<p>MIT is really intimidating in the sense that, from what i'm reading, unless you're pretty much a genius and one of those "best of the best of the best" students, you aren't getting in.</p>
<p>Would MIT consider (really favorably) something like owning and operating a professional-grade web design studio while in high school? I've designed websites for some companies and i'm going to start a design studio with my friend, hopefully in the near future. if/when this happens, i'll definitely keep it up through college. this is work experience and self-motivation, i guess, but if someone were to have something on the side like that and above-average but not brilliant grades (say a 3.6 GPA - at my school this would mean that i get at least Dean's List or High Honors - which is better- every trimester), how would MIT look upon that? i'm still a sophomore in high school but just something i've been wondering for a really long while.</p>
<p>Yeah I do. Huh, good guess. Although I guess I should have expected it from someone in NJ. Would that have a drastic effect on the way my GPA is considered? I've got people telling me I need as close to a 4.0 as I can get, and I have other people telling me that a 3.5 from Lawrenceville is as good as a 4.0 from a public school, which I doubt very much. Any ideas on that?</p>
<p>I don't know, that annoys me too. I went to public school before Lawrenceville. And, well, in my case, it's definitely a lot harder to get A's in Lawrenceville than my old public school. However, I have friends who go to really solid, challenging public reason. But of course, in our consumer-based society, the brand names of the private schools kick in with admissions departments and stupidly impress them more. But it's the same with colleges too, although the difference is more real with colleges. Although there are some public colleges (or private colleges that aren't brand-name) that are very respectable, and yet they aren't given that much credit.
So there's my expansion to your rant.</p>