National award required for admission?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>Ok, is it just me or do most people that get into colleges like Mit have some impressive national award? I mean things like they were elected governer in some state student goverment, or they won some award for research, or they went to dc for some student in gov thing and their were only 2 per state etc (like a senator). I mean i know they help, but in today's tough admissions cycle, could something like that really help, or is it just expected? How much worse off are you if you dont have some special award like that? Any ideas?</p>

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<p>hmm based on previous threads...not many NATIONAL awards for MIT folks...very few percentage....</p>

<p>...I mean I'm applying EA and I don't have any national research/science awards...but I do have a national dance competiton award, which is one of my passions in life.</p>

<p>If I'm not mistaken, MIT looks for passion in your activities and well if your passion shines through in your app...and your grades are fairly adequate (note: adequate does not mean 1600 or 3*800 or 4.0 GPA) I think you have a good shot at accept or defer. </p>

<p>If you have a 1600 and you are a lamo and all you do is study for your damn AP exams and have no life...you WILL most probably get rejected...but hey I could be wrong...so don't take my word :)</p>

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<p>I will quote myself multiple times from multiple sources.</p>

<p>

Note that none of these people won a national award. Adam went to skiing nationals, but that was after he was admitted. My marching band got 4th place at the national band championship... but I don't think that counts.</p>

<p>
[quote=<a href="http://mollie.mitblogs.com"&gt;http://mollie.mitblogs.com&lt;/a&gt;]

clearly it is possible to get into MIT without being a super-genius, or slave to schoolwork, or world-renowned master of something frighteningly difficult. (Although I suppose that helps.) Real people get into MIT. Real people even go here.

[/quote]

That quote is from the entry I wrote containing my own admissions story, which is [url=<a href="http://mollie.mitblogs.com/archives/2005/07/how_to_do_every.html%5Dhere%5B/url"&gt;http://mollie.mitblogs.com/archives/2005/07/how_to_do_every.html]here[/url&lt;/a&gt;].&lt;/p>

<p>It is not expected that you are the only person in the world who does activity X as well as you do.</p>

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<p>thanks mollie. Go Mollie! Woot woot! haha</p>

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<p>By the way, does this apply to international applicants, too? I suspect that everything is alright for US guys; however, nothing applies to the international pool.
So: do international guys have national awards? Are they genius?</p>

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<p>the website explicitly states that most of the int'l applicants receive some kind of a national award.. this really scares me. Plus, acceptance rate is 5% for internationals! :(</p>

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<p>Yeah thats quite true. I read on the board somewhere that an MIT admissions officer had once said that unless an int'l has national awards or accolades of the likes, he/she has a slim chance of getting in...that means I better stop wasting 70 bucks on the app</p>

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<p>Well, the website says that "[...] almost all international students admitted to MIT have earned some form of regional, national or international distinction". So it's not only national. But still ...</p>