Last year, I had a student who was near flawless in terms of raw numbers…
110 TOEFL
2260 SAT (non superscored)
2400 SAT II-Physics, Math II, Chem
10 AP’s-ALL 5’s
He won a bunch of regional, national, and international awards as well, with his most prominent being 2nd place in International Robocup Junior.
He could code, design translation software, re-designed the school lunch menu ordering system…all for fun.
He got into Cornell ED…but he also EA’d MIT and was REJECTED. If that isn’t enough…what exactly is it that MIT is looking for? Or were the other candidates simply more distinguished/outstanding/spectacular than he was? Or is it something else altogether?
That profile looks pretty much like 90% of all MIT applicants. Could be any number of factors. Is he Asian? His being a male works against him too since MIT wants a balanced gender student body. Maybe he didn’t do well on the interview?
MIT gets tons of applicants with amazing stats, great awards, proven talent in computer/science fields etc. – so many that there is not enough room for the school to accept all of the qualified applicants.
A simple net search for “How to get into MIT” will return numerous results. Many of those are written by the MIT adcoms and are published on the MIT admissions blog pages (mitadmissions.org). Well worth reading.
From what I’ve read, if you knew what could get you into MIT, that knowledge would get you into MIT.
The only input I have is that I got no sense of who that kid is when you described him. I think that’s where the magic of holistic admissions comes in.
your application is only as strong as your worst weakness.
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That’s true for other things in life (like a chain where it’s only as strong as its weakest link), but where’s the evidence that it’s true in college admissions?
“He got into Cornell ED…but he also EA’d MIT and was REJECTED.”
The “what MIT wants” issue is moot for this student, because ED is binding. Since the student was admitted to Cornell during the early admission round, it would have been unethical for him/her to matriculate at MIT, if accepted.
@jpm50 it depends on how you look at the admission.
Is it a process of acceptance or elimination?
Most applications won’t be read after the first or second time.
WarriorJ:
If what you’re saying is true, then how it that top schools end up admitting students with mediocre test scores?
For example, look at MIT’s admission stats. They admitted a fair number with SAT scores in the 600s, and reject many with far higher SAT scores.
If you read through the “decision” threads in CC each March/April, for any given school, you’ll see many with high scores who do not get accepted, and those with far lower scores who do get accepted.
Academic excellence is a necessary but not sufficient criterion for MIT acceptance. As has been pointed out on this board many times, MIT is in the fortunate position of being able to fill its class multiple times over with academically qualified candidates. So what gets an applicant in after that is really about the match between the applicant and the school (http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/match). It is really more about personality traits than about scores or grades. MIT is looking for those kids who will take the fullest advantage of what MIT has to offer and contribute the most to the life of the MIT campus.
No, it is not something else altogether. Those applicants who apply sideways automatically are able to demonstrate the contributions that they would make on campus. I have regularly told candidates that absolutely anything that they do specifically to help them get into MIT (or Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, etc.) is probably the wrong thing. They should do what they think it really cool and interesting and exciting, and if they match well for MIT, then the chances are high that MIT will also think that it is cool and interesting and exciting and the student will get in. Dean of Admissions Stu Schmill once defined getting into MIT in six words “Work Hard, Be Nice, Have Fun.”
Work hard is obvious. MIT is very competitive. Grades and test scores count. You cannot get in if you are not academically qualified. But the other four words count as well.
Be Nice. MIT is a very collaborative place. Many of our students will go on to work in fields where the norm is a team of people working together on a project towards a larger goal. So that is the way we teach. Your problem sets in your freshman year were written to be worked on in a team of students working together. This is so alien to the way that most high schools work, in which collaboration on all homework was an appalling offense. MIT does not assign these study groups. Students are expected to find them. That doesn’t mean you need to be an extrovert, but it does mean that you need to know how to play well with the other children. If you do not have an ability to work well with others, you probably will not match well with MIT. Visitors are often surprised as how MIT is much less cutt-throat than many peer institutions.
And Have Fun. Do stuff. If MIT has a choice between accepting two students, with identical grades and test scores, are they going to accept the kid, who spends all of his/her free time alone in their room, studying alone for additional exams that will look impressive, or the kid who leads the football team, or is concertmaster of the county youth orchestra, or has done something cool and fun, and exciting. MIT runs an intramural athletics program, which provides no academic benefit whatsoever. It does not show up on your transcript, it does not help you in any academic sense. But it is a way for you and the people you live with to compete for the greater glory of it, and to have fun on a weekend. I never played sports in high school, and there is no expectation that any applicant ever has, but I was part of the more than 80% of undergraduates who participate in the IM program. MIT wants students who can have fun.