So...could I get in?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>I'm a nerd. I'll admit it. I like math, and really enjoy a challenge.</p>

<p>My grades aren't great though. Usually I'll get straight Bs, but I do take as many AP classes as possible.</p>

<p>As a junior, I took AP Spanish (4), AP English Language (5), and AP Computer Science A (4). I 32'd my ACT (35 Math, 26 Science), with an 11 in writing. I also had MIT set as one of the schools to send my grade to, so hopefully they'll send me something in the mail. My GPA is 4.9, but I mean, my school's GPA is weird, and AP classes are worth 6.5.</p>

<p>I'm talking AP Calculus, Government, English Literature, and Computer Science AB as a senior. I didn't play baseball in high school, but I'm a pretty good player and was hoping to get on the MIT team if I went there (I was hoping this would help me a lot. I e-mailed the coach last night, but have yet to hear back).</p>

<p>My strong point is my personality. I have a wide range of interests and really am a unique person. Hopefully, after I take my interview (I'm in Chicago...I'll get one right?), I'll get a strong recommendation for my strong personality. I love baseball, lifting weights, cars, and going out. I'm not your typical geek.</p>

<p>Could I get into MIT? I know this is just a forum, but does anyone know of anyone similar? I don't believe that all 1,000+ freshman had straight As and 36 ACTs, plus I'd probably play baseball at MIT if I went, although I'm not 100% on that because I hate to say I'm good enough when I don't have enough information about the competition.</p>

<p>What do you think?</p>

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<p>What do your extra curriculars look like? "I like baseball but I've never done anything with it" won't look good on an application..</p>

3

<p>I'm #1 on the chess team...finished around 25 in conference as a soph and junior out of about 200 kids. I guess that's about it.</p>

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<p>this thread will give you a sense of what it takes to get in:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/473605-official-mit-class-2012-regular-action-decisions-thread.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/473605-official-mit-class-2012-regular-action-decisions-thread.html&lt;/a>
btw, does anyone know why i can't find this thread in any of the mit forums? i only found it with search.</p>

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<p>As far as baseball goes, division III teams don't recruit, so saying you want to play a sport is useful, but it's not more useful than any other kind of talent you could bring to the table as an MIT student. The coaches don't have much pull in the admissions process.</p>

<p>You can find admissions statistics for the class of 2011 [url=<a href="http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/index.shtml%5Dhere%5B/url"&gt;http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/index.shtml]here[/url&lt;/a&gt;] -- I think 2012 will probably be up soon. Not all 1000 freshmen had a 36 ACT score and a straight A average, but 90% of them were in the top 5% of their high school classes and about half had an ACT score 34 or higher.</p>

<p>Most students around the country are offered an interview. If there are no alums in the area, the interview is waived, but I'm pretty sure there are a whole bunch of alums in the Chicago area. :) You should find out your interviewer information around the end of the summer.</p>

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<p>If you are interested in baseball at MIT you should contact a coach. You can call or </p>

<p>MIT</a> - DAPER - Varsity Sports Recruiting Form</p>

<p>They should be able to give you some indication as to whether your academic and athletic qualifications are sufficient for them to support your application with a recommendation to admissions.</p>

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<p>Coaches can support an application- basically, let the adcom know that you would play a sport at MIT. To what extent this helps is heavily debated every year, but the general gist is that if you couldn't get in without that recommendation, you're not really going to get in just because you have it.</p>

<p>The fact that you haven't really done anything baseball related in high school won't help your case much, either. If you do end up getting said recommendation, as an admissions officer that would sort of raise my eyebrows.</p>

<p>However, I am not an admissions officer, so take what I say with grain of salt. I was, however, an athletic recruit, and this is the impression I got.</p>

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<p>From my experience, I agree with ducktape. I also think we're sort of missing the point here by focusing on baseball. Coaches are very happy that people are interested in their sport...but I doubt the coaches will (or can) recruit someone who didn't play in high school, unfortunately. And as ducktape and others said, "athletic recruiting" at MIT doesn't mean much.</p>

<p>All that aside, I like some of the things you said in your original post - "My strong point is my personality." MIT really does focus on trying to find students who really match its culture and personality, so perhaps that will help you out. Though I will say there are many, many people at MIT who love lifting weights, baseball, and cars. (Ever heard of the Formula</a> SAE team?) Most of us at MIT aren't your "typical" geek. :D)</p>

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<p>I understand. I just really love the whole school when I see things like the (forget the President) being dressed up as the Halo guy, the Super Smash Bros Brawl decorations, etc. That school would fit me so well, I really think its the best place for me to go.</p>

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<p>Sorry to be the negative person on this thread, but I haven't seen anything remarkable academically from your post. Straight B's is not a good thing, especially since it appears that your school is offering a pretty solid load of AP classes, and you didn't do so hot on some of them. </p>

<p>While these forums do push a lot of the "it's all about the match" aspect of admissions, don't forget that that is all icing on the cake after applicants have very solid strong backgrounds in science and mathematics. If I were you, I would spend some time going through OCW and seeing how you feel about the PSET's in the GIR's.</p>

<p>Also don't fall in love with a school based on Halo Hacks and SSBB decorations. Those aren't the best indicators of whether you would find yourself really loving this place. Spend more time assessing more schools, at different levels on the academic ladder, and figure out if you still really love MIT.</p>

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<p>Science isn't my background. Computer science is. So is math. Is MIT all about chemistry/bio/physics?</p>

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<p>Just to be clear, John Harvard was never President of Harvard. And the statue is touted to not actually be in John Harvard's image anyway!</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Science isn't my background. Computer science is. So is math. Is MIT all about chemistry/bio/physics?

[/quote]

Given the most popular major at MIT is "Electrical Engineering and Computer Science" ("Mathematics" is also one of the more popular ones), the answer is no. (Though the answer is also "no" to "Is MIT all about electrical engineering and computer science (and mathematics)?")</p>

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<p>I agree with differential. I have yet to see anything that really qualifies you for MIT - decent but not stellar grades (I'm not talking straight A's, but <em>something</em>), I haven't heard you pursuing tougher classes and I haven't seen any passion.</p>

<p>And I agree that the hacks are an awesome part of the school's personality - but I don't see that personality in you.</p>

<p>Perhaps you should tell us more about yourself and say why you think you're a match?</p>

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<p>I'm a geek. I started programming Visual Basic when I was about 10 years old out of plain curiosity. I'll spend an hour every day reading random Wikipedia articles just for the pursuit of knowledge. When a computer is broken in my neighborhood, I'm the one that fixes it. Furthermore, I like to develop and manage my own websites online with Wordpress, and monetize them with things like Google Adsense and Wordpress.</p>

<p>On the other hand, I love girls, baseball, cars, and working out. I go to football games, occasionally enjoy drinking, and get into trouble with my parents at times.</p>

<p>I took AP Spanish as a junior at my high school, and got a 4. I think I'm the first junior to ever do that. I got a 5 on AP Lang, and 4 on AP CS. I'm taking AP Calc, CS AB, Physics Honors, and also AP Gov next year. I am captain of the chess team and one of the top players in my conference. I remember losing every match as a freshman, then I went home and spent hours with a tutorial on how to play the game...well (I got the software from Bit/uTorrent).</p>

<p>Hopefully I've shown my diversity as a person and why I believe I'm the right student to attend MIT.</p>

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<p>"I'm a geek. I started programming Visual Basic when I was about 10 years old out of plain curiosity. I'll spend an hour every day reading random Wikipedia articles just for the pursuit of knowledge. When a computer is broken in my neighborhood, I'm the one that fixes it. Furthermore, I like to develop and manage my own websites online with Wordpress, and monetize them with things like Google Adsense and Wordpress."</p>

<p>I remember posting a response to someone else in a similar situation to you. Look, you have to understand the difference between <em>easy</em> pursuit and <em>hard</em> pursuit. </p>

<p>Easy is doing things like rigging up a few small websites to make some spare change, fixing a few computers (which isn't too difficult these days), and "browsing" wikipedia. Hundreds of thousands of people do these things. These things are fun, but they don't constitute <em>hard.</em> </p>

<p>From a Computer Science perspective, <em>hard</em> is solving really hard problems. Hard is making significant contributions to open source projects or starting your own. Hard is creating a company that produces a new type of software. Hard projects are the types that require several months of time invested with little chances of payoff. Hard is studying advanced algorithms in the back of CLRS (or elsewhere) and implementing them correctly, etc. Hard is learning Software Engineering the hard way, by writing thousands upon thousands of lines of code and refactoring again and again until you end up deriving the principles of software engineering from first principles. </p>

<p>I'm not trying to be the downer of your day, but I'm trying to reveal what <em>hard</em> is in terms of Computer Science. If you want to go to MIT, you have to learn to work hard and play hard, and that means consciously understanding what value each of your pursuits is worth. That is not to say that you shouldn't enjoy yourself, but don't fool yourself thinking that browsing wikipedia and fixing computers makes you very <em>passionate</em> about computer science (and also, you should be slightly worried about that score on the AP CS A exam, make sure you study hard this year for the AP CS AB exam).</p>

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<p>"Hopefully I've shown my diversity as a person and why I believe I'm the right student to attend MIT." While I understand what you're saying, we are not admissions officers; you don't have to convince us of your worth. (This is the inherent fallacy of most chances threads, not just yours.)</p>

<p>"On the other hand, I love girls, baseball, cars, and working out. I go to football games, occasionally enjoy drinking, and get into trouble with my parents at times." Again, while I understand where you think you are coming from...I think you are sorely mistaken that this makes you "unique" at MIT. We are not robots. We are also human. My fraternity has a mailing list dedicated solely to baseball discussion (actually). I fight with my parents and spent my childhood watching Notre Dame kick butt (usually) in football games. But none of that stuff ended up on my application, because it's not really relevant in the long run. My application was about my passion for science, for biological engineering, and for research - and what I had gone out and done with those passions.</p>

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<p>@Twan:
Given your grades (mostly "straight Bs"), I'd say MIT is far reach for you. MIT is a reach for everyone, but as Molly pointed out with the statistics in her post, it's especially difficult for students who do not place in the top 5% of their class. Most of the students at MIT took the most difficult classes at their high schools and performed extremely well in them. Because you have intrinsic motivation for computer science, you might consider a range of less selective institutions where you might find a better match.</p>

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<p>But hurting you more is the seemingly lack of extracurriculars - grades get your foot in the door, but your passions and what you do with them fully get you to MIT.</p>