@MamaBear97 thank very much. Today I had also my interview and It went great.
US Student
Numbers:
GPA: 4.70 W (4.0/4.0 UW)
ACT: 34 C (35 E, 35 M, 34 R, 32 S, 36 W)
SAT: Won’t send current score, but October test pending.
SAT II: Math II 800, Physics 660 (yikes!)
AP: US Gov: 5, USH: 5, Lang & Comp: 5, AB Calc, Stat, Physics 1: pending.
Academic/Club ECs:
Placed in 3 university math competitions last year 11th. Started a math club this year for my school 12th.
Placed 1st at region for rhetorical analysis essay, 2nd international extemporaneous speaking 11th.
Beta Club Prez 12th
Academic Bowl (2nd Place Team at University Tourny, I placed 2nd in my subject) 11th, 12th
Student Body Secretary 11th, 12th
Bunch of other “clubs” (Spanish for clubs).
Georgia Boys State: Elected to Supreme Court (hated this experience but whatever)
Honor Committee
Some other lame stuff
Sports:
Varsity Soccer since 8th. Region honors 9th, 10th, 11th, All State 9th.
Wrestling since 8th, top 3 region since 9th, 3rd in the state 10th, 11th.
Football 12th, starting kicker (lel).
Track 9th???..
Work/Volunteer:
Architect’s Assistant 11th, 12th
Topographical Surveyor 11th, 12th
GA Soccer Referee 9th, 10th
School Athletics 9th-12th
Area Special Olympics 12th
Senior Mentorship Program 12th
MIT Interview: It lasted 2.5 hours, so I assume it went well, haha.
I’m a U.S. Student.
I love computers and Chemistry and Biology. Physics-wise, I’m better at E&M than mechanics.
Applying EA.
le numbers:
SAT: 2320 (800 reading oddly enough, 780 math, 740 writing)
Subject tests: 780 chem, 800 math 2
GPA: 93(with 3 b’s junior year and all a’s otherwise
Visited the campus and felt right at home. You should have seen me laughing at the jokes on the pamphlets 
Oh yeah, and I build robots for fun. Specifically the electronic parts. And the programming. If you’re curious, look up the FIRST robotics competition. I could go on and on about the time I saved the team’s robot almost single-handedly, or the time I helped another team get theirs working, but I don’t like to brag. (Self-contradiction ftw)
I play chess, volunteer at my religious school, and swim and play golf.
Had my interview and I think it went well.
Oh, and there’s the fact that I work with my school’s tech department(it’s a magnet school, ranked in the top 10 nationwide) after an incident freshman year where I was caught putting a mostly-harmless virus on the network share for the fun of it and to see what would happen. (It was a fork bomb)
Not too good at competition math, but as for science, I placed in my school in the physics bowl and in multiple science Olympiad events.
So yeah.
@Hermit9 What state? That gives an idea of the math competition level and everything. That physics and ACT science score might be problematic, but shouldn’t be too bad. Interview will probably help a lot, since the people who do it will advocate for you (from what I’ve heard).
MIT tends to not look too much on regional stuff, since the quality of that varies from state to state, although they will take into account a lack of opportunity (again, according to blog).
The lack of AP science test scores might make MIT not very confident in accepting you since your SAT II’s and your math contests are the only thing showing that you can survive MIT. Since you didn’t really show me what interests you have, I assume its math? Yet you didn’t really mention AMC or AIME, so I don’t know.
@alephzer0 That is more commonly called “aleph-null” lool. *High five for E&M mastery.
Stats are all basically perfect. FIRST robotics is pretty good, although, this might depend on your school, since my school has like a mega-club for that.
(oops, probably should not have immediately tried to run :(){ :|: & };: <== (okay the smiley faces are not supposed to be smiley faces XD) in terminal after searching “fork bomb”. Good thing that was only on my c9.io workspace XD. Halp, how do you stop this thing :|)
Do you participate in CTF competitions or anything? There’s a team at my school that often recruits me to solve cryptography problems randomly.
(Science olympiad as in like USAPhO/USACO/USNCO/USABO? or that other team thing?)
(My interview just passed, went okay, not very good since I’m not too much of a talker, but I had some interesting things)
lol my c9.io workspace just reached its memory maximum and terminated the program. That was fun XD.
I would like your opinion. What is more important from same country? Olympiad medals or much higher GPA, SATs, EC, generally more rounded persons, AIME qualification?
@qwertyiop I know it’s aleph null but aleph zero flows better for a username 
Yeah, fork bombs are pretty nasty on one computer, but they can’t kill a network.
I haven’t actually done any competitions for that stuff; there aren’t any teams in my area and hacking isn’t my thing so much as programming. On the other hand I did participate in a hackathon at my school but that’s more making than hacking.
Science Olympiad as in the team thing.
@qwertyiop GA, and I’m a prospective math major. I know science looks like a weakness and could hurt me, but I have done really well in all my school courses and have an A+ in AP Physics right now, so hopefully they won’t worry too much. I took SAT II without any AP. I also talked with my EC in the interview about a lot of physics and the conversation went well, so hopefully he’ll say I was good enough. But yes, it does worry me some.
My school doesn’t do AMC unfortunately :(. I’ve had a 101+ 2 of my 3 years in high school for math (and I think I have one right now in AB Calc), and my ACT, SAT II, and competition results will hopefully reassure them that I’m a good candidate.
@Hermit9 Honestly, don’t worry too much about your exams. You’ve got some pretty strong EC’s.
Actually, the most important part of the application is probably your interview, followed by your essay, as this is how they get to know you; your personality is the biggest factor (and is also something I can’t gauge).
@ammoopi I wish I could say, but I honestly don’t know for sure. I would think personality, but it could be different.
@Hermit9 I see, that explains a lot about the math competitions. I assume you’re doing regular action so your transcript can get to MIT in time?
The rest of your application is perfect though; math is covered well by your contests, EC’s are good.
Not having AMC is a school problem, so its not really completely your fault. Although it does make it more risky for them to admit you, since the university contests you do don’t have much of a “standard” difficulty, so its hard for them to evaluate.
@alephzer0 Well, you clearly show a strong interest in computers and engineering (I think)! Your essays should be pretty strong (you have nice anecdotes) and should probably be the part that carries your application. Your test scores and GPA are great (better than mine either way XD).
@ammoopi There isn’t really a prioritization of importance for the different parts of the application.
From what I’ve learned online, this is how the application roughly works:
If you have sub-par test scores and stats, then you’re basically filtered out (although that bar is pretty low). If you show a personality problem on the interview, then you’re also filtered out. If they determine that you can’t take MIT’s workload, then you’re also removed. These filters only remove the least-qualified people, and MIT often looks at them again in case of various personal difficulties and stuff.
At this point, a large portion of the applicants still remain. A good interview can do you a lot of good because it helps them know you better, but a meh interview shouldn’t hurt you too much because of the large variance between interviewers. Essays become very important at this point for telling them what kind of person you are. Extracurriculars are looked at here. The point here is to be different from all the other applicants in a good way, since MIT likes a sort of intellectual diversity.
@qwertyiop thanks! I’ve actually seen multiple cases of accepted people who say they think their essays carried their application. I am very much into computers and engineering, (I’m so into programming that I always seem to have an urge to type a semicolon at the end of a sentence rather than a period in my English essays, as this is how statements are ended in C++) but also the “hard” sciences (biology and chem in particular (I would nerd out over science fact books for hours on end as a child, and even look at diagrams in my mother’s grad-level histology textbooks)).
In other news, where did you learn this stuff about the application review process?
@alephzer0 1. asking your interviewer can give you a bit of information. 2. they have literally everything on their blog lool. 3. Quora is also a minor source of questions, although most of the questions aren’t that good. 4. if you send emails to MIT, they will reply with answers 
I watched a one and a half hour long video on MIT’s dean talking about the admissions process. \o/ that was very helpful. I forgot where I found that.
I program in javascript + node.js. Too bad I couldn’t do USACO with that 
(although its supposed to be faster than Python with Chrome V8 now).
@qwertyiop ok. Was just curious
Hey, so, I just got my IB predicted results. They were:
- English Lit SL: 6 (IMO, I think this was an unfair grade since I always got 7's in his class but he didn't give anyone a seven)
- French Ab Into SL: 7 (I have no idea how on Earth I managed this)
- Mathematics HL: 7
- Physics HL: 7
- Economics HL: 7
- Chemistry HL: 6
For an overall of 43/45, with TOK+EE points.
So, how important are the IB predicted results for US colleges? I know that for Oxbridge, they’re almost everything along with your IGCSE classes. Will my IB score be able to compensate for my mediocre SAT (2180)?
@Ahmad12345
That’s not a mediocre SAT. Especially since English is (according to you, apparently) not your first language. (It doesn’t look like it though :P)
IB scores are pretty important. (Although extracurriculars are probably more important.)
D-2 guys, let’s goo!!
@qwerytiop A few of them are Internationals. My SAT I score is <2100 and my essays are probably not the best. Also, I know another 2 students that are applying early at MIT and they have a lot of summer schools at Stanford and MIT.
Right now I am trying to make my optional essay. If anyone has any idea about what I should write and how much I should write please tell me. Someone advised me to copy paste my commonapp essay but someohow I feel that it is not such a good idea
@dianaDM I’m not sure if the optional section is supposed to be an “essay”. Your commonapp essay would be too long in there, just make a shortened version or something of it if you have to.
Basically its just so that if you have anything you want to say but you missed, you can put it there.
Hey guys, I’m just wondering my SAT 2 s are in the 25 percentile will this hurt me??
@nevergiveupp From what I’ve heard is better to have something above 750.
I am wondering how many are applying early ?