<p>Hello my friends!</p>
<p>I'm an international student and a friend of mine told me that international students needn't grades because MIT just looks at the SAT and the CV, is it true?</p>
<p>No. You are required to send in a transcript just like domestic applicants. See the part on the secondary school report on the international helpful hints page:</p>
<p>[MIT</a> Admissions: International Applicants: Helpful Tips](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/international_applicants_helpful_tips/index.shtml]MIT”>http://mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/international_applicants_helpful_tips/index.shtml)</p>
<p>Fu*k…thank you.</p>
<p>And what is the typical case of an international student please?</p>
<p>What do you mean by typical case?</p>
<p>I mean the profile.</p>
<p>I don’t think that there is such a thing as a standard profile. MIT takes students from all over the world with a wide variety of interests. That being said, international admissions to MIT are so competitive, that the accepted international candidates are usually outstanding. </p>
<p>The international applicant pool tends to be more self-selective than the American applicant pool. For a domestic applicant applying to a bunch of US schools, then most of the MIT application (eg SAT tests) will already have been done, and the additional effort involved in applying to MIT is RELATIVELY minor. For an international applicant, the decision to apply to MIT (and I interview many students for whom MIT is their only American application), then the application is a real pain (for example, SATs are often not offered close to the student, and have to be taken at least twice (for the subject tests). So the pool applying tends to be fairly impressive, and then MIT takes only a small percentage of those, so the successful applicants really do tend to be great.</p>
<p>Beyond being great though, there is little commonality. I saw one young woman admitted some years back, where when you considered what she had accomplished, given what little she had to work with (for example her school had a total of one science teacher who taught all science), it was awesome, but when you compare her accomplishments absolutely to some others who had many more opportunities, then her achievements paled beyond some of the others, but the drive, the grit, the talent that she had to demonstrate to get to where she was saw her admitted. That same year, an international student who had a medal in the IMO was also admitted. Also awesome, but a very different profile.</p>
<p>I applied as an international student (Class of 2015) and got in this March.
To answer your original questions:
- Grades are still required, as Piper said.
- it is NOT true that MIT only looks at SAT and the CV. In fact, SAT (reasoning test) is OPTIONAL for international applicants for whom English is a second language. They (you) can take TOEFL instead. However, 2 subject tests (1 math and 1 science) are required.
- There is ABSOLUTELY no such thing as a “typical profile” for either US or international applicants. I highly recommend reading the last paragraph of this nicely written passage on “the match between you and MIT.” ([MIT</a> Admissions: The Match Between You And MIT](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/the_match_between_you_and_mit/]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/the_match_between_you_and_mit/))</p>
<p>In response to Mikalye’s insightful comment:
Actually, many international students admitted to my class have already graduated from HS, partly because it’s VERY hard for them to simultaneously focus on studying on for national college entrance exams and applying to US colleges. I can name at least 8 international kids in the Class of 2015 who got into MIT AFTER their HS graduation. So keep this as an option if you’re seriously interested in MIT and don’t mind a gap year or two. (One of us graduated 5 years ago! But he’s a happy MIT frosh now. =D) </p>
<p>Lastly, this is a newly started blog specifically designed to entertain, encourage, and (hopefully) enlighten int’l applicants interested in MIT: [-An</a> Overly Excited MIT Student’s Random Thoughts-](<a href=“http://wsjeffchen.blogspot.com/]-An”>http://wsjeffchen.blogspot.com/)
Stay tuned if you’d like. Also feel free to ask any application-related questions below the blog entry, and I’ll get to them as soon as possible.</p>
<p>jeff - </p>
<p>most international students applied before they graduated HS. your case (and others you mention) was not unusual, but it’s not the majority. </p>
<p>mikayle is right though. there isn’t a standard profile for intl students any more than for domestics.</p>
<p>@Chris & Jeff:</p>
<p>I think it depends largely on where you come from.</p>
<p>I went to one of the top schools in my country, but no one there besides me decided to apply to the US because it’s such an emphatic process. Neither was there any encouragement from teachers. All the kids that went abroad to study went to the UK because it’s cheaper, closer and much easier to apply - and even most of those kids took a year off. For me, it would have been extremely difficult to apply while still in school and I know that my SATs, essays and/or schoolwork would have suffered if I applied while still in school.</p>
<p>I think a lot of the internationals that apply while still in school apply either from schools where there is a culture for applying to the US, or from IB programmes.</p>
<p>Additionally, some countries have mandatory military service, which also forces students to wait one, two, three or even four years.</p>
<p>The points that you raise about difficulty are good, but I’m not sure this: </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>is factually accurate. </p>
<p>But it’s good to know what the points of confusion are because I’m currently rewriting all of the content for international students on the website :)</p>
<p>@MITChris</p>
<p>Yay new material to read! hehe :)</p>
<p>However Chris, while I can’t say anything about the actual statistics, most people are thinking about applying after highschool in my region of the world(Turkey), if they are planning to apply at all 
Personally, I’m eligible for Early Action, so EA to go :D</p>
<p>The situation is that, in countries where the whole admission system is based on university entrance exams, it simply becomes a “gamble” to study & learn foreign material/curriculum as they usually differ and to spend time for the whole application proccess even just for one university because of the uncertainity in the U.S. admission system and that they usually get one shot at the national university entrance exams here.</p>
<p>Here, those who apply for U.S. institutes are those who study in American private highschools or highschools that are primarily focused to send students to U.S. institutes. I’m not at such a school, so I’m a little unique in this way It might be a gamble, however I’m willing to take the risks. Simply, you can’t expect this philosphy from everyone. The teachers do not encourage at all and they simply don’t care that you need to study on two curriculums at the same time.</p>
<p>As a side note If you are updating the content on the website, I’d really appreciate more explanation on the issue about translation of required documents such as transcript, teacher evaluation forms etc… Should we give translated copies of teacher evaluation forms to teachers and have them translated back? Can applicant translate or an official translation is necessary? Thanks :D</p>
<p>I don’t have any statistics - that’s right.</p>
<p>Yet I just can’t imagine it being any other way.</p>
<p>One point to take into consideration is obviously that for every IB program there are innumerable schools with regular, national school programs. In my country there is probably one IB student for every 1000th regular student. (This is basically calculated guesswork as I roughly know the amount of IB programmes in the country and the amount of high schools.)</p>
<p>So when you look at how many IB students are accepted compared to how many students from nationalized programs, and compare that to the amount of people studying in the respective programs - then you’ll actually see what I meant. But I do see that I didn’t actually make myself clear when I said that there are more students from schools accustomed to sending students to the US and IB programmes. </p>
<p>Am I making any sense at all, lol? Feels like I lost track myself…</p>
<p>You made yourself pretty clear there, stevierimbaud. (haha it feels weird to address a screen name when I actually know you =D) </p>
<p>@Chris: it’s awesome that you’re updating the international page on the Admissions website. I agree with Phoestre that part of the difficulty for internationals (who live overseas in countries/regions where the vast majority of their peers are just going on to local universities) is that applying to MIT and/or any other top US colleges is a gamble. Such a student needs to invest a tremendous amount of time and effort for a very slim chance of getting in, while simultaneously making sure that they’re doing sufficiently well in school so they can be admitted to the top universities in their respective countries (while possibly getting little to no encouragement/support from teachers, as Nic…i mean stevierimbaud pointed out). </p>
<p>I feel like it’d be REALLY GOOD if you/the Admissions can acknowledge/address this on that int’l page, which i believe will a) make Admissions at MIT seem more personal; and b) encourage interested international students (4000 applicants is A LOT of people) and help them make an informed decision on whether to apply to MIT.</p>
<p>^ the last line of my comment above: I meant to say “make an informed decision on whether <em>and when</em> to apply to MIT.”</p>
<p>I think the most challenging thing about applying from a school that doesn’t usually send students to US universities (e.g. my school sends almost everyone to unis in the UK or back home) is that you have to fish for all the information yourself. Your teachers, guidance counselor and classmates probably won’t know much (if anything at all) about SATs, application processes, essays, the style of recommendations expected for US unis, etc. I didn’t mind this much because I like to work with first-hand information anyway so I just spent a lot of time trying to figure out the process, but from helping prospective students on the UK equivalent of CC, I think this is where most of the confusion stems from. The US admission process is also the most complicated I’ve seen, and I applied to universities in 4 different countries…</p>
<p>@phoestre - are you a US citizen or permanent resident?</p>