Planning Ahead

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>I'm going to be a Sophmore in High School the next year, and I would really like to attend MIT after high school, as it appeals greatly to my interests in math.</p>

<p>It may seem a little young but I would like to get started towards my goal. Even if I do not make MIT, the activities and classes I do take will also be helpful towards going to another nice college when I graduate.</p>

<p>I have always been ahead mathematically. I took Algebra2 as a Freshman, and the course was extremely easy. It was the highest level possible to take, and I completed it with a 104%. Not being challenged enough, over the summer I just finished taking Precalculus, which was yet another easy course (I passed with two perfect semesters - As in I did not miss a single point on homework, quizzes, or tests, and received every extra credit point possible). Sophmore year I plan on taking AP Calc BC, and completing two college creds for Calc 1 & 2. After that, for the next summers and Junior and Senior year, I plan on using the local community college nearby to further my studies and complete higher college courses such as Differential Equations and Linear Algebra.</p>

<p>As for Science, Sophmore year I am enrolled in Biology and Chemistry at the highest levels. Junior year I plan on taking AP Biology and AP Chemistry, and Senior year I plan on taking Physics. I understand that MIT is looking for a student that has biology, chemistry, and physics, so should I rearrange my schedule to accommodate AP Physics? Another possibility is to take Physics through one of my summers, so that I may skip that during the school curriculum to include AP Physics? I plan on taking math over the summer, so I don't want to be too pressured academically over the summer. Mind you I'm still a high schooler and enjoy doing teenage stuff :).</p>

<p>Technologically, freshman year I took Computer Programming. The class was built around the language Java, and within the first two weeks of the class I got very bored. Borrowing a few books from the local library I self-taught myself the building blocks of the language and am able to do a handful of complex designs with the language. I also plan on taking the test to add on my resume in the future that I am knowledgeable in the language. With my newly acquired skills I took over teaching over the Computer class for the second half of the course and with the teachers approval led the rest of the class through examples, projects, and notes. Before high school is over I plan on fitting AP Computer Science into my schedule.</p>

<p>As for the rest of my subjects, I am pretty good at writing, especially short stories and essays. Reading comprehension is pretty good too. But, I am more of a math and science kind of person, and because of that English does not appeal to my interests at all. I am involved in (I) English (Our school ranks from highest to least in course difficulty - A, I, R. I stands for Intermediate). I am also taking History, and am taking the highest possible courses. Sophmore year I am taking AP US History, so I am high up there in history. Junior and Senior year I will be taking AP US Government, and AP Micro/Macro Economics. I have taken Forgein Language in 8th grade and Freshman year, completing the required 2 years, but have dropped it to double up in Science. I hope this is a wise decision? Feedback would be nice on that one. As for electives they are usually academic, and I would like to take Astronomy, AP Computer Science, and other electives involved with numbers and science.</p>

<p>Extra Curricular is kind of a bust. I do run indoor and outdoor track, and am pretty good at it. Most likely will continue with it throughout high school. Sophmore year I will be joining the Math Club, and Math Honors Society. Any guidance with what other E.C. I should take would be greatly appreciated, as I lack in this area. What kind of community service should I do? Whats a good number of clubs and groups that I should join to be well-rounded? </p>

<p>Thanks for your time, any help/feedback is greatly appreciated.</p>

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<p>you should come post this on the high school board too</p>

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<p>do not take physics over the summer, it’s hard and you’ll want a year for it
besides you do not want to go into college with a weak physics background 8^)
it’s a really fun class though, so definitely do take it</p>

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<p>that will be useful in later life. maybe you can get a research job with those programming skills.</p>

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<p>yay</p>

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<p>you sound pretty damn well rounded to me
at least academically
and you’re obviously very smart too</p>

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<p>hey you should also apply to caltech because we’re awesome like that ;)</p>

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<p>Thanks!
And about the Physics thing, our school offers these classes;
Biology, AP Biology, Chemistry, AP Chemistry, Physics, AP Physics
At my current plan, AP Physics is not in the picture.
I could move a few things around, doubling up Soph, Junior, and Senior year to fit in all six of those courses. But that would mean taking Biology Soph year and AP Biology Senior year, giving it a year of down time. Would this be a good choice?</p>

<p>My fresh year messed me up :confused: My school requires that you take Phys/Chem class (One semester introductory Physics, one intro Chem) as a Freshman.</p>

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<p>can you take ap biology without regular biology?</p>

<p>or could you take regular biology as a summer class, and then take ap bio? that’s what i did. it’s not so bad.</p>

<p>p.s. at the rate you’re going you’ll get into a good school but you might be miserable…speaking from experience it’s hard to fully enjoy your teenage years if you plan your schedule two years in advance and make everything about getting into mit. remember there are a lot of unhappy people at top colleges. don’t be one of them. i was.</p>

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<p>Great schools want well-rounded student bodies, not necessarily well-rounded people. Just take a) whatever you can handle and b) whatever interests you. </p>

<p>Another thing. Do not just assume that you can just jump from precalculus to Calculus BC to Differential Equations and onward, plus fizix is right, don’t just cram everything in summers so you can take more courses later, especially Physics. Will you need the entire year? No. But it’s fun, and you can expand your knowledge there beyond the prescribed curriculum.</p>

<p>But it’s nice to see that, with you, you’ve been motivated to pursue more when not being challenged enough, whereas I have consistently been frustrated therewith for exactly the same reasons.</p>

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<p>MIT does want you to have bio, chem, and physics, but they don’t all have to be at the AP level. Harder classes always look better, but MIT will be understanding if you can’t fit it in. That said, there’s nothing wrong with taking classes over the summer if they interest you. You might run into problems down the line, though. I certainly did. I did the exact same thing you’re doing, but only with math. Have you confirmed with the college that they’ll offer those courses at a convenient time? Have you compared the syllabi of the community college class and the classes of colleges you’re interested in? At the few CCs I looked at, the courses were far less comprehensive. Not that there’s anything wrong with taking a course that you know you’ll have to retake, but it’s not something I wanted to do. I actually ended up transferring to a boarding school when I ran out of reasonable options at home (though I was already interested in attending). Private school/online courses/etc. are options if CC doesn’t work out.</p>

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<p>Luckily for me, we have a great local community college nearby which has a program that allows high school students to take college courses. The CC also offers a wide variety of classes, and I’m pretty sure offers higher level math courses. I’ll check into that a little bit more in the near future.</p>

<p>So as far as I can see, the problem concerning MIT would be based around EC’s and Physics. As for now, I am forsure taking Biology and Chemistry Sophmore year
Here are the possibilities for science in the upcoming years;</p>

<p>Option 1-
Soph: Biology, Chemistry
Junior: AP Bio, AP Chem
Sr.: Physics
(This option is the current one, which does not include AP Physics).</p>

<p>Option 2-
Soph: Biology, Chemistry
Junior: AP Chemistry, Physics
Sr.: AP Bio, AP Physics
(This gives a year of lax between Bio and AP Bio)</p>

<p>Option 3-
Soph: Biology, Chemistry
Junior: AP Biology, Physics
Sr.: AP Chemistry, AP Physics
(This gives a year lax to chem)</p>

<p>As you can see, while option two and three fulfill AP Physics, it means that I must take two AP science courses my senior year :confused: (Along with the other classes I plan on taking, AP Econ, AP Computer Science, a College Math Course)</p>

<p>Also, as for the highschool life, I’ve done pretty good at managing my lifestyle. While if you look at me academically, I would be considered a nerd by a lot of people. Outside of school, I have a large group of friends, and (not to be cocky) am semi-popular. Right now I’ve got a really great pretty girlfriend and our relationship is steady. While I understand that these classes will be difficult and time consuming, I think I will still be able to manage a social life. And besides, its not like these classes are boring or anything. The fact that I absolutely love mathematics is going to really help in my math classes, turning the factor of ‘boring hard and difficult’ into ‘interesting and fun’.</p>

<p>And anyways, math does have some pretty wicked graphs. I <3 Fractals.</p>

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<p>This is impossible. You are really asking “Could anyone please tell me what I would find fun?” There isn’t some magic number at which you become well-rounded. Nor is joining a club you have no real attraction to going to do much for your development as an applicant nor as a person. </p>

<p>Find out what is fun for you. What do you like doing? If you are deeply into drama, music or other arts, join the relevant groups at your high school; if you are not, then don’t. If you are really into French poetry, then join the French poetry society. If you really like going to the movies then join the film society. If your school doesn’t have these then form the French poetry or film society or whatever (actually academic film rental is quite reasonably priced, and a film club is very doable). If you spend all of your free time in World of Warcraft, form a WoW club in school, or a school guild or something. </p>

<p>Basically be able to demonstrate that you:
a) can relate to other people socially (very important if you plan to go to MIT)
b) have some way of blowing off steam and relaxing (very important for MIT)
c) are able to positively influence your environment </p>

<p>Which EC you choose is much less important than what you do with it and how you do it.</p>

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<p>Uh, if you like science stuff, the Olympiads have pretty good programs (so like, USABO, USNCO, USAPhO, USAMO, USACO, and NACLO). </p>

<p>And I don’t think having a year off between subjects really matters. And even if you do take AP Bio or AP Chem your junior year to not have years off, you’ll still have senior year off of those two subjects if you plan on taking them in college (which you’ll have to if you go to MIT). And then I don’t think regular Physics would be a big deal over the summer, since I took AP Physics C without having ever taken Physics before, and did pretty well. Of course, it all depends on the person and how your school sets up your classes, and maybe taking Bio or Chem over the summer would be better, or you could just take all six classes during the school year.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the help everyone.
I’m probably going to look into fitting in AP Physics by skipping a year and waiting to take AP Bio as a Senior. As for the clubs and EC, I plan to get a little bit more involved as well.</p>

<p>Two things before I go,
Whats all this I hear about Science Olympiads? It sounds really interesting, but I’ve never been introduced to it around here. A link or something would be highly appreciated.</p>

<p>Also, does MIT scrutinize over English? I was never fond of English and have always done the intermediate level so far. I’ve made A’s throughout, but haven’t gone in the advanced classes nor plan on taking AP English.</p>

<p>Your feedback have really been great :)</p>

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<p>[Art</a> of Problem Solving](<a href=“http://www.artofproblemsolving.com%5DArt”>http://www.artofproblemsolving.com)</p>

<p>for math</p>

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<p>You definitely don’t need a full year for (standard) introductory physics classes. You could finish it in a summer at a very relaxed pace. Depending on your interest level, a week or two could be enough.</p>

<p>“Rushing through” physics over the summer isn’t that bad. You only need to understand a few very basic ideas from an intro class, and everything else follows directly. (liking math, you should have no trouble with this approach)</p>

<p>Personally, I never took physics in high school, and I was just fine. I did do some self-studies though.</p>

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<p>If you google the acronyms in my other post, you should be able to find information, but I think you need to search for something like US Physics Team for physics.</p>

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<p>This is assuming, of course, that you have absolutely no knowledge of the subject whatsoever. I personally don’t feel that there’s any rush to learn it over the summer though. It didn’t take me very long to cover the topics on the SAT II Physics, let alone the New York State Regents.</p>

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<p>Ahh, shravas, those links proved to be very helpful. I think our school offers the math contest, but does not offer the science ones to my knowledge. I’ll look into it.
As for in general, how about this Science Olympiad? I just googled that and came up with this competition like thing where there are multiple science projects and competitions to compete in. Would this be worth trying out at my school?</p>

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<p>Here’s my advice:</p>

<p>You seem like the typical student that standard education (AP, High school) fail to inspire/challenge. If so, I would advise you RIGHT NOW to start self-studying stuff. Olympiad-preparation is pretty fun, and teaches a whole lot of things you wouldn’t learn other-wise. I highly recommend you start seriously preparing for those (search USABO, USAMO, AMC/AIME, USA PhO, USNCO). Also, use Art of Problem solving website. It’s excellent for the kind of people who feels high school is not enough for them. Finally, if you have the time/financial resource, try to take courses at a college-level, do some summer research internship (through a college program, at your local university, through EPYG, AP’s don’t count). And finally, remember to have fun! You’ll never have as much free time as you have now :D.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the tips! Yeah, that art of problem solving website looks very interesting, and I’m planning on talking to the science teachers at my school about all those science olympiads in the upcoming year. I will probably take college courses in math for the rest of my high school career starting at the end of this year. I’m blessed by where I live, because its right next to a great community college that offers college courses for high school students to take, during the summer and school year. Thanks for all the advice everyone!</p>

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<p>Academically you’re pretty set. I won’t repeat what others already wrote in this thread. You need to remember, however, that you are a unique person. Don’t do things only because MIT would like them. Find out what interests you, and pursue it to the highest level you can. There are a lot of bright students with a good course load - you need to figure out what makes you different, and concentrate on that.</p>

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<p>By the way, learn calculus, if you haven’t already. It gives you a fresh new perspective on mathematics.</p>

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<p>Well, I guess you can do that. I think that you’ll be able to exhaust your local community college’s math curricula if you keep at it for the rest of your high school years. Whether that’s a good thing or not, I don’t really know. :/</p>

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<p>I’m not. :frowning:
But I basically self-studied calculus anyway. You can definitely do it.</p>

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<p>I really think you have a great chance, especially since you seem to have a real drive to learn. Personally, I feel like you should find a way to fit AP physics into your schedule, since I think having that background will help you a lot if you do truly get into MIT and decide to enroll. Other than that, I want to simply emphasize what other people are saying - Self-study! Get involved in Olympiads/competitions, etc. Find opportunities outside the norm. Email professors and see if you can get involved in research.
That being said, don’t aim solely for MIT - other schools are great too :slight_smile: Although I ammmm definitely biased in favor of MIT, lol.</p>