MIT, Can people without awards and such get in?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Let’s say a regular person with a close-to perfect GPA, taking some AP classes. With a Not-so perfect SSAT Score attempts to try and get into MIT. They have done quite a bit hours of Volunteer Work and are Job Shadowing Computer Programmers. Other than that, he’s regular, but has a great passion for this type of major, not because it pays well, but because he feels that it’s what he’ll enjoy. What do you think will happen in regards to will he get accepted or what are his flaws? What could he do to get in and is this passion enough?

That boy is me by the way.
Ho Ho. Embarrassed me a bit

What do you think?

(:(l))0);

Do you think this is a frog?

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Yes, it’s possible - I know lots of MIT students who didn’t win a major award.

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But what are the average grades and SSAT scores that people who are accepted get.

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Average GPA/SAT of people with a major award or two - probably does not have to be that high

Average GPA/SAT of people with no major award or competition - probably has to be perfect or near perfect

Although what I said above will probably be affected by socioeconomic status, race, etc.

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Read the MIT admissions blog. There’s a student who built a fully functional nuclear reactor in his garage and he got rejected.

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I’ve never heard of SSAT. If you mean SAT, then you can look up the averages and 25/75%ile scores online.

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SSAT is the secondary school aptitude test; OP is just conflating it with the SAT.

@InnocentPanda, the posters who keep focusing on the grades and test scores have usually missed the point. MITer94 told you where you can get the score info (fwiw, the middle 50% of students got between 33-35 on the ACT and 2130-2380 on their SATs; which means that 25% got less than 33 / 2130 and 25% got more then 35/800.

In other words: you need very strong, but not perfect scores. Ditto GPA. Yet, I sense that you want a magic number: typical successful applicants have X. Read what MIT says about that:

http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/there_is_no_formula

A surprising number of students don’t like that, b/c it is easier (and not as scary) to just color inside the lines than it is to strike out on your own and follow your own heart.

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Your post sounds like it’s describing me. High GPA but not perfect. Lower math score than verbal score on the SAT (710 vs 770), 4 AP’s and no awards.
If you really have passion for something in particular, find a way to prove it. That’s what I did. And that was enough to get accepted.

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I don’t believe the budding young “nuclear engineer” had the proper permits or safety procedures to operate his “reactor”. That may have had something to do with his failure to gain admission.

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I don’t believe the budding young “nuclear engineer” had the proper permits or safety procedures
to operate his “reactor”. That may have had something to do with his failure to gain admission.

[/QUOTE]

We on this forum can only speculate why the adcoms decided to reject this person. From those I got to know in MIT admissions a few years back, lack of proper permits or procedures would not have been a factor then.

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Technically, it means that 25% got at least a 35 ACT score or at least a 2380 on the SAT. Similarly, 25% got at most a 33 ACT or at most a 2130 on the SAT.

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@jpm50 Maybe it goes sorta “in waves”. A group of us had the exact same idea to get into MIT a long time ago, but rejected it in favor of the need for permits and safety procedures.