<p>Honestly I do not know average SAT scores our school does not post them</p>
<p>However I can claim we have one of the top programs in the state–our county is credited as the best in the state (Florida unfrotunately has a poor educational reputation) eh sorry I can’t produce any physical statistics.</p>
<p>I can say that our graduating class this year was insane–All Ivies but Princeton. Then various others Northwestern, John Hopkins, err Vanderbilt you get the picture ;)</p>
<p>haha yea it’s all because of some political favoritism with FCAT (disgusting) and hmm admins that get $100,000 a yr. I have some opinions about our school system of course but I won’t divulge them.</p>
<p>Err FIRST Robotics is an internationally recognized competition started by Dean Kamen (famous inventor) and consists of thousands of high school students who work on teams to build a robot that accomplishes the challenge designed by Dean, Woody Flowers (ex-MIT professor), and other engineers. This is an intense program that gives hands-on experience in engineering (software, electrical, mechanical) with real-life engineers (my team works with various engineers from Pratt and other companies in the area).</p>
<p>I was surprised to not see many people involved in the program on this site, but you can always start your own team thats what we like to see ;). [url=<a href=“http://www.usfirst.org%5DUSFirst%5B/url”>http://www.usfirst.org]USFirst[/url</a>] ,though it costs thousands of dollars.</p>
<p>My point is that this club is an amazing program that deals with math, science, and technology (I mean FIRST stands for For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and I get rather defensive because I love it despite the late nights attempting to finish the robot before shipping it off to the competition.</p>
<p>Oh and Mudd doesn’t offer Aerospace Engineering. My friend goes there but he gives me the impression that it is not specific enough.</p>
<p>just fyi, being commended on the PSAT means you did well but you cant run for finalist. Only those who are selected as semifinalists can become finalists.
So: Bad score -> nothing
Good score -> commended
Top score -> semifinalist -> finalist</p>
<p>Actually, I don’t think Florida is a well-represented state. It’s more of a neutral/under-represented state IMO. Although there are a bunch of smart kids from Florida, the poor education system drags them down. So I think your home state might help with your apps a little.</p>
<p>They haven’t selected any semifinalists yet. Certain people have been “commended”, maybe that’s the wrong term, and are to be chosen for semifinalists in September or October I think. This of course does not guarantee my being chosen, despite having the 2nd highest score in my class which doesn’t speak high of my classmates, but I can still hope ;)</p>
<p>I STRONGLY advise that you retake the SAT.. you should have at least 700+ in each subject for reasoning and at least 750 in the subject tests.</p>
<p>everything else looks perfect though.. it’s just that a strong SAT score can help tremendously.. colleges will find it strange that you have such great grades and such low SAT scores so get those up and you should be fine :)</p>
<p>yup I’m taking the next SAT in October I think it is…thankfully I will get the scores in before the Early Action deadline. 35% of the students at MIT have CR scores under 700 but I rather be part of the 65% lol thanks. I’ll be studying alot</p>
<p>The 35% with scores under 700 are going to be hooked: athletes, staff kids, URMs.</p>
<p>I know nothing about robotics, but have you won the international competitions? At MIT level, they’re not just looking at participation, they want people who’ve won important intnl competitios.</p>
<p>“Err FIRST Robotics is an internationally recognized competition started by Dean Kamen (famous inventor) and consists of thousands of high school students who work on teams to build a robot that accomplishes the challenge designed by Dean, Woody Flowers (ex-MIT professor), and other engineers. This is an intense program that gives hands-on experience in engineering (software, electrical, mechanical) with real-life engineers (my team works with various engineers from Pratt and other companies in the area).”</p>
<p>FIRST participants are dime a dozen. While your team may be great, it is not a stand out EC. A stand-out EC would be placing in the Intel competition, or completing research over the summer. FIRST is a great program, yes, but will not make you stand out from other MIT applicants.</p>
<p>I’m guessing Flight Lessons will be considered a stand-out EC–there are only 350,000 pilots in the U.S. (from a population of 350 million), which is about 0.1% of the population. Maybe its not considered as prestigious as some other things, but it demonstrates knowledge in my intended area of study. I’ve wanted to learn, just have been busy but hopefully I can find time this summer. Anyone disagree?</p>
<p>^ Agreed. Also, flight lessons have nothing to do with your studies at MIT, so they will be negligible on your app. Your ECs, as newyorka says and I agree, are just not stand-outs, so instead focus on the essays and have amazing recs. Beef up the parts of the app that you can change so that you will stand out in other areas.</p>
<p>Hmm I can’t really do RSI now it’s abit late. I checked out the Intel competition–how do people obtain the resources to do some of those experiments?</p>
<p>Thankfully I expect my reccomendations to be superb; my teacher for humanities is a published author and so her writing is quite amazing (and she loves my writing thankfully). Both my chemistry teacher and math teacher are fairly close to me and extol my interests in science and technology.</p>
<p>As for flight lessons…it’s unfortunate they’re seen as “rich kid” EC’s, I know plenty of people who are of the middle class and take them, but life is life. Nonetheless I still expect to take them…</p>
thanks. I’ll be studying alot</p>