not getting in is absolutely no reflection of your ability or potential as a person, no matter how much admissions will claim to try to read those things through your application.
I’m not sure why I don’t see more posts about MIT that discuss fit. “Fit” is probably more important at MIT then almost any other school. If the fit isn’t good, there is more potential to be miserable then there is at most schools. It is a remarkable place but it is not a school for everyone. Students with unrealistic ideas or who have not truly committed to STEM or who are perfectionistic or who are very tightly wound or who are overly cautious, or who have straight A’s in high school because the grades were the priority are all likely to be miserable at MIT. I think there is more potential for misery if the fit is not right than there is at other schools. MIT admissions seem to do an excellent job selecting students most likely to fit. I’m sure that some that would have a good fit end up not getting offers. But, I think there has been too little discussion of this variable-perhaps because it is not very tangible-although I bet the adcons at MIT have a way of assessing students quantifiably on this dimension-because nearly everything there is done that way.
Happilywallowing, I’m not sure you are understanding what I intend to communicate which means I am not writing clear enough. Most of the people I know at MIT did not spend their high school years with an eye towards getting straight A’s. They did, by the way, get straight A’s. But their motivation was not driven by the grades. Some people call the distinction “grades” vs “mastery”, in terms of what is driving their efforts.
The people I know at MIT tend to be driven to conquer/ master material. They tend not to be the kind of student whose major motivation was simply to get the best grades compared to others or to please people or to show everyone that they are “smart”. They are the ones who may linger after class to continue to hash out an argument about a controversial point- and they are not staying because the teacher may give a better grade to students who stay a few minutes after class to discuss a “class topic”. If you teach high school students you know what I mean. The kids who are engaged in the topic argue cause they want to convey a point that they believe in, think is important-and they may continue arguing about it through the day. They care about the content/material. The kid who stayed because it may buy brownie points has his/her thoughts on the mall as soon as the next class begins-little or no interest in the actual material just “doing well”. I think there are far more students at MIT who are driven by mastery then by grades compared to other competitive schools.
Incidentally MIT does ask how students handle failure. I don’t believe it is a bench-mark of maturity. I think there are people who are risk averse because they are so concerned about not failing. Such a students may be fine at schools that provide a lot of wiggle room and don’t require students to leave their comfort zone. I think such a person would be fairly miserable at MIT. There are tons of perfectly mature people who live their lives in a way that reduces or eliminates the probability of failure-in fact that can be a driving force for someone’s entire life. I’d see it as a personality dimension rather than a indicator of the individual’s place on a continuum of maturity. Some guy used to write about the type of student who would be very comfortable at MIT in terms of having an approach orientation towards achievement with low fear of failure. That tends to be a fairly stable (across the lifespan) way of approaching the world.
Actually @lostaccount to my mind handling failure is less about some continuum of maturity and more about the STEM-focused nature of many of MIT’s applicants. When any kid is in a high school science class, they almost never do any laboratory experiment that doesn’t work. Heck, the labs they choose to teach in HS science classes are chosen specifically because they reliably work. When you get to do real experimental laboratory science, the overwhelming majority of the experiments that you will do, will not work. The same holds true in Engineering. Think of Edison’s famous remark while working on the incandescent bulb, that he hadn’t failed, he had discovered 10000 ways that won’t work. Given that, resilience in the face of failure is not merely a “nice to have” feature, it is all but required for budding scientists or engineers.
My perception of the interview is that it is a way to look for kids who fit that too tightly wound/perfectionist types that probably would not be happy at MIT. They are looking for that person who will contribute to campus and can play well with others. Hence the not wanting to talk about resume, grades, and scores. My son genuinely enjoyed talking to his interviewer about her experience at MIT. She didn’t give much feedback but did comment that it was refreshing to just be able to talk to an applicant without them trying to use every question and comment to bring up resume fodder as applicants from a highly competitive private HS in our area with many MIT applicants are apparently trained to do.
I can’t believe this thread even exists. With the exception of two students I know personally who were not accepted (maybe I don’t know them that well…), I believe that MIT is way more legit in accepting qualified students than any other top tier school. Just look at Caltech for example…
If I submitted an application with a 650 SAT math score, is that an automatic rejection? I scored 800 on the CR and 780 on the Writing so overall my SAT score was 2230 (top 1%) I also scored 800 on the Literature subject test and 760 on the Math II subject test and have, I think, an overall great application. Lots of cool and quirky extras and I think I did pretty good on my essay and interview. But is a 650 math SAT a deal breaker in itself? No time to retake, obviously. I also didn’t take a subject test in science.
Not taking a science subject test is more likely an automatic rejection than a 650 math score because a science subject test is one of the requirements for applying and there is no minimum required math score.
Yeah. Sorry, @Lovelearning7 - I think they /do/ need you to take a subject test. D:
However, I’m pretty sure you might still schedule one- or if not, maybe you can work something out with admissions. I recommend you contact them, see what you can do.
Also, to my knowledge, no SAT test score is a deal breaker in itself. A 650 is certainly no /favor/ to your application, but it’s also one of the least impactful components!
Definitely too late to schedule a subject test for this admission cycle. The next test date available is May 5th, about one week before admission results come in. MIT says that January test dates are the last exams accepted. Besides there are no SAT reasoning tests or subject tests given in February and no subject tests given in March or April.
I would imagine that the only exceptions would be for reasons beyond a student’s control, like you were registered but your test was cancelled because of something like a hurricane, or you couldn’t make the exam date because of a documented illness.
@OMPursuit it is too late for OP, since RD admissions come out March 14, and even the February 20 makeup is too late (however, this may be an exception).
@Lovelearning7 is there a reason you did not take the required science subject test? If not, you might be out of luck.
Setting aside the different definitions of “qualified,” I think the OP’s perspective (which is all too common) is reinforced by an over-emphasis on parsing small differences in academic credentials (e.g., 3.9 vs 4.0 GPA; 4 APs with 4s & 5s vs 6 AP classes with all 5s; 1520 SAT vs 1600 SAT) without having a bigger understanding of non-academic strengths – which are often less quantifiable. While admissions at MIT are holistic in any case (and thus, some would argue, inherently impossible to measure), I’ve found this this document to be a helpful tool to gauging likelihood of admissions based on both academic and non-academic criteria: http://phs.princetonk12.org/guidance/Forms/Betterton%20College%20Planning.pdf
@foosondaughter I think you’re on the right track, but I think MIT has not only a bigger understanding of “non-academic strengths” (which they likely do, given their essay prompts) but also their real academic strengths. GPAs/AP/SAT scores are basically irrelevant for many who get in; research/coursework/initiatives outside of school and olympiads are a much better way to differentiate between these “top” students, which MIT definitely seriously considers.
