Research/IMO/IPhO/ICO/IBO

<p>About what percentage of MIT applicants submit research awards or scores from international math and science olympiad qualification tests? Would not having these things on your app significantly hurt you? Thanks.</p>

<p>You know what matters? If you show you can handle the academics and have passion (oh yeah, we're not sopposed to use that word anymore) then the admissions team will earnestly look for a place for you on the climb. </p>

<p>Anyway what do I know about olympiads?</p>

<p>"passion" is "prohibited" or something? what happened?</p>

<p>
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About what percentage of MIT applicants submit research awards or scores from international math and science olympiad qualification tests? Would not having these things on your app significantly hurt you?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Not many, but probably more research than olympiads, and no.</p>

<p>
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"passion" is "prohibited" or something? what happened?

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</p>

<p>Overuse to the point of turning an important concept into a stupid cliche that everyone puts on their little applications checklist and looks for ways to pad on their resumes.</p>

<p>in my opinion, someone who has a strong demonstrated "passion" for a science field can afford to have let's say 100 points less on the SAT and not so outstanding ECs and still have a chance. This is the only advantage. But if we don't have them, that doesn't mean we don't have a chance. Anyway, MIT has more places than all the international medalists put together, right?</p>

<p>I don't think you guys are getting this (I'm referencing the applicants). There is no formula. There is no "if you do research than you can afford to have lets say 100 points less on the SAT." There is no "well you got XYZ olympiad so you can afford to cutback on ABC." It just doesn't work like that. </p>

<p>Everything is taken into context. The "match" concept is not just ranking applicants by taking the dot product of the applicants vector against MIT's ideal student vector. </p>

<p>Is there a surefire way to get into MIT? Yeah, be an awesome person (good attitude, nice, etc), win several olympiad gold medals, most of the primary research competitions, publish as first author in prestigious journals, perfect grades, take upper college level classes, do sports/clubs, ie be the perfect applicant. Have I met anyone like that? Nope, and I don't think there are more than 5 people perhaps that have ever met that qualification (there are always those strange geniuses).</p>

<p>If you don't meet that bar, then you'll have to do like the rest of us, and do whatever YOU think is best, do whatever YOU think is fun, etc and just apply. Beyond that you just have to hope.</p>

<p>YOU are a human being. You will fail at things in life. You will suck at things in life at times, sometimes you will suck really really hard. Sometimes you will be awesome. If you haven't failed at something yet, you haven't pushed yourself hard enough. So push yourself harder. If you get in and come to campus next fall you are not going to suddenly become a whole new person overnight. You will still be interested in things you liked in HS, while garnering interest in new things. If you pushed yourself before, you will continue to push yourself.</p>

<p>"do whatever YOU think is fun"</p>

<p>I think thats a big problem with people that post here. Everyone seems to ask whether X activity is good for Y school. I think after so many years of reading applications, an admissions officer can distinguish between those people who pad their list with sparkly extracurriculars, and those people who do it because they love it. Dont waste a minute of your life doing things you dont care about. Honestly, no college is worth wasting my life doing things I couldnt care less about. </p>

<p>Just my 2 cents, havent ACTUALLY been accepted anywhere yet =P</p>

<p>Honestly, if you're in HS and don't have publisehd research and have not been in at least 3 international olympiads, there's something wrong with you.
Don't expect to get in unless you've been internationally recognized many times over.</p>

<p>As I'm sure you guessed: total sarcasm.</p>

<p>i can give you some perspective/numbers about the olympiads since i was involved in them. i contend that olympiad people are a completely insignificant blip in the admissions process. for example, consider the physics olympiad. i was on the us physics team (i.e. the top 24 selected to the training/ipho selection camp) twice, and i went to the international physics olympiad last summer.</p>

<p>there are 5 freshmen this year who went to ipho (2 indonesia, 2 usa, 1 canada). i am 95% sure i'm not forgetting any other internationals. there are 7 freshmen/sophomore at MIT this year who were on the us physics team in 2006 and/or 2007. since many people make the team twice and there are underclassmen on the team, too, this is only 7 people out of potentially 29, not 48. the numbers for harvard are a bit higher, and the numbers for caltech, princeton, and stanford are a bit lower. these five schools together cover 26 out of the 29, so we're not even affecting a large number of schools.</p>

<p>the numbers for the math olympiad are a bit higher because their camp is twice as big as everyone else's and the math olympiad gets lots of media coverage. the numbers for computer science are about the same. the numbers for chemistry and bio are smaller.</p>

<p>and as for the people who don't make it as far as the national camp but maybe made it past the first exam or something: i have no idea, but it's undoubtedly still a tiny slice of the applicant pool.</p>

<p>so, for all intents and purposes, the admission officers could pretend like these contests don't even exist and nothing would change.</p>

<p>and like differential said, don't do this crap because you think it helps for admissions. it's not worth it unless you actually enjoy it.</p>

<p>Quote:
""do whatever YOU think is fun"</p>

<p>I think thats a big problem with people that post here. Everyone seems to ask whether X activity is good for Y school. I think after so many years of reading applications, an admissions officer can distinguish between those people who pad their list with sparkly extracurriculars, and those people who do it because they love it. Dont waste a minute of your life doing things you dont care about. Honestly, no college is worth wasting my life doing things I couldnt care less about. "</p>

<p>Can you tell me how adcoms will find out if you do or don't have interests in certain activities?
Exclude interviews. If Jack applies to MIT, not prefering to take intervies, tell me how adcoms can tell whether he likes something or just does it to get into college.</p>

<p>They'll read his application...</p>

<p>If Jack doesn't explain his interests on his application, then they won't know. Simple as that.</p>

<p>I am sure many people will mention their interests on the app's essay . . . it's hard to not do so.
It can't be that simple.</p>

<p>Thanks, iostream. Your numbers put the effect of international olympiads on admissions into perspective. I was just curious because it seems like a lot of people who post "chances" threads for MIT list IO participation. </p>

<p>I have already applied EA, and realize that MIT assesses apps in terms of context and the match to the school. I would have loved to participate in these IO competitions, but unfortunately, only recently learned that they existed. Thanks for your input, and good luck to all applicants waiting for "mid-December".</p>

<p>Btw, I liked your post differential. One of the best</p>

<p>WorrieMom - I dont KNOW my statement to be true or false. It could very well be totally untrue; however, I would assume seeing completely unrelated extracurriculars and possibly a certain tone in their application could flag them to a insincere extracurricular, but I could be completely wrong</p>

<p>The thing I overlooked most about the admission process at MIT is that the admit team is trying to assemble a team with each intake. They can't know exactly what each applicant is like, but they can know who is really opening themselves up in the application. It is really important for the students at MIT to 'be there for each other'. I don't mean that in the campy, mooshie sense. </p>

<p>To coin an expression a good friend of mine uses, "wear your heart on you sleave and you'll get what you need."</p>

<p>In effect, there is no real judging if you can get in by the stats. It's all in how brutally honest you are with yourself about it and what the team needs. That may not help but its the truth as far as I know it.</p>

<p>That sounds like ********. There is no need to wear your heart on your sleeve. Wear your heart on your sleeve and a lot of people will be either repulsed or take advantage of you.</p>

<p>Also you don't need to open up your self on the application. You should be yourself on the application. If you are introverted (as many applicants likely are), then pouring ourself out in one big sweep on the application will look like you've had it bottled up for too long.</p>

<p>Are any of you MIT adcoms? I am just curious . . . especially Eluhan and Differential.</p>

<p>Ok, perhaps I was a bit dramatic. </p>

<p>My point is, admissions wants to know who you are and not what you can write. </p>

<p>BTW, wearing your heart on your sleeve does not preclude not paying attention to what is going on. It is a phrase meant to invoke the fear rejection and inspire courage in self expression.</p>

<p>Anybody can be anybody on the relatively anonymous internets. But for the record, I'm not an adcom.</p>