<p>Just like the title said, I haven't taken AMC/AIME/ARML, participated Olympiads (USNCO,USABO,etc), and won major awards. I did not even know they existed. If it is an excuse, I haven't raised in academically stimulating enviorment.<br>
I feel this is quite unfair. Students who have very supportive parents and go to competitve schools are likely to take those advantages and ace them.<br>
Can decent SAT / SAT II make up for them? Do I still have a shot for Ivies and MIT? I am also hoping my compelling story of essay and recommendations cover them up. Will this stat put me disadvantages? I am Asian (sigh)</p>
<p>Have you guys seen students getting accepted to ivies without awards/AMC/USNCO?</p>
<p>Yes, I’ve heard of a large number of MIT students who got accepted without even knowing about those competitions. If you drop by the MIT Class of 2019 Applicants group on Facebook you can scroll down and find some current MIT students who can attest to that.</p>
<p>They’re not necessary for admission to Ivies and MIT. I had no idea about Olympiads or AMC either until it was too late (like January this year) because our school does not emphasize outside competitions, not even the science fair, at all.</p>
<p>However, two people I know got into Harvard and various Ivies, with one of them also getting into Stanford and Yale without having even touched these competitions. However, they definitely had some awards, albeit not major. The second person, I have no idea, but he had a real passion for photography and a lot of Spanish-related community service, though he was Asian. The first had a 3 year long project to install solar panels on our school library and she was a winner of the Lexus Eco challenge. Most of her stuff was environment-focused, and her intended major was environmental science.</p>
<p>The one person to get accepted by Caltech and MIT in 5 years had a 4.0 and a 2320/2340 single and superscore SAT. She had various small regional awards from Academic Decathlon and such, but she founded the math club focused on the AMC at our school as a junior. I’m not sure how far that went; she wanted me to join but I didn’t think I was qualified enough to perform well, and I never really heard of it afterward. I have no idea if she did well, and I’m not too sure she even scored high. That didn’t stop her, however.</p>
<p>None of the people at my school have entered the Olympiads, as nobody is aware of them. We still have the occasional HYPS admits, but if it’s by percentage, it’s less than one percent to two percent of our class that gets into each Ivy. (Top 100 school that can’t compete with northeastern schools lmao).</p>