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<p>My apologies, I thought you were talking about an academic coach guiding you through the applications process, not an MIT sports coach.</p>
<p>The MIT sports coaches are not MIT Admissions. They do not actually have in-depth experience with the office. Simply reading the MIT website would’ve corrected the impression you were under. I do find it extremely problematic that coaches are giving advice like this. </p>
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<p>… where have people bashed your “relatively low sat scores”? They’re pretty on-par with MIT students.</p>
<p>Telling you that your source is incorrect is not a personal attack or elitism. It is simply an attempt to correct your mistaken impression. If you cannot handle that, then no, MIT was not the right fit for you.</p>
<p>Adamantly snarking that I am ill informed or that I am lying about my own personal experience comes off as pompous. And it was another poster who insinuated that his son with a 2370 was wait listed so what could I expect with my lower scores.
Mit was always a long shot. When I was deferred from ea in December I mentally wrote them off. When Coach contacted me asking me to consider taking sat’s in January, it somewhat re - ignited my hopes. Enrolled in 6 ap’s this year, being a 3 season athlete who travels nationally for my sport as well as having lost a parent in November was enough stress. I did not want to take my sat’s again. So I guess I was given bad advice. Whatever, its history.It hit a nerve with me when I happened upon this thread and stung even more when no one believed me. I am sure mit is full of wonderful, caring people. I met many on my visits. It just isn’t for me. Wish you all luck.</p>
<p>Taking the SAT again was obviously not added stress that you needed at that time in your life. It was obviously not the right advice for you and not the right advice for many applicants. That is the main reason that Piper and others are trying adamantly to correct this misinformation, so nobody else needs to go through the stress that you went through. You sound like a very driven person and probably could have spent that Saturday and the days you may have chosen to prep doing something much more worthwhile. However, I don’t think that anyone assumes you were lying but most of us do think that you were ill informed. </p>
<p>Snarking and informing are not the same. You were ill-informed. I wish you hadn’t been, and I especially wish it wasn’t an MIT coach to have done so. I’ll also note that aunt bea also seems confused on the process.</p>
<p>If you want to take a look at the stats (and realize there are correlations that they do not show), you can find them here:
<a href=“Admissions statistics | MIT Admissions”>http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats</a></p>
<p>As you can see from there, people in the 750-800 range do tend to do a little better, but people in the 700-710 range for each section still have a higher admit rate than what the overall admit rate was – and this isn’t even accounting for the fact that there are unseen correlations and self-selection going on here.</p>
<p>I can dig around for admissions officers stating that 700+ is fine if you’d like me to, but there are some raw numbers.</p>
<p>Thanks! mjkm602. He was accepted to CalTech.</p>
<p>No bashing intended, my apologies if I came across as snarky; we were told by the high school guidance counselors that a general “suggested” score for the SAT was over 2300 for MIT admissions since so many of our students want to apply. Later, we were told that MIT sees so many “similar” students that the interview and the essay can be high deciding factors. (Son’s interview was horrible) Piper: we were also advised that we shouldn’t expect the athletes to consider any conversations with athletic departments as admission tentatives. Just info from the GC’s; they aren’t always correct. </p>
<p>I guess I was given poor advice. Live and learn-maybe I should have contacted admissions to verify but at the time I didn’t question it. Oh well, things will work out. In fact, if admitted, there is a good chance I would not accept at this point. As the oldest of 5 and having recently lost a parent, a school closer to home feels like a better fit all around. Hope this thread is of some help to someone down the road.
Congratulations to your son, aunt bea. Cal Tech is no joke!</p>
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<p>This, along with recommendations, extracurriculars, etc. MIT will look at your scores to see if they are 700+/mostly A’s and B’s/etc. If you’re academically qualified, the rest of the app is what gets you in. Your son’s score wasn’t low – it sounds like he was academically qualified, but there are many stages after that. Admissions has said that about 80% of applicants have the academics to get in. Even in the final stages, they can’t take everyone they want!</p>
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<p>Absolutely.</p>
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<p>Yep, basically. Going to MIT has a lot of advantages, but it certainly isn’t the only place to be successful.</p>