<p>Hi,
I'm currently a junior in high school planning to apply to MIT next year. My dream is to be a doctor working for WHO or the Peace Corps. I want to go to MIT because their courses, especially in science, are pretty much unparalleled. I have the baseline requirements for a good applicant (high SAT, SATII, AP scores, grades) but my activities are not science based. </p>
<p>I really do love science and math (I enjoyed AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Physics, AP Calc) but my career goals come also from my love of community service. I only have activities relating to extensive service projects that reflect my passion in humanitarian aid. Compared to other students who have won ISEF, SIEMENS, and other competitions and also have stellar scores, are STEM-interested students who don't have a ton of science extracurriculars at a significant disadvantage when it comes to a technical school like MIT?</p>
<p>NOTE: I do have Distinguished Honor Roll for AMC10 and one science summer program that I did after freshman year. No math or science fair or science olympiad. </p>
<p>Sorry if these questions have been answered before! I'm relatively new with CC.</p>
<p>I’m posting on my sibling’s account so some of the stats on it from previous posts are not mine. Please disregard! (If you were even inclined to look… haha this was a useless post I guess)</p>
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No, not at a significant disadvantage. Obviously, for a school like MIT, having outstanding national-level science awards is a big plus, but the (vast) majority of the class comes in without them. Science ECs in general are common in the MIT applicant pool, but not a prerequisite for admission by any means.</p>
<p>It seems like you have really solid stats. My suggestion would be do well on AMC12 this year, apply to lots of good stem summer programs. That would help.</p>
<p>I think it’s fair to say that the people who have those national science awards (Siemens, ISEF, Chemistry/Physics/Biology Olympiad) and IMO medals are in the MINORITY. It’s never bad to be in the MAJORITY; if it was in MIT admissions… well… let’s just say a lot of people would be freaking out.</p>
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<p>Yes, this has to be true because the number of people total who win stuff like that is dwarfed by the number of people admitted to MIT every year (~1500).</p>
<p>Yes, keep in mind that MIT does offer plenty for their non-STEM majors. MIT has one of the top 2 undergraduate business schools, it has the first architecture school in the US (and one of the best), as well as first class departments in a wide variety of other fields from Political Science to Linguistics, to Music (and indeed one of the EC’s in my region graduated with a degree in music composition). Nobody is admitted to a school, program or department at MIT at the undergraduate level. Rather, they are admitted to the Institute as a whole.</p>
<p>There is absolutely no requirement for science-based ECs. MIT has worked out that those students who do not have a strong tolerance for Science and Mathematics do not do well with the MIT general Institute requirements, and often do not prosper there. And further, knowing that all students at MIT can handle science and math influence how other subjects are taught. For example, the economics department (one of the best anywhere) can teach their introductory courses without having to soft-pedal the mathematical content.</p>
<p>I am not an admissions officer and do not proffer any expertise of what goes on in an admissions committee. However, at a personal level, what I think is important is that the EC’s mesh with the rest of the application. If the student writes essays on their abiding passion for mathematics, and how they want to devote their lives to that field, and their high school offers a math club and/or a competitive math team, and the student chooses not to participate in those activities, but to spend that time hanging out with friends instead, then I wonder about the sincerity of the claimed “passion” and how it might evidence itself elsewhere on the application. There are no fixed lines here. I quite understand a student who want to do drama and math or football and math, only to find that these EC’s conflict. I also have a large amount of sympathy for a student whose personal financial circumstances have them working every afternoon instead of participating in school-offered EC’s, or caring for a disabled relative, or doing something else that they HAVE to do.</p>
<p>The question about EC’s is really a question about what the student chooses to do with their non-academic time. If the student isn’t free to make a choice, then the question is moot.</p>