<p>Ok so tht means i can only give 1 exam and that is calculus bc thats it…??? </p>
<p>Sent from my GT-S5360 using CC</p>
<p>Applicant from Egypt here. I took the British A-levels. I remember writing an essay for MIT in the form of a rap song lol.</p>
<p>Awesome! I wrote an essay that took my readers on a safari tour of my wallet - my favourite essay of all time! 
what A-Levels did you take?</p>
<p>Rap song ? Safari-like essay ?
Wow guys, that sounds cool… Mined are more direct (I read a post of an adcom, it was Chris I think, who said that he preferred to read “I like going to the beach” than some obscure narrative way to express the same idea).
Anyways, my best essay, Stanford’s Roommate essay, is a sort of “Roommate agreement” (like Sheldon’s in TBBT, but mine shows a lot what I like to do and stuff)
Hope they’ll like it !</p>
<p>@rajoftheuk Lol. I thought I’d come off as a bit peculiar because that’s how I am. At least we’re on the same boat. BTW I took A-levels in Math, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Further Math.</p>
<p>@hennebou Haha :D. That’s so cool. I though about doing something similar for that roommate essay but I didn’t want to sound irksome. Mine was about a funny habit I developed as a kid, but it’s definitely worthwhile in my opinion.</p>
<p>@azahra3 - oh same! Just without biology as my school only accommodates 4 a-levels. I love how domestic students are like ‘OMG AP exams are soooo hard!’. If they took one look at a further math a-level paper, they’d probably faint. A-levels are just so much more challenging than APs!</p>
<p>@Raj
I completely agree! Got my A Level results back… not what I was aiming for but still competitive even for Ox/Bridge (If I was applying there anyway 
) A Levels are far more difficult - not through work load, but the depth and understanding required to ace them. After all… even an 80% at A Levels is an A (most of the time)… where as looking at the whole GPA sort of system its a B/B-?</p>
<p>Hey guys ! Just got my TOEFL results, I aced the test ! Man, that was easy.
I don’t understand why people practice for months for this test…</p>
<p>Congrats! I think the reason why the test seems so easy to some is because it has to accommodate for the least proficient english speakers as well as the more advanced. Like on the MIT forums, I saw this one guy say ‘Hi sir, want so bad aero eng, what I need test 4 admit to MIT’.</p>
<p>Hey does taking Alevel exams increase my chances of getting into top ivy league schools in us.??? </p>
<p>Sent from my GT-S5360 using CC</p>
<p>I’ll put it this way. Getting 4 A*s at A level will turn a lot more heads than will getting four 5s in your APs</p>
<p>BTW I have 4 A* and an A.</p>
<p>Are A-levels optional or part of the British curriculum ?</p>
<p>I am finally enjoying waiting for my “DECISION” :P</p>
<p>@hennebou By acing, do you mean a 120?? Or doing very well like above 110? I know it’s a silly question, but I really would like to get it confirmed.</p>
<p>Very well above 110 
Lost one point on the writing section (probably “grammar” errors : I wasn’t used to the QWERTY keyboard, and I left some “;” when I intended to write “.”), and 3 points in the speaking section (on the familiar subjects question…)
Anyways, it doesn’t change anything, as long as you score +100 you are qualified for MIT ! (It’s really just a pass/fail test, nothing more. A 120 won’t help you more than a 102).</p>
<p>Btw, to those who take A-levels, I found this interesting info on MIT’s website :
[MIT</a> Class of 2016: Academics - International Examination Credit](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2016/subjects/intl.html#fb]MIT”>http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2016/subjects/intl.html#fb)
It’s about credits for A-levels/French Baccalaureate. Interesting fact : they give the same amount of credit for an A in on an A-level then for a 13/20 on the french baccalaureate, and also consider an A-B to be equivalent to a 10/20 on the french bac.
That’s good news for me, it wasn’t sure that MIT knew about the french grades system.
My school gives really low grades (if you try to convert them to a % grade, I mean), but in fact we all score 4-5 points more on the national exam than on school exams (for example, in my worst subject, french, were we have to write some 4 hours dissertations or comments about a text, I was around 10/20 the whole year [scoring lower on paper tests, but my home assignments kept the grade to “pass”], but on the bac [when pass the bac in two parts : one at the end of the 11th year, and the second part at the end of the 12th year] I scored 15/20 [oh, and I got the best grade of my class… I was like “that can’t be true”]).
So at least, MIT knows how the bac is scored, and knows how my school scores compared to the bac (thanks to the first part we’ve taken last june).
That’s good news.</p>
<p>Do you get to choose the A-levels you take ? Because we have to take exams in every subject (including humanities), we can’t choose a specific subject we want to study more, just a concentration (you can choose between : ES [Economy & Social Sciences], L [Humanities], and S [Scientific]). I’m in S, obviously.</p>
<p>Has anyone got any hits from Cambridge, MA on their websites this month?</p>
<p>Also, any Indians (specifically in Mumbai) who’ve been contacted for an interview recently?</p>
<p>Yeah I got a hit from Cambridge about a week ago :)</p>
<p>I got a couple views from MA (can’t tell if it’s from Cambridge or not), 3 views from PA (Maybe from CMU ?), 1 from CT (Yale?) and a few thousands from California (so I don’t know if this includes Stanford or not), all that on a video on a homemade touchscreen I did last year.</p>
<p>I have been getting some views from MA - 1 from Boston and 6 from Cambridge.
Today , i was contacted by an MIT alum for an interview.</p>
<p>Does that mean MIT is going through my application and is considering me? or do all applicants give an interview?
I am from Delhi . The Alum is in Bangalore.</p>