I’m an Educational Counselor for MIT and I mostly lurk here. I also read on reddit and quora and other places.
There are MANY factors (thus it is right to use the term ‘holistic’) regarding MIT Admissions. There are many things that even I don’t get to see (and I never ask about academics or test scores).
The most important thing, in a nutshell, is always fit. And luckily for applicants, MIT has defined it: http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/match
There are also factors outside of what is said. MIT has a database of high schools in the United States and grading systems; MIT also has tracked the high school of their current students and alumni. It’s even on the official transcript from the registrar’s office.
Students that fare poorly at MIT that graduated from certain schools – well, an educated guess would be that would be noted. So some previous acceptee from your school could influence admissions for you.
No applicant or parent gets to see EC interview notes nor anything in the letters of recommendation. Applicants might believe their interview “went well” (and it probably did if an applicant is a decent conversationalist) but the interview notes are rather different than that. We’ll leave it that MIT, like all other elite schools, wants to know if you’re a good fit for MIT or not. Bad academics? Bad fit. Cry over anything other straight A’s? Bad fit. No developed study skills or time management skills? Bad fit. Get straight A’s but don’t challenge yourself and don’t do anything outside of what’s required in class? Bad fit. Communicate worse than a rotten rutabega? Bad fit.
What parents and even applicants of a single school get to see is a very small part, less than a percent, of all who apply – so the dataset that you have is very small. My dataset is a bit bigger since 1) I can consider people I knew at MIT, 2) the applicants that I’ve interviewed over the years I’ve been an Educational Counselor, and 3) talking with other Educational Counselors.
Context is also considered: what opportunities you had, what classes and variants were offered (part of the high school report), how challenging was your courseload compared to other students in your school, your family situation, etc. It is not an apples-for-apples comparison i.e., a lower income student at a school that doesn’t have grade inflation and say, a student from an upper-class family and private high school that does have grade inflation.
It is not the case that someone was accepted merely based on their race. There is no single factor nor single achievement that gets someone accepted or rejected. Great grades, test scores, and activities (assuming you mean extracurriculars) aren’t sufficient. (However, poor grades, poor test scores, no extracurriculars – all those hurt an applicant.) Choice of major does not matter. In the Match link above, there’s at least twelve things that MIT listed. Those who are dedicated can find out about MIT’s culture and virtues and values (and majors and programs and General Institute Requirements) et cetera.
Outside of the clueless who apply, and I haven’t interviewed any of those – there are a lot of great candidates and too few spots. Even if half of the 22,000 applicants this year would do very well academically, that’s still way too many.
For those wondering what life at MIT is like, there are only two insights:
- IHTFP
In both senses:
I hate this darn place!
I have truly found paradise
e.g., https://www.technologyreview.com/s/527861/tech-is-and-always-has-been-hell/
Students will likely work harder than they’ve ever worked previously.
- “drinking from a firehose”