MIT, Yale, and Harvard chances - Any advice welcome!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello, I’m applying to both the schools this coming fall (MIT EA, Yale EA, and Harvard RD)

Yes this is allowed because MIT is not single choice and is cleared in Yale’s guidelines.

Before I get started just want to say thank you for the chances and good luck to all.
Also, I know both of these are a crap shoot and it doesn’t matter if I have a 33 or 36 ACT when it comes down to it

Well here’s me

ACT (33 ACT)
SAT II (780 Math / 720 Chem)
PSAT(1450)

GPA-3.88/4.00
Rank 37/650

NASA High School Aero Space Scholar- Very selective program out of Texas to go down to NASA for a week and study astro. Competed Rigorous course over school year and went to an onsite experience at Johnson Space Center. Elected as 1 of 44 kids as the System Manager by other peers while there.

Air Force Academy Summer Seminar Cadet- 1 of 500 kids to go during the summer and experience life as a cadet (7000 applied) national

Certification of completion and acceptance to the national guard engineering program. Selected as a freshman to complete the program

Senior Course Load: Professional Communications, AP Macro, AP Government, AP Physics, AP English 4, AP Calculus AB, Self studying astronautical engineering using MIT open course ware, Advanced Debate, Engineering Design and development

Job- Head Instructor (Only other ones are college grads) at Zaniac. Teach kids STEM fields such as coding, 3d Design, mathematics, etc. Worked extensive hours taking apart and reassembling the 3D printer after errors.

Computer Science Club- Co founder and VP, organize 20-25 people around projects and give guidance to them about how to fix errors and progress

Robotics Club - Treasure and Team leader: Led team of 5 people the entire year over the VEX challenge and went to states

Engineering Club- President, discuss and arrange projects for 30+ kids to work on, ie building a 3D printer out of an old projector and disk drive. (My design)

Varsity hockey team: We won regional out of 16 teams, and I was selected to participate by other coaches in our region in the State of Texas All Star game

Varsity Debate: Policy Debate Board member and 2016 debater of the year.

Natural Helper- Picked 1 of 12 biannually to participate in training to aide pears in case of extreme depression, anxiety, etc.

NHS obvi

JV Lacrosse Team Captain: Eh idrc about this one, was a very young captain but still its JV

I have communicated to the commander at the Detachment at MIT and Harvard’s ROTC program and she said she really wants me in the program and will push admissions for me. She said she estimates a boost of 20-40% acceptance rate with her push.

My essays have been ranked very high by people that have read them and “Shows maturity and ability to find way through difficulties”

White - Male
Military Brat - never stayed in same state for more than 3 years
Single mother
<50k a year

THANK YOU ALL SOOO MUCH, WILL CHANCE BACK AND REPLY. ANY CRITICISM IS WELCOME AND ENJOYED.

2

Military brat here as well :slight_smile:

Yale is SCEA (Single choice early action) which means you can’t apply to any other private institution’s early action program. MIT is a private school so you cannot apply to Yale and MIT simultaneously. However, you may apply to MIT’s Early Action and any other Ivy’s Early Decision simultaneously.

Solid ACT score. Solid SAT subject tests. Focus on your essays.

3

Just a word of advice: instead of making new threads each time, just bump your old thread unless you’ve added something important to your stats and ECs and the like (:.

Anyways, your ACT score’ll put you through the door even if it could be a bit higher, like a 34 (lol sorry my nitpicky side comes out so bad on CC) to be safe; however, I think some of your ECs are pretty compelling and interesting and’ll give your app some more attention by admissions officers. The ROTC vetting won’t hurt either for sure. Overall, you’ve got a decent shot, but, as you know, a definite yes or no answer isn’t possible. You are a definite contender for the schools you want to go to, wishing you the best of luck! (:

4

You are definitely an amazing candidate. I would take you in an instant if I were an admissions officer. I think, however, that you should also venture out and apply to a few more schools. Maybe some LACs or " lower-level" ivies as well (lol). Johns Hopkins may be a good shot as well.

I wish you the absolute best of luck!!!

5

@Jack-et Thanks for the support! and I am applying to some safe schools, but just put these ones up

@Exwire Ehhh what’s the fun in that :wink: and eh I know a 34 is a different tier than 33 but I honestly don’t want to prepare for another test. Thank you for the advice even though I do know a yes or no isn’t possible :wink:

@hhjjlala Good to see another one of you on here! Due to MIT’s rolling early action policy you can actually apply to them and another single choice early action even though it has a private institution status

6

@RoadTriptoCollege2017 I believe you are mistaken on the early policy. Look at the bottom part of this page on MIT’s site: http://mitadmissions.org/apply/freshman/cycles

“However: if you apply to another school during Early Action that does have a restriction, MIT requires that you respect those rules. So for example, if you apply to another school that is “single choice” - meaning that you can only apply there during the early period - you may not simultaneously apply to MIT. But that’s just good manners.”

7

@Lovemydolphins However you are forgetting it says follow other school’s rules, of which I am. http://admissions.yale.edu/faq/single-choice-early-action

8

What makes you think MIT’s EA is “rolling?”

9

@CGHTeach they don’t release everyones scores at the same time

Plus for everyone, I don’t really want this thread to be an argument about this thank you

10

I believe you are incorrect. Applying to MIT EA while also applying to Yale SCEA is really cheating.

You may not want the discuss it further, but that doesn’t make it right.

11

Re #5: Yes, I saw that “good manners” post on MIT’s site as well. But most college counselors will err on the side of interpreting rules with the best interest of the student in mind, when they have to interpret where rules and restrictions get muddled.

12

I agree with some of the posters above, I don’t think MIT does a rolling admission. They do release EA results at the same time as everyone else.

Proof:

https://www.boston.com/news/education/2015/12/17/mit-releases-early-admission-decisions-in-the-most-mit-way-possible

13

I think that your resume is very impressive. Focus on essays, as they are what will make you stand out the most. I think you should possibly apply ED to Harvard, or MIT if you’re seriously considering attending. You have a very high chance of being admitted under ED at Harvard, in my opinion based off of the friends I have that were admitted under the ED application last year (2015-206)

14

OP you are mistaken - you cannot apply to both Yale and MIT EA

Yale’s SCEA policy If you are a Single-Choice Early Action applicant to Yale, you may apply to another institution’s early admission program as follows:
You may apply to any college’s non-binding rolling admission program.
You may apply to any public institution at any time provided that admission is non-binding.
You may apply to another college’s Early Decision II program, but only if the notification of admission occurs after January 1. If you are admitted through another college’s Early Decision II binding program, you must withdraw your application from Yale.
You may apply to any institution outside of the United States at any time.

MIT IS NOT ROLLING ADMISSION- MIT has two application cycles: Early Action (EA) and Regular Action (RA).

MIT-if you apply to another school during Early Action that does have a restriction, MIT requires that you respect those rules. So for example, if you apply to another school that is “single choice” - meaning that you can only apply there during the early period - you may not simultaneously apply to MIT.

If MIT was rolling admissions they would directly state “rolling admissions”… just bc you think it is so, doesn’t actually make it so. Your GC won’t sign off otherwise would be jeopardizing your schools relationship w MIT and Yale and they would be crazy to do that.

Pick one.

15

@runswimyoga Ehh Ima still do it :wink:

16

Kids like you are the reason the rest of who follow the rules get screwed. Because you want to cheat the system, youre going to screw over your school’s relationship with MIT/Yale and risk getting your application rescinded and furthermore blacklisted from all of these schools.

Maybe, I won’t do it, but You just posted your entire high school resume online, if one was so malicious… they could easily send this post to the MIT/Yale admissions office come application time to make sure the rest of us don’t get screwed.

Good luck. If you play by the rules, I’d say you could do it.

By the way, Aerospace Scholars is a joke, there were 240 something of them this year, just from Texas. Coming from someone who was one, and the number 44 seems off unless you had 44 kids in your team and there were 4 teams and 6 weeks of HAS. So unless you’re week alone had 180 kids youre reaching here bud. Systems Manager lol, good stuff.

17

So, you want to be ROTC - a future officer - and you’re starting out by blithely assuring everyone that you plan to cheat in the admissions process? Nice.

18

@dontbsme It was obviously just a joke so the people would stop commenting on a topic I specifically asked for it to stop… Plus, for the state I’m in its actually decently competitive, only around 10% of the applicants got to go to the onsite experience and we obviously did things a little bit differently than you

19

@thermom To repeat what I just commented, I said what I said just to get people to stop commenting on the topic I asked to drop… I would have done more research on the topic before actually applying and determined that I shouldn’t do it.

20

Mediocre chance overall, these are competitive institutions and I’m not seeing any interests or passions that stand out. I hope your essays are as good as you claim.

Also, ROTC has a fairly minimal effect on admissions,especially in the Northeast/New England, unless things have changed dramatically in the last year. I could be totally off-base about this since I’m many years removed from it, but a relative of mine applied just last year and I worked with them through the process.

Also…has anyone mentioned that you probably shouldn’t try to defraud the system? Hmmm, has that come up yet?