My friend (currently attending Harvard) told me not to bother applying to MIT because I haven’t published research/science fairs or any other spike–I haven’t even done independent research at all. I’m kinda bummed but also glad I finally heard an honest opinion rather than the “just give it a shot”. Realistically speaking is it even worth my time to apply?
Asian female from California; intended major: bio
GPA: 4.0 UW, Took most difficult courseload (10 AP’s total)
SAT: 1530- 800 math 730 reading 21 essay (single sitting)
SAT subject: Bio 800 MathII 800 Chem 800
APs: Chinese (5) Chem (5) Bio (5) Calc BC (5) Lang (4);
Senior year AP’s: AP Stats, APCS, APES, AP Lit, and AP Microecon
Main EC’s:
-Debate: 4 years, Captain 11th grade and President 12th grade.
-Cross country: 4 years varsity; 4 time CCS (sectional) qualifier, captain for 2 years.
-Science Olympiad: President
-400 hours volunteer tutoring
Main awards:
-USABO Top 200/10000 Semifinalist
-Finished 3 half marathons. 2nd place in my division (female 11-19) at one of them.
-National Merit Semifinalist
-2 National circuit varsity debate awards
Summer:
-2 years of rigorous track/cross country camp
-work full time as a Summer camp counselor
Extenuating circumstances:
-Ran away from abusive household during sophomore year. It was horrible, my father was in jail for abuse but when he came out he went straight back to abusing us. I was in foster for a while, but now live with my mother.
If MIT is your dream school, I think you should apply; that way you won’t have any “what if” regrets later. Academically you are more than qualified, ECs are there. I’d say go for it.
Apply to MIT. That’s the best you can do. I only applied to one school, and hesitated to apply to TAMU. Instead, I only applied to one college (known as “early decision”). Later on in my senior year, I started really regretting not applying to TAMU, because, like the comment above, I was thinking “What if I actually got in?” Don’t ever let that thought kick inside you. It kinda sucks.
Your college friend does not know. Why are you relying on him/her instead of what MIT says? Their advice is all over their blogs. The issue here isn’t the lack of science research.
dot228:
There’s a regular contributor on this MIT CC forum named MITChris. He’s worked in the MIT admissions office reviewing applications for nearly a decade. He regularly states that no one, not even he, can say if someone will be accepted to MIT or not.
If you read through the past years “decisions threads” for MIT, you’ll see many with academic profiles stronger than yours who did not get accepted, and you’ll see many with weaker profiles than yours who did get accepted.
My academic profile was worse than yours. I’m glad I didn’t listen to your friend because then I never would have graduated from MIT.
Whatever you decide about applying to MIT, be sure to have all your “Plan B” school applications in top shape. That’s important for any applicant.
You should talk with the track/cross country coach (Coach Taylor) there. He can greatly improve you admission chances if you choose to run for him. I don’t see anything in your stats that would make me say “don’t apply”.
Apply. You have an excellent academic record and interesting story. I can’t believe every freshman admitted student to MIT has a publication. Be you, if MIT is you then try for it.
@jpm50 If this coach wants her on the team, he will write a letter of support for her application which, based on anecdotal information, increases the chances of her being accepted from 6% to 33%.
The plural of anecdote is not data. That said, my experience is that (and there may be some coaches who are exceptions) MIT coaches carry no weight (or the weight of a feather) in the admissions process. The applicant is expected to be admitted on the strength of his application.
But back to the OP, even those attending Harvard are not omniscient. In this case, the friend is wrong. You may not get in, but I see no reason not to apply
I think the 400 hours of volunteer service REALLY stand out. This is especially true if it’s in one area. Your family situation is also unusual in a student who retains grades in the 4.0 range. I see grit, courage, empathy and brains. I’d think you have a much better shot than most. ( Write about the volunteering you did). Compassion is the cornerstone of many great things. Maybe your “friend” is a bit jealous that you will get in? Or has some other reason for telling you not to apply ( s/he didn’t get in MIT). In any case, I’d go for it.
Stop taking any advice from this “friend”. You are definitely qualified for MIT.
No one is guaranteed admission, so you have to keep that in mind.
But you are as or more qualified as any other applicant.
Write good essays and if you can get good recommendations, you have a shot.
@skieurope This particular coach, who we have first hand experience with, does seem to have pull with admissions and he historically gets about 1/3 or his supported athletes in. That is the data for XCTF and it may not be similar with other sports, but we aren’t talking about other sports here. Probably the bigger consideration for the OP is whether she wants to add NCAA athletics to the mix.
No. It’s the anecdote for XCTF. Perhaps you have the raw data, but I don’t believe that there is public data on Halston Taylor’s sample size. My guess is that 1/3 of the applicant’s which have a note attached to the file from him are accepted. But he self selects which athletes he supports based, in part, on their chances for acceptance; he does not write a note for every applicant he wants on the team. I would further guess that based upon that selected group compared with another group of the same size with similar applications, that there would be no statistical difference in the admissions rate. Correlation does not imply causation.
Regardless, it may all be moot for the OP as we have no knowledge of her athletic competitiveness. And really, that was not the OP’s question, so let’s not get too far off-topic. They question was should she apply, and I vote yes.
This thread should stop specculating what will get OP attention. It’s a disservice. MIT looks for more than stats, competition wins, and extenuating circumstances. OP needs to look at what that is, make his/best, informed presentation in the application.
Which is why I said “If this coach wants her on the team”, i.e. will recruit her. Your spending a lot of energy/bandwidth refuting the merits of one possible avenue that, if it is of interest to the OP, can only help her get admitted.
Fine. I’ll concede that it is anecdotal based on the coach’s data. You win. Very helpful. Apologies to the OP.
If that’s where you want to go, GREAT! I’m sure you’re well aware of how selective they are, but if you don’t apply, you have a 0% chance of getting in. Also, check out scholarships. Right now, you can get a full tuition, university guaranteed scholarship from Alabama, TCU, and Baylor.
Hi, thank you all for the replies. I will go ahead and send my application to MIT.
As for recruitment, I think my times are up to par with MIT’s but I’m not sure I want to run for college. I know being a college athlete is a huge time commitment. I’d rather have the freedom to walk on, rather than being bound to competing.
