MIT and Stanford

Applying to College
1

<p>Hey everyone! I just signed up recently 'cause I had a few questions in my mind. </p>

<p>I am a currently a Class X student in India and preparing for admissions into US universities. I have often visited websites of MIT and Stanford and the websites seem so lovely and everything seems too good to be true. </p>

<p>But in reality VERY FEW people are admitted there. I am yet to know anyone who was admitted into MIT from my school and only 4-5 were admitted into Stanford last year.</p>

<p>So my point is that is it really THAT easy as the websites say or something else.</p>

<p>~Thanks!</p>

2

<p>OP. Sorry to be skeptical…but it seems rather UNBELIEVABLE that your school had that many get into Stanford from an Indian school…to be honest…</p>

<p>[Stanford</a> beats out all of the Ivy League schools by having the toughest admissions rate of all | Mail Online](<a href=“Stanford beats out all of the Ivy League schools by having the toughest admissions rate of all | Daily Mail Online”>Stanford beats out all of the Ivy League schools by having the toughest admissions rate of all | Daily Mail Online)</p>

<p>either…someone is not being truthful…or…you must attend one of the best secondary schools in the world…which is quite dubious…</p>

<p>…I doubt you have that many prodigies attending your school…</p>

3

<p>Where on their websites do either of those schools say it’s easy to gain acceptance? Easy to apply perhaps, but not to be accepted.</p>

<p>Look at the Common Data Sets for the schools, they give admissions data and you can see the number of applicants and acceptances.</p>

4

<p>Wow. 4-5 students admitted into Stanford last year from a single school in India. In reality, there are very few students enrolled either of these 2 schools from any single high school even within the US. For MIT, it is not likely to have more than 2 students from the same foreign country per year.</p>

5

<p>MIT admits about 5-7 each year from India.</p>

<p>There are currently 19 altogether which means they are averaging 5 students per year who show up.</p>

<p>[MIT</a> | The International Students Office | International Student Statistics 2011-2012](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/iso/stats_12-13/total.shtml]MIT”>http://web.mit.edu/iso/stats_12-13/total.shtml)</p>

<p>I can’t find country specific statistics for Stanford. They are averaging 130 international students per year. They had 56 countries represented last year. </p>

<p>[Undergraduate</a> Profile: Stanford University Facts](<a href=“http://facts.stanford.edu/academics/undergraduate-profile]Undergraduate”>Undergraduate Student Profile - Facts)</p>

<p><a href=“http://icenter.stanford.edu/about_us/student_stats/students_12.pdf[/url]”>http://icenter.stanford.edu/about_us/student_stats/students_12.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>My guess is that Stanford averages about 5-10 kids overall from India each year.</p>

6

<p>Considering the population of India (and China too), perhaps one should not be surprised to have certain number of students admitted to MIT or Stanford each year, but it would be hard to have a feeder school in India. Both MIT and Stanford have single digit acceptance rate. That school in India must be very competitive. It is still hard to swallow when one associates “EASY” with the admission to Stanford.</p>

7

<p>There is one factor which increases the number but not does not count against the country. There are many in India who have been getting admitted but don’t count against the country. They are American citizens or permanent residents who are studying in schools following American or IB curriculum.</p>

<p>In the case of MIT, they provide FA to all internationals but limit the numbers. Stanford has a different process where they want Internationals but do not automatically provide FA to students outside of North America. So it is possible they admit more than one student from schools frequented by well off students in India but I don’t believe there is not more than one such school.</p>

8

<p>Well no I am not lying. I from DPS R.K. Puram and sure quite a few people did get into Stanford.</p>

9

<p>^ I have not heard of that school getting 5 people into Stanford in any year.</p>

<p>There are couple of schools in Delhi and Bombay which get one or two admits for sure.</p>

<p>How many joined Stanford?</p>

<p>Edit - I googled the school and found the reference.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.dpsrkp.net/International_admissions_2011.asp[/url]”>http://www.dpsrkp.net/International_admissions_2011.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I see 4 got into Stanford in 2011, 2 are currently attending. The other two went to Yale and Harvard. One seems to have gotten FA and so I wonder if she has status in US.</p>

10

<p>It’s not as difficult to get into MIT and Stanford as some would have you believe. It’s not a lottery, where everyone has an equal 1 in 7 chance. For well qualified students, the odds are actually quite good. A top school in India could well do it.</p>

<p>For example, D’s US high school, public, open enrollment, Top 200 Newsweek, senior class sizes around 300. </p>

<p>For 2013, Stanford, 4 of 13 admitted, 1 enrolled. It’s routine for 10-11 to apply, 3 to 4 to get in, and 1 usually enrolls. But we’ve had years where 6 out of 8 were accepted, 4 enrolled. There has been at least 1 acceptance every year since 2001, and at least 1 enrollment almost every year. Overall, 38 out of 121 got in.</p>

<p>For 2013, MIT, 4 of 8 admitted, 2 enrolled. A bit of an unusual year, there are usually 4 to 5 applicants, 1 or 2 acceptances, sometimes 4, sometimes 0. Overall, 20 out of 55 got accepted.</p>

<p>If you’ve got top marks, ACT 34+, tough course load, 3.9+ GPA, your odds are probably above 50%.</p>

11

<p>American schools admissions and International admissions are not the same.</p>

<p>There are many with 34+ and 3.9 GPA who get totally ignored. There were 5 perfect scores in a local school in 2012 (4 ACT, 1 SAT) and only 2 of them got into Stanford, only one into MIT. A lot more had 34+ (38 were national merit).It takes a lot more than high scores and high GPA.</p>

12

<p>@MrMom62
That is far from the truth if you look at the MIT admission stat. The acceptance rate for ACT 34-36 is only 13 %.
<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats[/url]”>http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

13

<p>But all you have is the ACT score. Add in the other factors as well. Test scores may well be the LEAST important factor. And yes, I’m well aware that international admissions are vastly different. All I’m saying is the published numbers for admissions are misleading for many well qualified students, who are lead to believe they have little chance when in fact they might have quite a decent chance. And for others, they are lead to believe they have a chance, when in fact they have virtually no chance. All chances are not created equal.</p>

<p>You’ve got to ask yourself, why is it a Midwest public school with few legacies and few URMs is getting a long term acceptance rate into Stanford of 31% and MIT of 36%? Those numbers are real and not some short term statistical fluke. (I’ll admit there might be some faculty kids preference at work here, but it’s not enough to throw the numbers that far off.) Is one school doing something right, or are the others doing something wrong?</p>

<p>Just for comparison purposes, here are some other acceptance rates for D’s HS for top ranked National Universities. Note that we don’t have a lot of HYPS alums around here, so we don’t get a lot of legacy admits.</p>

<p>Harvard 14%
Yale 22%
Princeton 26%
Columbia 23%
Chicago 43%
Duke 36%
Penn 25%
Cal Tech 37%
Dartmouth 29%
Johns Hopkins 49%
Northwestern 40%
Pomona 32%</p>

<p>I don’t have the national numbers in front of me, but I believe these are all at or above the national average. Some far above. So what’s going on? I think there are a couple of factors:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>It’s not just about test scores, these students are very well prepared. Curriculum, curriculum, curriculum! There are 22 APs on offer, plus more courses beyond APs, plus coursework at the local world class university for those who blow through what the high school can offer. When colleges say we don’t hold it against students for not taking APs that aren’t available, that’s probably a lie. Let’s be realistic, who is MIT going to prefer, a 35/36 with precalc or a 35/36 with Calc III or beyond.</p></li>
<li><p>These apps are prescreened. The college advisors know who stands a chance and who’s wasting their time. It’s never a sure thing, but they’re very good at knowing what each school requires beyond test scores and they discourage apps that have little chance. That increases yield.</p></li>
<li><p>The college advisors also have a workload, about 150 kids each (college advising only), that allows them to work with the kids on scrubbing their Common Apps. These things are not just thrown over the wall in hopes they come back with some miracle acceptance. They are as good as they can possibly be, if you take the time to work with the advisors on scrubbing them.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Bottom line: If you are a top student who’s taken a truly rigorous course load, screen your app for schools you truly qualify for, and make your app the best it can possibly be, your odds are going to be better than the national average. Sometimes way better.</p>

14

<p>^ I still disagree. The school with 5 perfect scores offers 32 APs. Many of them have completed 12-15 by the time of graduation.</p>

<p>Some schools have the same kids get into all the schools.</p>

<p>How many of these kids attend the schools specified in 2013?</p>

15

<p>Data from one single school does not reflect the reality. Particularly, there is no universal criteria for grading and GPA calculation. One can never make a generalization from a single school. I can tell from my D’s school that has a dozen or so students applying to Stanford or MIT with 3.9+ GPA and 35+ ACT and strong EC but only around one going to each every year.</p>

16

<p>The problem of one student getting multiple acceptances, but only being able to attend one school is an interesting one. (For instance, I know a large contingent of our MIT acceptances this year actually wound up going to Chicago.) The counter is also interesting - maybe you have only a 16% chance of getting into a particular school, but if you apply to 10, what are your odds of getting into at least one top school. After all, you only need one.</p>

<p>I’ll have to research our school’s data and see what I can find. I’ll post it later when I have more time.</p>

17

<p>I think you guys are missing one point.</p>

<p>last year, about 9.5K schools from world wide represented the applicant pool of Princeton (I saw this in website of Princeton but number won’t be same as I can’t seem to remember those number exactly)</p>

<p>that means at least 9.5K different students from different schools.</p>

<p>that means something at least 2800 schools were represented in the international applicant pool of 4800. it is very unlikely that everyone from your school apply there and got in (I am not talking about princeton but about the prospect)</p>

<p>last year, MIT accepted only 115 international and 4 of those were Indian. I am not sure about this, but that’s still -3 . and international admission is different from US admission.</p>

<p>ADD: someone lied hilariously to you. I am not sure even MIT takes 7 international from a country.</p>

18

<p>^ check out the link and use the average over 4 years. They are admitting more students than those in the school. China averages 12 per year.</p>

<p>[MIT</a> | The International Students Office | International Student Statistics 2011-2012](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/iso/stats_12-13/total.shtml]MIT”>http://web.mit.edu/iso/stats_12-13/total.shtml)</p>

19

<p>There were many UG from China in the last 2-3 years. What is the special UG?
With the exception of a few countries, most have less than an average of 2 students per year (assuming 4 year UG graduation).</p>