<p>Umm, hi. I’m from India, enrolled in a state board (not ICSE/CBSE) school in the Science stream and most of my classes over the past year and a half have been science and math.
[Rough division of classes: 20% languages - English and Bengali, 80% sciences - Math, Physics, Chem, Stat.]
I’m aware that MIT requires one humanities recommender and one science recommender, but I’m having trouble choosing the former. I haven’t had an opportunity to interact personally with any of the 10 or so teachers who have taken language classes. I might be able to convince one of them to write me a rec, but it would certainly be VERY weak and sketchy. My high school has 5000+ students, they won’t be able to provide much insight into my character, achievements, intellect, etc. The best I can hope for is an honest letter saying that they don’t know me outside class, and I’m a decent student in class; the worst - a letter with cliched praises heaped upon me without anything to back it up. Any advice? 
(For most colleges, I’m getting recommendations from my math and stat teachers, who were my class teachers in 11th and 12th grades respectively.)</p>
<p>You still need to submit a humanities recommendation, but you can send an additional recommendation from your stat teacher, if you think Admissions would learn more reading both the stat and math teachers.</p>
<p>You’re far from the only one in this sort of position - Admissions knows that situations like this exist, and they’ll take that into account. Your recommendations are just a piece of your application - pick the best choices for them, send in a supplemental one if you need it, then move on to the rest :)</p>
<p>Thank you, PiperXP. I’ll send in three school recs then. Two proper ones from my math and stat teachers and one from any of my English/Bengali teachers.</p>
<p>One more question on recs: are additional ones from outside my school encouraged?
So, I have been attending the IMO team selection camp in India since 10th grade. I have a peer/mentor who was in his senior year when it was my first year at the camp (he eventually won a medal). The next year, he came back as a coach at the camp. He’s seen me as a fellow participant as well as his student. I believe that he can provide greater information and insight than my school teachers, but he’s still a college student. I talked to him, he said that he can write one but it won’t “carry any weight.” Can I, and more importantly SHOULD I, get a letter from him? Would it be of any value, or just annoy the Admissions Office?</p>
<p>Oh, I submitted Part 1 a couple of weeks back but accidentally left out an insignificant detail (my mother’s nationality). I know it’s unimportant, but is there any way to fix it?</p>
<p>You can send additional recommendations, from anyone in your life from whom you’d like to have a recommendation. The consideration is not whether you’ll annoy the admissions office (it’s their job to read the application you put together), but whether the additional recommendation will provide enough value to your application that it’s worth it for you to send. There’s only a limited amount of time available for each application to be read. Is this additional recommendation worth the time? Does it add something to your application as a whole, or is it just distracting?</p>
<p>There is a skill called “grantsmanship” that you might learn if you continue in life as a professional scientist or engineer. Scientists have to write grants to the government or private foundations to obtain funding, so learning how to write a successful grant application is a great skill for a scientist to have. One aspect of grantsmanship is to write the application that presents your case in the most succinct fashion possible – not too pithy, but just pithy enough. This is how you should aim in your undergraduate applications, as well.</p>
<p>Since you’re already planning to send an additional academic recommendation, I would think very carefully before sending a fourth recommendation. Not because the admissions office will be irritated, but because four recommendations is more than most people need.</p>
<p>Thank you, molliebatmit. That was really helpful.</p>
<p>“Since you’re already planning to send an additional academic recommendation, I would think very carefully before sending a fourth recommendation. Not because the admissions office will be irritated, but because four recommendations is more than most people need.”</p>
<p>This is EXACTLY what was on my mind as well. I thought about it for a while. One additional letter might be worth it, but not two, no way.</p>
<p>I seem to have two choices:
- The 2 mandatory recommendations + 1 additional recommendation from school stat teacher.
- The 2 mandatory recommendations + 1 additional recommendation from my senior/coach.</p>
<p>Thanks again for the response, it made me think.</p>
<p>Do we have to send the AP score reports in during the application process or just self report and send the score reports in if (Hopefully WHEN) accepted? Are the AP score reports necessary for the application review?</p>
<p>Hi Molly,
An admissions officer at the MIT Admission information session told me it is ok to send 2 form A’s and 1 form B. Can you please confirm this. Thanks</p>
<p>confusedhexagon - You can send in all 4 if they show additional information. Though I imagine your stat teacher and math teacher would have similar things to say, whereas the coach might offer something new. (That’s just a guess, though. If all 4 have unique things to say, by all means, send them all in!)</p>
<p>jjjj8866 - You just self-report for now, send the scores in later (usually for getting credit for something - I’m not sure I actually sent mine in).</p>
<p>LuckyAN - You should specify which teacher is meant to be a form A, and which is the supplement. I believe you can use the same form (I certainly don’t want to contradict the info session), but you should be clear on what you’re using the form for.</p>
<p>Hi there, i’m asking on behalf of my friend because he is unable to access the internet at the moment. He isn’t sure what to put in part 2 where it asks for a-levels, ap classes etc, as we are in Australia with the Queensland system, where there are only OP classes. Thank you for your help.</p>
<p>He shouldn’t list A-levels or AP classes. Not everyone takes them anyway.</p>
<p>Question:</p>
<p>Let’s say I took a lot of AP Exams and got 1 4 and the rest 5s. Is it a good idea to put that 4 in my application.</p>
<p>It’s not going to hurt you.</p>
<p>This comes up every year. AP scores do not mean very much for MIT Admission. Not every school offers them, in those that do, most students take the bulk of them in their final year and get their scores well after university admissions is largely done. As a result, your AP scores on the AP’s taken in your (say) sophomore year say a lot more about your high school than they do about you. Include them if you want, but they are not that important.</p>
<p>Whether you take AP Courses on the other hand is usually VERY important. MIT students as a group tend to like to challenge themselves. One thing that correlates very well with success at MIT is whether the students took the hardest classes that their secondary school had to offer. </p>
<p>There is no absolute number here, because it all relates to the opportunities available at your secondary school, which is something over which the student has very little control. If your school offers 3 AP classes and you take 3 AP classes, then that is great, you took the hardest classes available to you. But if your school offers 15 AP classes and you took 3 AP classes, then that would certainly raise questions in an admissions officer’s mind.</p>
<p>I was filling out the self-reported coursework, and I was wondering what I should leave in the
“Course Grades” column for my first semester classes (whose grades haven’t been calculated yet). Could I write “In progress” or something similar? </p>
<p>Also, if some of my courses are post-ap but receive ap weighting, what should I leave in the “Level” column? </p>
<p>Thank you in advance!</p>
<p>Should I list “going to PROMYS” as an international or national distinction? selection is out of an international pool, but I don’t want to overinflate my self</p>
<p>Also, should I list “commended scholar” for PSAT?
Because I actually got a 223 but wasn’t semifinalist haha</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>So let’s just say I am in a somewhat different situation then most but a friend of mine suggested I might as well apply for entry into MIT for the hell of it as he thinks I would fit in there and do well. See I’ve been a rather sick kid and thus miss a lot of schooling at times, although I am still learning oo manage it all, the main problems currently being bipolar depression and discoid eczema. </p>
<p>Now on the flip side I’ve made it a long way and next year will be applying to universities in Australia a year early by taking a STAT test and qualifying as a special entry as I will not have done year 12 but will have just completed year 11. So I will not have done the SAT or ACT tests and I believe I need them to even apply, is this true? So because of the fact I won’t have year 12 under my belt I will be doing an associates degree in engineering at first for either a year to get the prerequisites I need and then turning it into either an electrical and electronic engineering degree or computer systems engineering degree or instead completing the associate degree of engineering and then going on to do a normal degree in the aforementioned areas. </p>
<p>So yeah, I’ve tried contacting the admissions department by email but haven’t gotten a reply yet. So I’m starting to think the idea was rather silly, I’ve been tested on IQ through the Raven’s test and gotten a high mark on that if that means anything. Anyway I would just like someone’s thoughts who has some insight to all of this if I’m just wasting my time and should just stick to the universities in Australia. Plus on top of all of that I don’t come from a very wealthy family so I have no idea how I would pay for accommodation or even a trip to America let alone the bills for studying there. Then last of all it seems an interview wasn’t possible as MyMIT says it has been wavered so that sort of destroys the chance of them being able to see in person how passionate I am about learning and technology, particularly computers and the technological singularity.</p>
<p>Anyway,</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>^ You don’t need to graduate from high school to go to MIT, but you should take the SATs. Note, you also can’t apply as a freshman if you enroll in another university program.</p>
<p>You’ll need to show the Admissions department that you can handle the MIT courseload.</p>
<p>PiperXP so are you saying I don’t actually need to have done the SAT or ACT tests? But it is recommended I do?</p>
<p>I can show the admissions department I can handle it pretty easily, and I believe I will be able to get backing from teachers on that behalf as I miss a lot of school but always catch up with little effort… Although they don’t do part-time there do they? I’ve had a cousin who was telling me I would be good going to a university in Australia as they can compete with the top ones in the US and EU so, not sure what to think about that.</p>
<p>Anyway thank you.</p>
<p>Anyone know how to list AP exams without the corresponding AP course (i.e. a self-studied exam)? I listed it in section 4 but put “AP Psychology (exam only)”</p>