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I wonder on what bases do they actually reject EA'ers?
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<p>Criminal record?</p>
<p>^ haha, possibly. I say accidentally sending one's ITT app to MIT.</p>
<p>It looks like having an unusual passion for a MIT applicant is an advantage - e.g., theatre.</p>
<p>Haha, I don't know how unusual theatre is as an activity for MIT kids -- there are thirteen student theatre groups, so there must be somebody to fill them up!</p>
<p>(I know this is anecdotal and therefore not significant, but I'll echo the comments of Mollie and others with my $0.02 anyway.)</p>
<p>Last year I was deferred with a 2260 and accepted in the regular round. I am not well rounded and I don't have amazing scientific achievements, thousands of hours of community service, or amazing talents. (See post #30 here</a>). I am the typical applicant in that I have competitive stats and an interest in math/science. In retrospect, I think what got me in the door instead of some "more qualified" applicants was showing genuine passion for the things that I did do and that I was a good "fit" for MIT through my essays and interview. I really tried to show what kind of person I was in my essays because it is the only part of the application that I could directly shape when the time came to apply. MIT wants smart people, not robots. The people, with varied backgrounds and interests and perspectives, are what make MIT an amazing place.</p>
<p>MIT gets so many applications of students with 2400s, and who are valdictorians and they can't accepet them all. What would a school where everyone got perfect SAT scores, and graudated at the top of their class. There was an article in the local newspaper where I live, about Marilee Jones the Head of Admissions at MIT, she said that every year, she saves 10% for students who had a "spark", something special about them. This is the most competitive year EVER for college applications. I mean, on the cover the New Yorker, the headline was "Would Albert Eienstien Get Into College This Year?"</p>
<p>Don't be too hard youself guys. Do not think there is something wrong with you for not getting in. Do not over obess and think that your perfect SAT scores was the reason for your deferrel, it's like one big traffic jam. Everyone is trying to get to the same place at the same time. Everyone is quailifed, you could fill MIT 5 times over with quailifed applicants and then some. </p>
<p>The truth is MIT simply can not accept everyone.</p>
<p>I heard Marilee Jones speak at our school, she said that MIT is looking for excellence not perfection. She emphasized the importance of creativeness, and that we need more "Thomas Edisons." So maybe thats what MIT wants....She's an incredible speaker, very inspiring.</p>
<p>It's easier to think of acceptance as a two-phase process.</p>
<p>Phase 1: Determining whether an applicant is numerically qualified.
It's in this section that your SATs, GPA and grades... AIME and all those numbers get crunched... here you have to demonstrate really that you're capable of performing the workload MIT has to give you. Low SATs are indicative of underdeveloped skills in mathematics or language that would make your stay at MIT hell. However, what difference is there really between a 750 and an 800 on a section? A 700 and 750? If you have at least a 700, you definitely have the requisite trigonometric skills to start with calculus I, or even higher. If you have higher than a 650, you probably do. The admissions committee needs to determine whether or not it will be possible for you to learn and succeed here. This is WHY there's absolutely no difference between a 750 and an 800. What is that really, one question on the math section? We see a lot of people with 2400s deferred, but I'm willing to bet you that there are just as many people with 2250s deferred, too. They're essentially the same thing. Similarly, you could be a genius and not have low grades because you didn't want to put up with the crap your high school was required to feed you. The problem is, the crap never ends there. Even at MIT, you're going to have to take classes you don't want to take. And guess what? In real life, you're going to have to do stuff you don't want to do (surprise!). Good grades demonstrate the ability to do what is required of you, a task that will help you your entire life. I'm going to come out and admit that I'm <em>not</em> one of those students who was anywhere <em>near</em> the top of their class, but I still had to prove my ability to work hard and well in other ways...</p>
<p>You want to know what the tough part is? At least 70% of applicants are numerically qualified.</p>
<p>Phase 2: Determining whether a student is the right fit for MIT.
This is where everything else falls into place. Your essays, interview, all the stuff you enjoy doing... would have fun here? Would you fit in with the culture of the school? Do you share the goals and dreams the Institute was founded on? Will you change the world?</p>
<p>Want to know what the tougher part is? There are more students who are a "perfect fit" than there are admissions spots. Every year the admissions committee has to let go of some people they feel would be great here. It's not a personal attack, nor is it some fault. The simple truth is, there aren't 2500 spots for freshmen at MIT. Nor would freshmen want there to be. Part of the appeal of MIT is the student-faculty ratio and the tight bonds that form in our communities. </p>
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The truth is MIT simply can not accept everyone.
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<p>Exactly.</p>
<p>^ nice post</p>
<p>I agree that a perfect score on SAT or any other test is not, should not, and never has been, a guarantee to MIT or any other highly selective colleges. And I dont believe anybody on CC is naïve enough to think so. But I am sick and tired to hear people despising the perfect SAT scorers.</p>
<p>Yes SAT is not flawless, like any other tests. Yes its true that practice and tutoring/advising may help with your test results to certain extents. But anyone who has ever taken SAT or similar test knows it is extremely difficult to reach a perfect score, no matter how many prep-class you take and how many test-prep books you go through. Remember, these tests are designed to distinguish the test takers in all levels of Scholastic Aptitude. Therefore, the top scores are controlled in a very low percentage. According to College Board, for 2006 college application year, there are only 238 perfect scorers among the 1,376,745 test takers. Thats 0.017%! Another word, barely 2 out of 10,000 makes the perfect score. </p>
<p>So it is outrages to hear someone suggesting that you can just read a test prep book and get 2400. If thats the case, we will see thousands and thousands of perfect scorers. I personally know a few SAT perfect scorers; none of them accomplished that by just taking a prep-class or doing lots of practice tests. They are all very intelligent students and hard workers, and all are ranked on the very top of their schools. I am willing to bet anything with anybody: this applies to all the SAT perfect scorers. </p>
<p>I am sure every college has its own way of differentiating SAT scores. But any suggestion that in terms of the scholastic aptitude, a SAT 2400 is not much different from a 2200 is a misleading to say at least, and, I hate to use the word but cant help, a lie. And I doubt any college would agree with it. If unfortunately there is a college that does, I would never go to that college anyway.</p>
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I am sure every college has its own way of differentiating SAT scores. But any suggestion that in terms of the scholastic aptitude, a SAT 2400 is not much different from a 2200 is a misleading to say at least, and, I hate to use the word but cant help, a lie. And I doubt any college would agree with it. If unfortunately there is a college that does, I would never go to that college anyway.
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<p>Missing one question on a section can knock you down as much as 40 points on the SAT. Miss one in each section, and you're looking at 2280ish score. Heaven forbid someone skip a few or miss more than that.</p>
<p>The question is... 5-6 questions... the difference between a 2250 and a 2400... is that really so revealing about someone's character or their intelligence?</p>
<p>There's no hate for 2400s, not from colleges at least. It's important not to confuse this with the fact that there is also no advantage to a 2400. You don't get a gold star on your application or a highlight or anything other than the "okay, well, clearly he can do the work here... what else does he bring to the table?"</p>
<p>MIT, for instance, doesn't distinguish between a 750 and an 800 (2250 and 2400?).</p>
<p>Just to add, from Ben Jones:
In most cases we do not distinguish between a 2400 and a 2250. The exception would be a breakdown of 800/800/650 with the 650 being in math; obviously we'll consider if the 150 point difference is entirely in one of the three scores. But we don't distinguish between a 750 and an 800 on any single test. Period.</p>
<p>The directive from the top down is to use scores solely to measure our confidence in an applicant's ability to thrive academically at MIT. A "7" at the beginning of any score makes us plenty confident assuming the rest of the app is solid. Even scores with a "6" at the beginning can be fine in many cases. Once you've demonstrated that you can thrive academically at MIT, it's everything else that actually gets you admitted - what you will bring to the community, whether you're a good match, etc.</p>
<p>How these things correlate with the various graphs and curves of SAT scores that people like to publish I couldn't tell you. This sort of hair splitting is certainly not on our minds when we're deciding whether or not to admit someone.
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<p>A student with a 2250 and a student with a 2400 may be absolutely academically equivalent -- that's what other parts of the app are there to suss out. And I'll state for the record that I can think of several ~2100 scorers who could blow the socks off any 2400 out there.</p>
<p>i wish people would quit harping about SAT scores. I haven't had a discussion about SAT scores once since I got to college. I don't know what any of my friends' SAT scores are, and nor would I care to know. And somehow I have a feeling our academic performance here isn't in any way correlated with those 10-150 point differences in our scores. It's just another hump you have to get over and you'll look back and see how silly and pretty much worthless those things are and you'll mature a bit in the process. God, I don't even remember my SAT scores.</p>
<p>If you people dont quit talking about SAT scores I will stop reading this website.</p>
<p>It makes sense to look at more information than just SAT scores, and I'm sure that -some- 2100 scorers are more impressive than -most- 2400 scorers. But all other things equal I would expect a students with 800 Math, 800 CR to do better at top programs than a student with 700 Math, 700 CR, which makes me wonder why MIT would use a simple cutoff (once the scores are high enough, ignore the differences) as opposed to some sort of weight that could be balanced against other indications.<br>
On the general theme of the informativeness of standardized test, I'm pretty confident that students with 5's in BC calc, Phys C, or Chem do better in the next level class than students with 4's; Harvard (and maybe MIT too?) did some data analysis that shows this.</p>
<p>"According to College Board, for 2006 college application year, there are only 238 perfect scorers among the 1,376,745 test takers. That’s 0.017%! Another word, barely 2 out of 10,000 makes the perfect score."</p>
<p>And your chances of winning the lottery are 1 in 14,000,000!! You should be a shooin at any major university!</p>
<p>This debate is unusual because it feels equally fun -- and legitimate -- to disagree with both sides.</p>
<p>To ivyapp06, I'd make the obvious point that rare achievements are not, by virtue of that, meaningful. It's possible that the difference between a 2250 and a 2400 is just a (unbalanced) coin flip, essentially -- offering no opportunity to infer anything deeper about ability. Winning the lottery doesn't make you special in any other way.</p>
<p>To all the pious defenders of MIT's declaration that 2250=2400, I make fun of you. Not because I disagree with the underlying point about ability measurement and stuff, but just because you sound pansy-ish. We set up a race, people run it, and some get absolutely the best mark you can get. They sit there for four hours and some of them answer absolutely every question right. There's something to that -- the puzzles that tricked many of you (and many of me) didn't trick them. Not being impressed with that suggests your brain has been made somewhat mushy by too much softness.</p>
<p>Sure, SAT's measure imperfectly, but (surprise!) so do all your other touchy-feely measures of ability and potential -- and the latter are more prone to manipulation (on the admissions end) for reasons having nothing to do with merit or promise. There's something viscerally appealing about the 1960's (Caltech or MIT) picture of four guys sitting around a table saying, "Well, this guy got a perfect score on the SAT, so he's clearly a very smart cookie, and we should think very carefully about passing him up." I'll take that any day over this more modern picture: "Hmm, well, their math SAT scores are within 100 of each other, and this second guy wrote an essay about raindrops that really touched me, so I think he would make a more holistically promising number theorist."</p>
<p>Of course, I'm deliberately provoking you with that last paragraph. But in a way I'm serious, and I wish there was a little more reflection before people swallowed stories about why this or that "holistic" admissions process is so much better than the alternative.</p>
<p>Ben Golub, aren't you an admission officer at Caltech? If so, is does your last post (and especially the last paragraph) reflect your admission policy?</p>
<p>Secondly, do you seriously think that this guy who scores 800 on the SAT math section is a "smarter cookie" than this guy scoring 750? I like your anology to flipping coins, but if it doesn't apply here, I really don't know where it does.</p>
<p>Next, I don't think anybody would disagree that scoring a perfect score is indeed impressive. But that's all it is :)</p>
<p>Nope. I'm just a guy. I worked for two years on Caltech's admissions committee, and this year I don't because it wouldn't be so easy (on many levels) to apply to grad school while also doing admissions.</p>
<p>Even when I was on the committee, my remarks wouldn't reflect policy. We also have a lot of touchy-feely stuff, mostly to adjust for differences in opportunity. But overall, my personal opinion is that the Caltech faculty and students who make up the majority of the admissions committee have a lot more of that no-nonsense zeal that I mention above, and we do have a great deal of respect for accomplishment where your brain sits in a room and solves hard puzzles well and quickly -- the harder the better.</p>
<p>PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH. Go back to Caltech, Golub!</p>
<p>Eat bugs</p>
<p>.</p>