<p>I'm going to be a sophomore next year so I still have plenty of time to find an alternative if MIT isn't right for me. Here's my background: I have a 3.9 GPA (all A's except for French), and I am on schedule to take IB Higher Level Math (Post-Calculus) during my junior year. I have studied theoretical physics on my own for the past 2 years through texts such as Principles of Quantum Mechanics (Shankar) and Modern Quantum mechanics (Sakurai), as well as Gravity (Hartle) and A First Course in General Relativity (Schutz). I have utilized MIT's OCW program by taking their online single- and multi-variable calculus courses with great success. Despite all of this, I have been told that I have absolutely no shot at being accepted into MIT if I don't do community service. So, what do you guys think? Do I really need to do community service or would it be superfluous?</p>
<p>^^There are people who get in without it, but I think it does help. How about tutoring or teaching a class in one of the things you learned independently? I imagine you would enjoy lecturing as it would reinforce your own knowledge. </p>
<p>Don’t just try to get hundreds of hours to put on your resume’; that sort of thing doesn’t help. If you aren’t going to do something which dovetails with your interests, I suggest you do something where you could spend all of your time at it for a week or two during a break and then be done–like, for instance, Habitat for Humanity or something. Look at it as something which broadens your horizons. However, you never want to go too far away from your interests, especially something year-long which sucks time away from things you enjoy.</p>
<p>Generic advice to people with questions like MrWizKid’s: Look around on the MIT forum, try to identify someone who appears knowledgeable, and who does <em>not</em> work in MIT admissions, and then send them a private message asking for advice.</p>
<p>MrWizKid, I am sorry to say that your post, all by itself, has probably reduced your odds of admission to MIT. It makes you pretty easily identifiable. (I doubt that there are multiple people of your age, with your academic record.) Your post could be taken to indicate that you have no interest in community service–then, if you do become involved subsequently, it could be written off as work done purely for college admissions purposes.</p>
<p>collegealum314 has given you some good advice. I think you should look around your community, and ask yourself where you could make a difference with the talent that you have. Understanding of theoretical physics usually correlates well with skills that could be put to good use by various community groups: for instance, you are probably good at disentangling complex inter-relationships among data/objects. Maybe some group in your locality could use that skill. And you might actually learn something from it. </p>
<p>Also, keep in mind that MIT’s motto is “Mens et manus” (or approximately that). You should not avoid hands-on work. Have you read John Wheeler’s autobiography? He mentions going past a building work site when he was about six, and spotting an error in the plumbing connections for the building that was going up. Also, you might recall the story Feynman told, about looking at plans and asking about a “valve” on the diagram–he wasn’t quite sure what the symbol represented. It was in fact a valve, and something was wrong with it.</p>
<p>Your post indicates that you are academically qualified, which something like 80% of applicants are. The only other thing you seem to describe yourself as doing is having read a lot of physics, which is not something I think will push you into getting accepted in the admissions cycle.</p>
<p>You don’t need community service. But I would recommend that you start doing something with what you’re learning - be it competitions, or tutoring, or getting involved in research (or pursuing other interests, if you have those).</p>
<p>Thanks for the input everyone and I guess I should have made it more clear that I am not completely against community service, I just wanted to know if it would be a deal breaker. I think I’ll take the advice most of you have given me and try my hand at tutoring, as well as take part in my schools math and science olympiad teams.</p>
<p>MrWizKid: I suggest that you try thinking “outside the box” about ways in which you might put your ability to use in your community. Tutoring is great. Olympiad teams are fine. But look around, for a need that you can fill. Think of it as a challenge to your creativity.</p>
<p>I was sort of in this position when applying. I had never participated in any hardcore community service (ex. working at a soup kitchen, habitat for humanity) and was worried if that would affect my chances. However, I had done community service that I enjoyed, namely, tutoring, and that was apparently enough community service for the admissions office. Do what you enjoy and if there is an opportunity to apply what you learn from an experience, whether it be tutoring or something completely different, go for it!</p>
<p>If you can get a 5 on the AP physics exam, I would look into taking the U.S. physics olympiad tryout. If you know the Resnick/Halladay text backwards and forwards, you should be able to make the semis or even higher. The physics olympiad tests by and large don’t seem to go beyond basic mechanics and E&M.</p>
<p>@collegealum314</p>
<p>My high school doesn’t seem to acknowledge the importance of AP courses so the only advanced classes available are through the IB program, thus I won’t be taking that exam. However, I will look into the physics olympiad.</p>
<p>I did not mention any of my community service on my application, and still got accepted. So no, it’s not a dealbreaker.</p>
<p>
I realize I’m an apologist around here for the admissions office, but I can say with confidence that this is simply not done by MIT.</p>
<p>From Ben Jones, a few years ago, [e.g.](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/qanda/questions_and_answers/your_profile_on_the_web_can_it.shtml]e.g.[/url]:”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/qanda/questions_and_answers/your_profile_on_the_web_can_it.shtml):</a>
</p>
<p>Thanks for the heads up mollie (although I never saw anything in my post that would be a huge discredit to me either way).</p>
<p>I know that MIT really values “spreading knowledge” very much. I would recommend you to try some kind of tutoring, preferably in physics.</p>
<p>Thanks for the post, mollie. That’s reassuring.</p>
<p>Still, I note that there would be a difference, in my opinion, between admissions scouting someone out on Facebook–wrong–vs. remembering, "Oh, hey, isn’t that the guy who posted on the MIT forum . . . " Students know that people connected with MIT admissions can be found on this forum (MITChris, earlier people). In my view, this shifts the ground rules somewhat.</p>
<p>MrWizKid, the problem was with your last sentence: “Do I really need to do community service or would it be superfluous?” This clearly gives the impression that you will do community service only if it’s necessary to get into MIT, given the rest of your profile. Whether it’s “superfluous” really ought to be judged by the people you would (hypothetically) be serving, and not by the MIT admissions office.</p>
<p>I can sympathize with students who are watching their peers rack up community service hours without real commitment to the work that they are doing, and with students who are frustrated by the limits on participation by students under 16 (in our state and probably others) in many of the most interesting and worthwhile community service options. When I encounter a profile on CC where the student lists 250+ hours of community service, and doesn’t mention any actual accomplishment with this time, I am generally not impressed. </p>
<p>So, I understand not wanting to take the options that are readily available. But I think MrWizKid could come up with some ideas that are really quite good, interesting, and maybe even novel if he put his mind to it.</p>
<p>Addendum: You might look into Caltech, MrWizKid. Somewhat different admissions approach.</p>
<p>^ I doubt that, of thousands of applicants, MITChris is going to be able to remember and identify that one of the kids really interested in physics didn’t actually want to do community service.</p>
<p>Don’t want to pick on the OP. Wouldn’t want people to dissect everything I’ve ever posted on CC! But don’t you suppose that the view on community service that was represented here will also be indicated in other parts of the application?</p>
<p>If you truly mastered the material in books like Sakurai, it is truly impressive. I know MIT undergrads who struggle with concepts in that book. I think at that level, you can even start engaging in small personal projects (you might want a mentor to guide you, maybe try RSI?). Just think of them as problems, except more involved and difficult.</p>
<p>Olympiad is fun, and definitely worth trying. If you master E&M and mechanics at the level of Griffiths & Kleppner/Kolenkow, the olympiad problems will be a lot less of a challenge.</p>
<p>A related question–just curious about your opinion: </p>
<p>Suppose an MIT interviewer asks a student, “Why did you become involved in X?” where X is some variety of community service, and the student says, “I heard you had to do community service to get into MIT.”</p>
<p>Does the student get credit for “refreshing honesty” or does that eliminate the student from consideration?</p>
<p>@Quantmech</p>
<p>I really couldn’t have phrased that any worse in my original post. I already had intentions to do tutoring and small bit of volunteer work throughout my high school career prior to asking the question (I AM NOT OPPOSED TO COMMUNITY SERVICE). The only thing I was really trying to ask was whether or not community service is essential in order to be accepted into MIT, because I had been told that after you meet educational requirements major colleges look for those applicants with the MOST community service. At this point I know that is a lie based off of everyone’s responses.</p>
<p>@QuantMech</p>
<p>In response to your question: I’m don’t think it would eliminate them from consideration altogether, but I do think that they would be less likely to be accepted.</p>