Also, just want to mention: most of the responses I have been seeing have been repeating that Ivy League are reaches for everyone and that most likely I won’t get into any of the schools I listed. This is quite a stark contrast to the opinions of what I’ve heard from other places, where most people I’ve talked on other forums/social media have said that I have a >90% chance of making MIT (but much less for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton) and that I should have absolutely no trouble getting into almost all non-HYPSM colleges which are STEM-oriented.
I’ve heard from many places that if you have a big spike then you’re actually quite likely to get into top schools, especially if you are fairly well-rounded and have good stats + Ec’s on top of that. In my opinion, 3-time USA(J)MO + USACO Plat + 2-time USAPhO (with one silver medal) is a big spike that not many people with my other stats have.
I’m sorry if I come off as cocky or arrogant; I’m just genuinely curious why people here think I don’t have a good chance at the colleges I listed. I’m very glad that people are saying my chances are not good, because I came here for a second opinion and it appears I got one.
However, would someone please explain why? And if the colleges on my list aren’t matches, then what “tier” of colleges would be a match for me? Thanks!
Many students who apply to those colleges are among the best in their schools or local areas. However, there is no way for the students, or most others who know them, to know how they compare with the applicant and admit pools of those colleges. The best in your area may not be among the best in those applicant and admit pools, especially since many of these colleges consume much of their admit pools with special “hook” admits like legacies (who still have to be good, but not as good as those without such status), leaving fewer spots for the truly top-end “merit” admits (MIT is an exception among highly selective private colleges in not considering legacy status).
Best of all the people in the world in a subject area is a very tiny fraction of people. I think whomever gave you the 90% number has no idea how these colleges operate. People applying to these schools are all in the top 2% in overall stats ( that’s pretty much a given), then take national and international achievements ( some have both), add in something for the community ( some have really unique things that would make an MIT special, can really be anything not STEM related), some people have really helped their community, nation or have solved a problem ( like created a portable NICU unit for use in poor nations that saves lives. Or they have some involvement or perspective that screams, " I will change/impact the world" Those are the people getting in. Are there kids who don’t have these items who get in? Yes, and they are often from unusual places or haven’t had access to these top tier programs.
There is a list of impressive EC’s on CC here somewhere. It lists awards in order of how “impressive they are”. Honestly, you have to place fairly high in any EC category for it to have a lot of impact. Coming in the top 250 isn’t really as impressive as #1 winner in a regional event. The math awards are great just not as impressive as someone told you.
When too many outstanding students apply to a university, the selection process becomes impossible to predict. It is that bad.
APPLY WHERE YOU REALLY ARE EXCITED BY THE PROGRAM, but do not stop there. Arguably, the number one CS program in the world is at CMU and yes, it is not an ivy!
Do not confuse general name dropping with the challenges and the opportunities available at many other universities.
In the Northeast, the standard backups for MIT are RPI (avg GPA3.8) and WPI (avg GPA 3.9). The average matriculating students at these schools are not dummies and they have excellent career/graduate school placement. Northeastern is another highly regarded backup for top STEM students in the northeast.
Aside from name recognition, what are you looking for?
Your problem is that most tippy top US universities care as much (and in many cases more) about ECs, legacy, athletics and social/ethnic background as they do about outstanding academic performance (such as in math competitions). In many cases outcomes are more predictable for applicants with those other attributes (eg recruited athletes). That’s not to say that IMO qualifiers don’t get into MIT, but at the next level down, it’s far from automatic.
If you want to stay in the US for college then it is what it is. In places like the UK you get “recruited mathematicians” (literally) and the rest doesn’t matter.
Well, I get where you all are coming from, but I’ll just say this. I know about 30 or so USAMO qualifiers who’ve graduated high school. About 10 of them have made MOP and the other 20 haven’t. Every single MOPper I know made MIT (and most of them go there), and I can only list 2 USAMO qualifiers who didn’t make any T10’s. One of them has nothing outside of math and the other has horrible grades.
So if you’re wondering, this is why I was so confident. Again I’m sorry if I’m being rude, but I feel like most of the posters on this thread don’t really get how math/CS/physics contests work.
MIT is different because as its name implies, it’s a very STEM oriented school and your experience and extracurriculars would help you greatly. The other schools (Harvard, Yale, etc) are more liberal arts focused, so while your extracurriculars would still help, it won’t be everything.
Simply hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
Admission decision-making at these institutions aforementioned is not a 100% deterministic process as I see it. There’s an uncertainty involved and so I’m not a clairvoyant to give you an “absolute” answer. And without perfect “information” such as your future essay, etc, the best decision is have a “good” choice of school portfolio for application as many have mentioned above that can maximize your objective given some of the “constraints” you may have.
@Happytimes2001 OK, let me break this down for you. About 21,000 students apply each year to MIT. They accept about 1,400.
Let’s look at your awards: there are about 100-120 USAPhO gold + silver medalists a year. Any students in your cohort could have won on of these in any of four years. So we’re talking a few hundred people in your graduating class, country-wise, who have won a gold or silver USAPHO medal.
There are about 10 such Olympiads each year. So now we’re talking about a few thousand. Of course, that is not counting the students with two or three bronze medals, bronze medals in two or three Olympiads, etc.
There are also research competitions which are more prestigious. like the Intel fairs. There are other math competitions, robotics competitions, etc. That is just science. There are awardees in music, in writing, in scholarship.
So the numbers rack up pretty quickly.
Of course, MIT is also looking for other accomplishments and other students profiles, not just students with medals, but with other interesting accomplishments.
So we’re talking about more than a few thousand.
When we look at the 21,000 applicants for MIT, we’re not talking about a random selection which looks like you high school. We’re talking about a group which includes a substantial number of those few thousand kids who also won a silver or gold, or multiple bronze Olympiad medals, as well as the Intel and Microsoft competition winners, and so forth.
That is why having a silver medal in USAPHO, despite being an amazing achievement, is not an automatic ticket to MIT.
There are about 32,000,000 students who graduated high school in 2020. The top 1% of this group academically, the ones whose academics are better than 99% of all students of their year, are a group on 320,000 students.
So 320,000 isn’t that many at all, when compared to 32 million. However, when compared to the 1,400 who were accepted to MIT this year, that’s a lot. Even if we look at the top 0.1%, those who are, literally, one in a thousand, that is still more than 20 times the number of applicants who were accepted to MIT.
Again, it is not that you haven’t done really well, it is that you simply do not understand just how many students are doing that well, compared to the number of students who apply to MIT and other similar college. You also do not understand that “holistic admissions” means that not only GPA and academic competition awards awards are considered when accepting students to MIT.
What you don’t seem to understand is how admissions work.
Since you are interested in math, you should know that anecdotes and data are not the same thing. Second, having 18 out of 20 being accepted to one of twenty or so different colleges is not the same as having 90% of them accepted to MIT.
Some people here on CC have been responding to students like you for many years, and have seen many students like you in a very bad place as they find, in March, that they have been rejected from every one of their reaches and half of their matches. You should go through the different threads and find the ones by parents of students or students themselves who were in this situation.
Had you asked “can I get into one of this list of schools?”, the answer would have been that there is a high likelihood that you could gain acceptance to one of these. However, to any particular one, the chances are far lower.
Finally - your chances at acceptance to MIT are far higher than the 6% or so which is the average. They are likely 3 times that or more. However, we are still talking about a 20%-30% chance, or, to look at it in another way, you have a 70%-80% chance at being rejected. It’s better than having a 94% chance, but you are still much more likely to be rejected than to be accepted.
"Coming in the top 250 isn’t really as impressive as #1 winner in a regional event. "
Just look at the list as you mentioned: "There is a list of impressive EC’s on CC here somewhere. It lists awards in order of how “impressive they are”. Then you will know how prestige it is.
If you don’t have any red flags (recommendation letters, essays), I would say you have more than 50% (if not much more) chance to get admitted to MIT/Caltech. With that being said, I do agree with some other members that you should add some safe schools.
“Let’s look at your awards: there are about 100-120 USAPhO gold + silver medalists a year. Any students in your cohort could have won on of these in any of four years. So we’re talking a few hundred people in your graduating class, country-wise, who have won a gold or silver USAPHO medal.”
The math/logic is not correct in above statement. If there are 100-120 USAPHO gold+silver medalist a year, then on average it will be LESS than 100-120 people in a given class because there are people win those medals multiple times.
“Again, it is not that you haven’t done really well, it is that you simply do not understand just how many students are doing that well, compared to the number of students who apply to MIT and other similar college.”
I disagree the statement above. There are just not many students are done so well even for MIT applicants.
Also, those math science & math awards are typically overlapping. Most USPHO USACO campers are USAMO qualifiers.
@Mwolf Well clearly you’ve just proved you have no idea how these competitions work. How about I break the numbers down correctly; hopefully it helps everyone on this thread have an idea how these competitions are like.
There are about 270 people who make USAMO every year. The distribution is something like 50 underclassmen/MS, 100 juniors, 120 seniors. So this puts me in the top 100 in the class at math. Next, USAPhO: there are about 100 gold/silver medalists a year out of all high schoolers, so that puts me in about the top 50 in my class for physics. Now USACO Plat: 400 high schoolers, but due to promotion being permanent, there’s probably like 150 juniors. So for competitive programming I’m top 150 in the class.
So, out of the entire national class, top 100 in math, top 50 in physics, top 150 in CS. And these are quite conservative estimates.
Ok so now let me first address your other points. You say there are about 10 different Olympiads, and several other different areas such as writing, music, etc, as well as many other science competitions. Yes, but what you have to understand is that not all subjects are created equal, and not all competitions are created equal.
For instance, in terms of competitiveness/prestige, the science olympiads are something like Math>>Physics>CS/Bio/Chem>>>>>> all other science olympiads. There’s a reason why I consider my USAMO qualification more prestigious than USAPhO silver, despite the former putting me in the top 100 and the latter in the top 50: because contest math is a LOT more competitive than contest physics. And for stuff like astronomy and linguistics? You’ll literally need to make the International Olympiad to get to the same prestige.
And for writing, music, etc? Yes, MIT will want world class humanities students too. But you have to realize that because MIT is so STEM-oriented, they’re going to take way more STEM kids than humanities, and they also realize that hardly anyone focusing on humanities/art will go to MIT anyway. It’s sort of like how my USAMO qual would count strongly for MIT, but far less so for Harvard/Princeton/Yale, and would be almost irrelevant if I applied to, say, a music school.
Next, regarding other competitions you’ve mentioned. It seems like you are having the mindset of “USAMO is only one contest, there are many more”. Well that’s not true at all. One thing you need to realize is that the AMC/AIME/USAMO is not only a math contest, it’s THE math contest. Save for HMMT, PUMAC, CMIMC, etc, all the other math contests in the country combined together doesn’t come close to its prestige or importance (and the people who do well on college contests such as HMMT almost always do very well on the AMC series anyway). Whoever said “#1 at a regional contest is better than USAMO” clearly has zero idea what they’re talking about. I was first in my county’s high school math contest every year since 6th grade, but that’s going on the bottom of the list because it means nothing.
Similarly, F=ma/USAPhO is THE physics contest (although perhaps slightly less so than in math). For CS it’s much more murky however; USACO is still definitely the most prestigious coding contest, but there are also things like Google code jam, and building software could also demonstrate coding ability. But even in CS, winning your state hackathon is probably worthless compared to USACO.
And research competitions? Your local science fair means even less than your local math competition. Until you get to the huge awards at the very top (which are probably way more prestigious than everything I have) or get a patent or something, whatever you get in research competitions are nowhere near USAMO qualification prestige. But very few people get those top awards, and most of the people who do also perform very well on science olympiads.
So if we account for all other competitions, an EXTREMELY conservative estimate would be that I’m top 150 in my class at math, top 100 in physics, and top 250 in CS. So if they have a “holistic STEM rank”, then what would put me like what, 100th?
Finally, to whoever brought up the list of awards- yes, please check it out. USAMO is a 8, USACO Plat is a 7, and since USAPhO qual is 6 but camp is 8, USAPhO silver is probably a 7 too. I also have USAMTS Gold (several times) which is a 7 apparently, but USAMTS is not particularly prestigious and probably should be downgraded to a 5. Since 9 is apparently almost an automatic ticket to top schools… an 8+ two 7’s should probably have a decent chance?
For those of you who say people like me are often rejected. I’d be very interested in seeing someone with a similar profile as me and got rejected from all T10’s- if anyone knows of such a case, please link it, thanks.
And honestly I have to admit that I’m somewhat offended because it feels to me like people are trying to belittle the accomplishments I’ve worked my butt off for, without doing any research about them at all. I’m happy to take note of honest but critical replies, but saying things like “nah your profile is garbage, everyone in MIT has cured cancer and solved world hunger so ull prolly be in community college” immediately flags you as someone to not take seriously.
And for those of you who are giving me genuine advice and trying to help, thanks a lot; my comments were directed at the people who’re spouting BS they know nothing about.
@swagmaster101, I think you are misreading the responses you’ve received. People are clearly acknowledging that you have a great profile and a great chance at getting accepted to MIT or another top school. But I think they are also very sensitive to the attitude you are displaying, as it is true that, every year, some people with incredible credentials get rejected everywhere they apply, and it’s very painful to see. I think it’s a good thing you came on the site and allowed yourself to get knocked around a little, as it is true that you need to be careful and make sure you have some safe options and it is also true that approaching the top schools with some degree of modesty (and spelling everything correctly) will serve you well.
I feel there is a miscommunication that is happening between the original poster and the many (well-intentioned) people who are trying to help.
Our local high school typically has 1-3 people qualify for USA(J)MO each year. @swagmaster101 is right that these kids do very well in terms of admissions. Of the roughly dozen or so qualifiers that I personally know, only one didn’t end up at an HYPSM or CalTech (that case was known as the “obnoxious kid”, and he ended up at CMU CS which has a 5% admit rate).
So @swagmaster101, you are right to be applying for these top schools as I think that you have a good chance of admission into at least one.
BUT you are also getting very good advice that you should not consider these schools as matches, but instead treat them as reaches. Nobody wants you to end up really disappointed next March. Note above I said that the USA(J)MO qualifiers “ended up at HYPSM or CalTech”. Many had early disappointments. One of them had considerably more accomplishments than you listed and was initially deferred from both MIT and CalTech. For that matter, I know of a kid that had both RSI and MOP and was deferred from MIT. No admission is guaranteed at the top schools.
Let’s look at your application list:
Based upon this, here is what I recommend for early decision:
If you want to apply to MIT early, you should also consider applying EA to CalTech, and UChicago, but be aware that UChicago has a very low EA admit rate.
You should also apply EA to Michigan. If you don't get into one of the above early, getting an EA admit to Michigan gives you a very solid floor upon which to build for regular decision. And Michigan is fantastic for both Math + CS. You should expect a letter from Michigan's math department asking you to apply based upon your AIME scores.
You should also consider schools outside of the USA, which avoids the entire issue of holistic admissions.
As @Twoin18 mentioned, take a look at Cambridge and Oxford. Very much the peer of HYPSM, but merit based admissions.
For the same reasons, consider McGill and U Toronto.
If you get to the point of regular decision and still want to keep looking:
If you have an admission to Michigan, you can apply to the rest of the schools on your original list. Also consider adding Vanderbilt which is the closest thing the USA has a to a pure merit school among the top-20.
If you didn't get admitted to Michigan, you should have applications ready to submit to some true match schools, which have admit rates of about 25% or higher. And of course, your safeties.
In a very real sense, deciding which reaches to apply to is the easy part. The harder part is finding the matches and safeties you would be happy to attend.
The folks who have been on this board for a while know that I officially joined CC after a close friend of my D overshot his list and ended up only having one acceptance at the safety school the guidance counselor made him apply to at the last minute.
The Val at D’s school with perfect GPA and scores (not near perfect, perfect), varsity athlete, AND a national winner in math competitions like yourself was wait listed at UMich (albeit for engineering not math).
I have also been doing alumni meetings for Cornell for more than 20 years now. Every single year, I see amazing students like yourself rejected. Every single year.
Do I think you have a better than average chance at the schools on your list than most? Yes I do. Do I think you still need a true match and safety that you would be happy to attend? Yes I do.
Consider what happens if the worst occurs and you don’t get into any of the reaches. Do you want a forced gap year where you have to start this process all over again (and if they rejected you once, your odds of reapplying to the same schools is worse so you’ll have to come up with a different list)?
I hope to be celebrating with you when you post a long list of acceptances next spring but I would strongly encourage you to find actual match and safety schools to add to your list just in case. I like the advice already given to look at schools outside of the US with the same level of prestige - Cambridge, Oxford; and then also McGill and Toronto. I again would encourage you to take a look at RPI if staying in the US is important.
IMO, this year is going to be very atypical because of Covid. No one knows how all the gap years and deferrals from this years class is going to impact yours.
My advice, which you are obviously free to disregard, is to be cautious in creating your list. Have some slam dunks on there where you are basically an auto admit.
I’m sorry that you didn’t get the responses here that you were hoping.
PS. D’s friend’s story has a happy ending - he ended up loving his safety, a regional U that no one has heard of. He’s in their honors program and being the rock star that he is. He abandoned ideas of transferring, which he swore he would do, after loving his first semester.
The Val took a full ride scholarship at a state flagship engineering powerhouse (not UMich) and is also rocking it and having a great experience.
You’ve played lots of volleyball. Do you have any awards in that? Are you recruitable? Stanford no longer has men’s volleyball but Harvard, Princeton, and UCLA still do. MIT has a Division lll team.
Exactly right. Unfortunately, most highly selective schools do not release data on their acceptance rates according to SAT scores. Princeton used to do so; the most recent data I’ve seen were from 2015, when the SAT was still scored on a 2400-point scale. At that time, the acceptance rate for students who had extremely high SAT scores – specifically, 2300 or higher – was only around 15%.
I should add that I agree that the OP likely has a higher than average chance of being accepted to MIT – but that the probability is indeed much lower than 90% (and is probably a good deal lower than 50%).