<p>This is super late but I’m incredibly bored and procrastinating on various things right now so here goes! Maybe it’ll help someone someday.</p>
<p>Decision: AdMITted</p>
<p>Objective</p>
<p>SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 2370: 800/770/800/10
ACT (breakdown): N/A
SAT II (subject, score): Math 2 (800), Physics (770), US History (750)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.83
Weighted GPA: 4.56/5
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): top 10% (my school uses 5% increments)
AP (place score in parentheses): Calc AB (5), Physics C Part 1 (5), US History (4)
IB (place score in parentheses): N/A
Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics C Part 2, AP Calc BC, AP Computer Science A, AP Lit, AP Spanish Literature, Robotics HH, Band H
Number of other RA applicants in your school: 7 other kids applied in total, but I’m not sure of the EA/RA breakdown. Sorry.
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): Two time Zero Robotics national champion (an MIT affiliated competition, so perhaps they considered it to be major)
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): National Merit Commended, AP Scholar</p>
<p>Subjective</p>
<p>Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description):
-FIRST Robotics: 6-12th grade but MIT only knows about my high school involvement, captain this year, co-captain Junior year. We build robots that compete. In high school, I did both FTC and FRC (two different leagues). We’ve won a few awards but nothing major.
-Zero Robotics: 10-12th grade, unofficial head programmer this year. It’s a programming competition run by MIT where teams program autonomous satellites on the ISS, and the finalists’ code is sent to the ISS and run on the real satellites there. We won Honorable Mention in 10th grade, were on the winning alliance in 11th grade, made it to the finals of the Open Competition in 11th grade, and were the winning alliance captain in 12th grade.
-Marching Band: 10-12th grade. I play alto sax. We don’t even compete 
-Karate: 4th-12th grade, black belt and assistant instructor.
-Drum and marimba lessons: 5th-12th grade. Most advanced student at the studio.
-Softball team: 9th grade.
-Math League: 12th grade. Very limited involvement.</p>
<p>Job/Work Experience:
-Repairperson (12th grade): I work at a handheld parking enforcement computer company.
-Counselor and Lifeguard (summer before 12th grade): I worked at a sleepaway camp for 3 weeks.
-Counselor in Training (summer before 11th grade): Worked at the same sleepaway camp for 7 weeks.</p>
<p>Volunteer/Community Service:
-Teaching karate (see extracurriculars)
-Relay For Life (11th grade)
-Run yearly event as part of a series for middle and high school girls to get them interested in STEM (10-12th grade)</p>
<p>Summer Experience:
-Camp (see job/work experience)
-NJ Governor’s School of Engineering and Technology (summer before 12th grade): Free summer program for the top engineering students in NJ. Did a research project, took classes, toured engineering/technology companies, heard speakers.</p>
<p>Writing</p>
<p>Essays:
-What You Do For Pleasure: Geocaching. 8/10, probably the only essay they saw on the topic, revised it a lot because it was taken from my Common App essay.
-Department at MIT: Transportation engineering research. 7/10, probably the only essay they saw on the topic, but wasn’t particularly well-written.
-Trait Most Proud Of: Ability to keep calm and listen to others to solve problems. 6/10, nothing special.
-World You Come From: Parents exposing me to worlds that were not their own (engineering) and exploring NYC to become interested in transportation engineering. 9/10, I revised it a lot and it became really well-written. Once again, the transportation engineering part was probably pretty unique.
-Significant Challenge: Sucking at the alto sax at the beginning of band in 10th grade but getting better and ending up as a 1st alto. 8/10, I made it funny and casual, but it wasn’t terribly original.</p>
<p>Teacher Recommendations:</p>
<h1>1: Calc and trig/calc teacher. 9/10, he really liked me and supposedly writes kickass letters.</h1>
<h1>2: English teacher. 8/10, she really liked me (although not as much as my calc teacher) and supposedly writes kickass letters.</h1>
<p>Counselor Rec: 6/10, she liked me a lot but she had to write a ton of letters (large public school with few counselors). She knew me better than the average student, but still not well.
Additional Info/Rec: From my research advisor at the NJ Governor’s School of Engineering and Technology. 7/10, he called me a leader amongst a group of other crazy smart and talented kids, but it wasn’t particularly well-written.
Interview: 10/10. We got to talking about my interest in autonomous cars, and I somehow came off as sounding smart and well-informed (or so I think). It was also super chill and natural, we talked about reddit! After I was admitted, I saw him at an event and he told me that I was the most promising of the kids he had interviewed and that he knew right away that I was a perfect fit for MIT.
Art Supplement: Not art, but I did do the research supplement and I submitted the abstract of the paper I did at the NJ Governor’s School of Engineering and Technology, along with the aforementioned letter from my research advisor.</p>
<p>Other</p>
<p>Date Submitted App: A couple of days before the RA app was due, not sure of the exact date. Unlike many, I didn’t apply EA and get deferred, I applied RA because I had to take the Physics SAT II.
U.S. State/Territory or Country: New Jersey
School Type: Public, a little more than 2,000 kids
Ethnicity: White
Gender: F
Income Bracket Range: Parents are divorced, so there are 2 mortgages and whatnot, but together they make about 200k/year.
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): N/A</p>
<p>Reflection</p>
<p>Strengths: Test scores, FIRST Robotics leadership, Zero Robotics achievements, interview
Weaknesses: Grades, lack of community service
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: Zero Robotics achievements were probably major, as it is an MIT-affiliated competition. Also, I’m interested in Course 1 (Civil and Environmental Engineering), which isn’t too common for MIT applicants as far as I can tell. Within Course 1, I have a specified interest of transportation engineering, and it’s very possible that I was the only applicant who expressed that interest.
What would you have done differently?: Told MIT about my national-level achievements in FLL, contacted transportation engineering professors so that I could mention them in my Department at MIT essay.</p>
<p>Other Factors: I mailed MIT a package with my resume, an additional letter of rec from the director of the Governor’s School, news articles that I was in, and the town magazine with me on the cover.</p>
<p>General Comments & Advice: It’s easy for me to say, because I got into my first choice, but don’t despair if you don’t get in where you want to go. You can still have a great time in college, unless you don’t accept that wherever you’re headed is “your school.” And if you do well (which might even be easier at a less selective school), you can land that job you’ve always dreamed of. But hey, doesn’t mean I’m not sending you my best wishes. I was just like you, reading these and trying to figure out if I had a chance. Maybe, next year or in a few years, we’ll be chilling together at the 'tute :)</p>