Yeah...another "chance me" thread :)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>Rising Senior :/</p>

<p>Asian Female, PA, sucky public school</p>

<p>UW GPA: 4.0
W GPA: 4.99
Rank: 2/531</p>

<p>SAT: 780 CR, 800 M, 800 W (2380 Single Sitting)</p>

<p>SAT2: 800 Math 2, 760 Chemistry, 800 USH, 740 Biology (yeah, i suck at these)</p>

<p>APs: AP Calc BC 5, many still pending, but expecting 5s on Chemistry, English Lang, Psychology, Statistics, and maybe a 4 on APUSH </p>

<p>Freshman year:
-Honors Biology: A
-Honors English 9: A+
-Honors Alg. 2: A+
-Honors Precalc: A+
-Honors Western Civilization (History): A+
-Intro to Computer Programming: A+
-Spanish 2: A+
-Health/Gym: A+/A+</p>

<p>Sophomore Year:
-Honors Geometry: A+
-AP Calc BC: A+
-Honors U.S. History: A+
-Honors Chemistry: A+
-Honors English 10: A
-Spanish 3: A+
-Health/Gym: A+/A+</p>

<p>Junior Year:
-AP Chemistry: A+
-Honors Physics: A
-AP Statistics: A+
-AP U.S. History: A+
-AP English 11: A+
-AP Psychology: A
-Spanish 4: A+</p>

<p>Senior Year Classes:
-AP English 12:
-AP Physics C:
-AP Spanish:
-AP World History:
-AP Comparative Gov:
-AP Biology:
-College to take Multivariable: </p>

<p>ECs:
-varsity swimmer (co-capt), 4 years
-summer swimming, 6 years
-science olympiad (capt.), 4 years
-ARML (american regions math league) (Section leader), 4 years
-piano, 12 years
-student council rep, 4 years
-debate team, 3 years
-math team, (capt.) 3 years
-newspaper (section Editor) 4 years
-art club, 2 years</p>

<p>Awards:
-ARML - National Championship Team (9,10,11); Section Leader (10, 11); Highest Achieving Female (9, 10); Team High Scorer (9)
-Science Olympiad - 1st in Anatomy, 2nd in Ecology regional level; 2nd in Ecology, 4th in Anatomy State level
3rd in Ecology, 5th in Anatomy state level
-Swimming - "Diligence Defined" swimmer award, i hold 4 team records for my summer team
-Rensselaer Medal Award for outstanding achievement in the study of mathematics and science ($15,000 a year, for up to 5 years)
-Piano - lots of national and state awards and recognition
-NMSF
-AMC 10 School Leader (9, 10), Bloomsburg University Competition – First Place Team (11), Lehigh University Math Contest – Third Place Team (10,11), Pennsylvania Math League High Scorer (9, 10, 11)
-$3,000 Scholarship Winner to Cedar Crest College for Outstanding Mathematics
-Lehigh University Math Contest Fifth Place Individual
-Honorable Mention in the Bill of Rights Institute “Being and American” National Essay Contest:Top 10 (out of 24,000 entries)
-Emerging Leaders Institute Class of 2011
-Art displayed in Bethlehem’s Cultural Arts and Education Center</p>

<p>Community Service (bout 550 total):
-250+ hours at Hospital
-100+ hours at nursing home
-50 hours choir piano acccompaniment
-100+ hours teacher's aide for chinese school
-50+ hours summer swim team timer</p>

<p>Work:
- Kumon Teacher Assistant
- MATHCOUNTS teacher
- Private swim coach</p>

<p>Essays should be unique, Interview should go well, but no legacy/recruited athlete :/</p>

<p>I know MIT's really hard to get into...do I have a chance? And if so, how strong? Should I apply EA or just RD? Thanks :)</p>

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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/939227-reminder-no-one-not-even-me-can-give-you-accurate-chance-mit.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/939227-reminder-no-one-not-even-me-can-give-you-accurate-chance-mit.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>You definitely have a chance and if you don’t apply, you won’t get in so I’d say give it a shot. </p>

<p>Applying EA or RD should be a personal choice. WE can’t really decide that for you.</p>

4

<p>“SAT2: 800 Math 2, 760 Chemistry, 800 USH, 740 Biology (yeah, i suck at these)”</p>

<p>get over youself</p>

5

<p>Just a couple of comments and pieces of advice, if you are for real, alwysgraceful03:</p>

<p>MIT admissions, as far as I can tell, adheres to the philosophy that no one “deserves” to be admitted to MIT. On the face of it, you would appear to be a clear counter-example to that. I sincerely doubt that there are 1500 rising seniors who would be a better choice to admit. Actually, I sincerely doubt that there are 300 rising seniors who would be a better choice to admit.</p>

<p>From your list of accomplishments, you have been on the National Champion ARML team for three years running, and the top young woman in two of those years, etc., etc., etc.</p>

<p>Yet you ask, “do I have a chance?” Frankly, even I find this level of silliness annoying, and I am one of the staunchest supporters that you can find on CC for the hyper-qualified MIT applicants. If you are for real, your application will be readily identifiable. I doubt that MIT admissions will hold this post against you–it might have been posted by someone other than you, for the specific purpose of reducing your chances.</p>

<p>So, a few pieces of advice:</p>

<p>1) Your essays need to be really good, and really sincere. Drop the phony humility. If the humility is not phony, you need to “go home and rethink your life,” to borrow a phrase from Star Wars.</p>

<p>2) You need to think about an instance where you’ve failed. That will probably be a question on the MIT app. It is <em>not</em> a good idea to say that you failed to be the top woman in the ARML competition for three years in a row, even if that was your goal.</p>

<p>3) You are a MATHCOUNTS teacher. How are your students doing? This will be very important (in my opinion) for the way that MIT sees you.</p>

<p>4) You describe your school as “sucky.” Believe me, I understand the limitations of typical American public schools, even the good suburban ones. Yet, despite your school, you have done extremely well in national competitions of several different types. I imagine that you have done a lot of this on your own, or with help outside of your school. Nevertheless, your school has positioned you well enough to succeed, with some extra work. Perhaps you need to take a broader view of what your school is doing, in assessing its “suckiness,” and not focus so much on yourself.</p>

<p>5) In your 250+ hours at a hospital and 100+ hours at a nursing home, did you do something that any other person putting in a similar amount of time could/would not have done? That is one of the areas where you might be able to demonstrate an impact on others. Many of your other accomplishments are very personally and competitively focused. This is not quite how MIT operates.</p>

<p>6) You would be well advised not to post quite so much potentially personally identifying data on CC or elsewhere on the web.</p>

<p>You will probably read my comments as critical–rightly so. I think you may be operating in a milieu of cultural expectations that would actually hurt your chances at MIT, despite the fact that you are an incredibly strong applicant. </p>

<p>I don’t know how the MIT admissions people will react to my advice to you, but it’s definitely intended to help you! Also, it’s aligned with how I’d project that they might react, based on my reading of the material they put out. I sincerely wish you all the best!</p>

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<p>Quick addendum: My comments were not intended to suggest that it’s bad to be humble–just that you need to have a sense of proportion, in what you are being humble about.</p>

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<p>could not have said it better, :slight_smile: Good luck!!!</p>

8

<p>

Uhhhhh it’s unfortunate that you try to lie on a forum. There was no girl, let along Asian female on the Lehigh Valley ARML team that took first this year, last year and the year before. That’s really low…
And yes, it was not difficult to determine which ARML team you are on when you stated you were from PA.</p>

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<p>The Lehigh Valley Fire team finished first in 2009, 2010, and 2011. The Lehigh Valley Ice team finished 22nd in 2011, which was their best finish ever. Excluding the possibility of Asian-American women with male-sounding first names, it appears most likely that the OP was on the Ice team. This was not the first-place finisher at any time in the last three years. The fact that there is an over-arching Lehigh Valley organization does not make Ice = Fire. Why would you bother to post incorrect (inflated) information in a chances forum?</p>

<p>I need to go home and rethink my advice about humility.</p>

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<p>Well, You are DEFINITLEY GOOD AT MATH! Overall, I think you have a very high chance of getting in. Continue to do well, and spend time on your essay.</p>

11

<p>Oh my god I regret not catching the mistake when I was still able to edit, since everyone is accusing me of this. I never meant I was on the fire team, I meant i was on the lehigh valley team, and i felt that i needed to elaborate that it was the national championship team because I thought that it was important because it shows how strong the whole group is. I’m sorry if I seemed like I was trying to inflate my profile.
I’ll obviously specify it more clearly on the app. I was just going for the top female scorer on the team anyway lol (my coach gives out this award).</p>

12

<p>With the correction, I would move you from the “unbelievably good” category to the “believably good” category. (It’s ok, I’m “believably good” at best myself, and I make a living in science.)</p>

<p>It’s still silly to ask if you have a chance–you are plenty good enough to have a chance–though it’s a bit less silly to ask how strong your chances are than it seemed to be before.</p>

<p>Most of the advice that I gave before still stands. A couple of additional items of advice:</p>

<p>1) Watch out for “gilding the lily.” The qualifications you have mentioned are sufficient, and your success will hinge on the other factors in your application. You should be careful about stating your accomplishments as precisely as possible, despite the length limits on your statements. (It’s good practice for your future work, anyway.)</p>

<p>2) MIT will not care at all about the differences between some of your SAT II scores and 800 (at least as far as I can tell from multiple years of reading). </p>

<p>3) What I’d suggest is this: read carefully all of the information you can find on the MIT admissions web site, including the blogs. You might want to read online course information also. Then go back and try to “read between the lines” at the MIT admissions web site. What are they looking for? Does that sound like you?</p>

<p>Please note that I am not suggesting that you try to write your essays to please MIT admissions. The essays have to be authentic! However, in my experience, most people are fairly complicated and multi-faceted. If there are genuine aspects of “you” that mesh very well with what MIT seems to be looking for, it is not phony to highlight those aspects in your application–at least in my opinion.</p>

13

<p>Thanks QuantMech! You’ve given me a lot of great advice.</p>

14

<p>An ARML team on ice? I’d like to see that.</p>

15

<p>sounds like you’re good enough and and you know that everything you’re doing is so you can get into a good school. so please I think it’d be good to just relax and stop trying so so so hard and enjoy high school with your friends or you will regret it.</p>

16

<p>…Do you not already have over 10 chance threads with a lot of positive feedback? I have to agree with futurevpfinance when I get over yourself and stop posting so many chance threads.</p>

<p>Overall:
Great Academics
Great Awards
Scattered/Typical Asian EC’s(Swimming is an exception)
Poor Personality Traits</p>

<p>Sure, MIT might accept you, but then they’ll be accepting a girl who says “oh my sat’s suck!” when she obviously realizes they do not from all of her previous threads.</p>

<p>Kids who spam/brag all over CC like you are really disgusting.</p>

<p>Taking Personality into account, which colleges claim is so important, and which many posters above me failed to consider, will hopefully give you a rejection.</p>

<p>I’m not simply being bitter,its just that the majority of the applicant pool is much more mature than you.</p>

17

<p>^HAHAHHAHA.
ok thanks for the rant.</p>