Pffft. Like you guys want another chances thread!

Colleges & Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

<p>I'm the stereotypical MIT-was-my-dream-school-when-I-was-a-freshman girl. I started trying to detatch from it junior year when college became real, but I don't think I could forgive myself for NOT applying now, so hit me with whatever you've got. Also, if those of you who go there don't think I seem to fit in or something, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me know! Thanks =)</p>

<p>Grade: 12
Rank: 1/744
GPA: (weighted) 111
Ethniciy/Class/Gender: Lower-middle class white chick.
School: Barely passes state exams =/ t's pretty lame.
Major: Bioengineering</p>

<p>SAT Scores
Math: 730
Critical Reading: 800
Writing: 790 (essay: 12)
Composite: 2320 (Taking it a second time in November)</p>

<p>SAT II Scores
Biology: 800
Math II: 800
Chemistry: 790
Taking Physics, Literature, and retaking Chemistry in October</p>

<p>AP Exams
10th grade: Statistics (5)
11th grade: Biology, Chemistry, Calc AB, English Lang, Psych (self-study), APUSH (all 5s)
12th grade: (intended; aiming for the AP State Scholar award)
Physics E&M, Physics Mech, Calc BC, English Lit, Environmental Science, AP Euro, US Gov't, Comparative Gov't (self-study), Macroeconomics, Microeconomics (self-study)</p>

<p>ECs: (UIL is like AcaDeca for Texas...it's rad!)
- UIL Science (11-12): 1st team in state at the Texas Math and Science Association annual competition, 2nd team in state at UIL state (1st in district, 1st in region). I personally got 4th in state at the TMSCA annual competition, 3rd in district, 4th in region, and 1st place biology in region.
- Published in the University of Incarnate Word's Journal of History and Culture of San Antonio (July 2007)
- UIL Current Events (11-12): Team captain. I earned 1st in district, 2nd in region, and 21st at state =/
- Model United Nations (10-12): Secretary General (11-12). warded multiple individual awards at various local conferences.
- UIL Number Sense (12): Awards at local competitions
- UIL Calculator (12): Awards at local competitions
- JETS TEAMS Competition (11-12): Team awarded 11th place nationally in the large school division.
- AMC School Award (96.5..aaargh, .5 off!)
- Chemistry Olympiad Qualifier (11): 4th in region; didn’t test due to contest limit of two students per school
French Club (9-12)
French Honor Society (10-12)
Environmental Club (12)
National Honor Society (11-12)
Tutoring (5 hrs/week)
Young Democrats (local chapter, not at school)</p>

<p>Work:
Employed at Six Flags Fiesta Texas (11): 40-45 hrs/week during summer, 6 hrs/week during the school year through mid-fall
Employed at Sonic Drive-In (12): 35-40 hrs/week during summer, 15-25 hrs/week during the school year</p>

<p>Awards and crap:
1st place, District Cardboard Boat Race (11) (Yes, I'm totally putting this first)
National Merit Semifinalist (12)
AP Scholar w/ Distinction
Valedictorian (12)</p>

<p>Essays: I think I write well? I'm not letting other people look at them so whatever.
Teacher recs: One should be ridiculous and amazing. The other should be just amazing. I feel really good about this portion of my applications and extremely lucky to have these people.
Counselor recommendation: I got her in trouble for attempting to plagiarize a teacher rec (she wanted me to get a teacher to write my National Merit thing and put her name on it, I was like "hell no!"), so I'm not sure how that went down, but it made a nice story. I've had a different counselor every year of HS, though, so who cares.</p>

2

<p>Your stats are good enough. It's impossible for me or anyone else to tell you whether you "fit" from a bunch of stats and activities, other than to say that you seem to have the passion for science that is generally associated with MIT and that most MIT students have.</p>

<p>Your essays will be important.</p>

<p>The secondary school form can be filled out by either the counselor or the principal. If I were you, I'd try to get the principal to do it, as you've had past conflict with the counselor - if you got her in trouble, I'm guessing the principal knows about the conflict and you can explain that because of this you're not comfortable getting a rec from the counselor.</p>

3

<p>Looks good to me, but what do I know? The SAT I math looks a little low for MIT/Cal Tech, but great everywhere else, and one would think the SAT II math score would make up for that. </p>

<p>I envy the writing score, my son got a perfect 36 ACT, but a 7 on the essay. He did a little better on SAT I essay, a 9 to go with his 2290. His writing seems fine to me and his mechanics are obviously fine, but he chalks it up to his hatred of English classes and their subjectivity. Everyone keeps telling me that schools don't put a lot of stock in the writing scores because of that, which would be good for my son, but not sure if that is really true. He did better on the SAT essay, he thinks because he related the whole thing to a novel which he didn't think fit that well but was what they wanted to hear. I wish what they wanted to hear was a little more original. My younger son, also very good at math, was struggling with his journal in high school freshman English. Told him to go with my solution when I was his age, make up a lot of personal angst and depression, it is all they want to hear. Grade has improved dramatically, pun intended. Sigh.</p>

4

<p>crazy mom - I'm not sure you should worry too much about your son's essay score. As far as I can tell, the test rewards bad (or at least formulaic) essay writing, and I don't really want my kids to be experts at that. I probably will teach them how to write an essay for a standardized test (I'm guessing it's the only time I'll be telling them to do 5-paragraph essays with lots of repetition). Anyway, I'm sure you're not obsessing about this given your son's amazing scores, and I suspect you have the same respect for that portion of the test that I do.</p>

5

<p>Congratulations. You're an extremely talented and successful person, and that will not change no matter what schools you get into. You'll be successful no matter where you go. I say that because while you have very competitive chances at MIT, they are just that; chances, and at the end of the day, the acceptance rate is ~13% (well, it's actually around 25 - 30 % for girls, but I don't want to open that can of worms right now). If you do not get in, it is not because you don't deserve to, but that MIT admissions has that "randomness" quality to it.</p>

<p>I don't know why you want to retake your chemistry SAT II, 790 is a very good score, just go home and enjoy more of your Saturday instead, getting an 800 on it honestly won't do anything to increase your chances anywhere. I don't see why you want to retake your SAT I either, as your SAT scores are just fine for MIT, and getting them higher really wouldn't make you any cooler as a person. On that topic, displaying your passions through your essays is way way more important than retaking any of your SAT tests.</p>

<p>Sorry for repeating some of what was said above. I think your SAT I math is fine, since your SAT II math is 800. Students get admitted to MIT with less than 700 in math, and do just fine (a blogger said this). If you're applying to Caltech though, it might actually be worth retaking to raise that math score.</p>

6

<p>you should definitely apply! i don't think MIT is too far of a reach, and like Dauntless9 said, i'm sure wherever you go will be good :)</p>

<p>i don't think you need to retake chemistry either, 790 is basically perfect (not sure what percentile) </p>

<p>btw, 1st out of a class of 744 is really good! my class is half that size lol</p>

7

<p>I agree with dauntless9...don't retake the chemistry exam. it will actually look bad if you do..</p>

8

<p>Yes, I forgot to mention that there is absolutely no point in retaking a 790 in my opinion. And eg1, yes, I have heard lots of places that they don't fuss much over a low essay score. I am hoping for the OP, on the other hand, that a high one gives you somewhat of a boost. I don't know why they insist on turning writing into a formula process however. I can't imagine how boring it must be to read all of those. I also wonder if they had known they were judging a 36 ACT if somehow his essay would have seemed magically better to them.</p>

9

<p>Been out of the loop for awhile. Test scores do not, repeat do not represent the whole student. DD is having a great time, above ave. grades freshman year etc., and did not have perfect/near perfect SAT's. It is the whole person not the test scores that count. Trust us on that.</p>

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<p>Oh, the 790 retake is a school thing..no one's gotten triple 800's on the sciences and I figured I would give it a shot just for the hell of it (I'm taking two subject tests anyway and it's only twelve dollars more). The 2320 retake is because I'm aiming for the Presidential Scholars Award, which if I recall correctly is SAT based =)</p>

<p>(Thanks so much to everyone for the advice/well-wishes/etc; this forum is such an amazing resource...)</p>

11

<p>So, I understand wanting to be a groundbreaker at school and get nice-sounding awards, but unless the Presidential Scholars Award gives you money or some other tangible benefit, you might want to think twice about retaking, and I really wouldn't retake the 790. For that matter, I don't understand why you're taking so many subject tests in the first place, but whatever.</p>

<p>Why am I saying that you should not retake the 790? Well, it honestly makes you look like a score whore, which could hurt you for a couple of reasons. For one thing, MIT is brutal, and will be skeptical about taking someone who felt that they needed to get not just a great but a perfect score, which is how this will come off. They'll be afraid that that person won't be able to cope emotionally with setbacks (which are endemic in science and engineering no matter how good you are) or the occasional bad grade that almost everyone gets, or even good-but-not-perfect grades. For another thing, it says something about your priorities - that of all the things you could choose to spend your time on, you spent your time trying to raise your near-perfect score to a perfect one, instead of spending that time and effort doing research, learning something new, involving yourself in your community, or something else productive.</p>

<p>(When I've told this to people before, they think I'm saying that MIT is biased against people with perfect test scores. No. Perfect test scores, like near-perfect test scores, show that you're smart. Retakes to get from near-perfect to perfect show possible issues with someone who already proved that they're smart.)</p>

<p>Like I said, I understand why you want to, but remember this...once you graduate from high school, nobody will ever care about your perfect scores or lack thereof again. Your professors won't care, your employers won't care, your friends at MIT ;) won't care. Probably, nobody will care about your Presidential Scholars Award, but I can see going for that because meanwhile there are a lot of colleges which will like such a thing, and it's an actual award that you can list instead of a 10 point difference on an 800 point test.</p>

12

<p>First of all, retaking chem would be flat-out stupid. Don't do it. </p>

<p>Second of all, let someone see your essay. Someone should edit it; there are a lot of times people write things that sound one way to them and another way to everyone else, so... just let someone edit it once before you send it.</p>

<p>Also, I don't see much of a passion in your ECs. I know I'm sick of people telling me that, and I understand your predicament; you're good at everything so you do everything. However, I don't see a whole lot of leadership or community service. I just see things that reflect your smartness, which is good, too, but you need a balance. You can try to work on that before you send out apps, but it's a bit late now...</p>

13

<p>I would also discourage the OP from retaking her chem SATII. </p>

<p>However, the SATI might be worth retaking because you probably could do a lot better than 730 on math. It won't reflect badly on you for retaking, although I wouldn't say it is necessary. BTW, 1530 Math + Verbal is more than high enough for Caltech or MIT (or anywhere else.)</p>

14

<p>I disagree with la montagne about the OP's ECs (gah, this place has almost as much acronym slang as MIT - good training, I guess). I see smarts above and beyond what stats alone can show. I see work ethic and ability to balance time through her employment record. I see initiative in the fact that she's been published. I see an interest in the world/broader impact through her Model UN and Young Democrats, and engagement in the community through Young Democrats. I also see some fluffy filler (e.g. NHS), but most people will have a little of that, and there's a pretty good overall content-to-filler ratio here.</p>

<p>Passion's a bit hard to get out of a laundry list of ECs anyway, but this list does seem to indicate a certain amount for math/science and French.</p>

<p>There are some important things I'm not seeing, but resilience, for example, comes through more on essays and recommendations than these sorts of profiles.</p>

15

<p>I agree with jessiehl. I am impressed with the EC's too. If I was making the decision, the OP would be admitted. To me, I think it would be pretty hard to put together that stellar an academic record and list of EC distinctions if she didn't have a lot of passion for math and science. </p>

<p>The MIT adcomm's assessment of "passion" is an enigma to me though, so I don't know how they would evaluate her record.</p>

16

<p>Hey, for what it's worth, I really like OP's ECs too. Academics, work, and community involvement. Good luck.</p>

17

<p>actually i would say that you can take the chem sat II again....ok hear me out everyone.</p>

<p>from all of the college info sessions that ive been to, including the MIT one, the admissions officer said that they just look at your highest scores, they dont analyze what you got before, the number you took in one sitting, just your highest adn thats IT. so if you want to take it again i dont think they will take the time to look into it and be like...hmmm, she is such a perfectionist, we just cant have that. they'll look at the 800 and say wow...but the same wow they would have said if you submitted the 790. so i think you realize there is no difference between the 790 and the 800 but if you want to take it, for whatever reason, i dont think it will hurt you. just my opinion though. good luck!</p>

18

<p>
[quote]
the admissions officer said that they just look at your highest scores, they dont analyze what you got before

[/quote]
</p>

<p>They don't analyze the scores you got before, but that doesn't mean that the gratuitous retaking can't hurt you. Don't retake when you already have a 790. At least not for MIT admissions - I can't speak for other places. It makes you look like a score whore. Really. It does. Do something more productive with your time.</p>

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<p>I would be VERY surprised if the MIT admissions officers gasped <em>"wow"</em>... I really hope the OP is not banking on the scores alone to impress... I would value knowing how to use powertools much more highly (or that type of thing, you know what I mean).</p>

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<p>by wow i meant the reaction would be the same regardless...AGAIN IN MY OPINION. im just trying to offer another view.</p>