By normal I meant , good GPA (3.9+) and good SAT 2250+ , but no awards, no valedictorian, no top ranks, no "research", no URM, not an athlete, no summer job, no summer college classes, no extensive travel, no summer volunteering, no 'founding clubs', not a club leader, not an entrepreneur etc.,. Just normal, studious brilliant students who are just good at studies but may not be interested in other areas or seek out opportunities by themselves either due to lack of awareness/environment. This also includes shy/childish/late bloomers/introverts and others who don’t have proper guidance.
Last edited by moshot; 04-01-2012 at 09:18 PM.
Reason: clartity
Well, it sounds like by "normal" you mean people who do well in school but aren't involved in activities or in their community otherwise. If that's the case, then "normal" will probably not get you in.
If by "normal" you mean people who did well in school and were involved in those activities they cared about/were interested in (that may or may not include the ones you mentioned) but were not superstars and were not URMs, etc., then those types of people are admitted regularly. The point is to demonstrate that you're passionate about things, that you're an active part of the world around you, and that you care. IMO, this can be demonstrated in some way regardless of your background and environment.
(This is all, of course, how I see things and I'm just a freshman and really know nothing about admissions)
That is my point. Just being passionate about your studies is not good enough. And there are many like that. Just look around yourself and see how many of the passionate professors went to non-elite schools for undergraduate but still turned out to be passionate in their profession
By normal I meant , good GPA (3.9+) and good SAT 2250+ , but no awards, no valedictorian, no top ranks
Does top rank and/or valedictorian really help that much in absence of awards? Maybe if from a buzzword elite preparatory school? By the way, I think you make a very good point from what I observe about general trends, although I'm not sure how much the remarks apply to a given specific school.
Well, it sounds like by "normal" you mean people who do well in school but aren't involved in activities or in their community otherwise. If that's the case, then "normal" will probably not get you in.
If by "normal" you mean people who did well in school and were involved in those activities they cared about/were interested in (that may or may not include the ones you mentioned) but were not superstars and were not URMs, etc., then those types of people are admitted regularly.
It has been expressly suggested to me when discussing this before with others that if those activities were too centered on learning for personal pleasure with the absence of much else, there weren't too many rewards for that kind of thing. Basically, "normal" and does-well-at-school certainly can fall within the category of "normal and passionate."
Usually Valedictorian status is unknown at the time of college admissions so valedictiran and top ranks mean the same for this purpose. Yes I think it can help in some cases when the colleges look for diversity, especially geographical. Also by normal I mean being passionate in studies but not standing out from the crowd by other means due to several reasons.
Definitely agree that context matters when judging accomplishments. I have seen kids who had every advantage and were valedictorians fail to get into any top schools while kids with very significant obstacles who were maybe top 3% barely got in to many top schools. However the kids with the obstacles also had great personalities and did some pretty kickass things even though they were not anything like international awards. They were just really unique uses for their talents, signs of maturity and responsibility, ways they solved problems, etc. alongside a true, happy passion for science and math. It's truly not all about a list of awards or stats. It's the big picture.
Just passion for learning won't be sufficient and what counts is how you standout from the rest of the crowd. I think big picture is sort of vague and hard to define.
To other students applying, I'm sure my story as a current applicant will help you with your hopes.
In 2008, after a caustic three years, my Bipolar Mother divorced my Father in a very destructive manner and had a dentrimental impact on my life. I was very much stressed, and being a home schooled family, I the oldest plus my two younger simblings were court-ordered to public school for the expressed desire for a concrete learning environment during this period of instability. I picked up honor courses in English and Science, while I got thrown into Algebra 1, which I had done the year before along with Geometry due to State credit requirements. My first semester was during my peak shock to my character and life as I knew it. I barely passed my Algebra 1 class, and along with my other classes, too, being rather low other than a PC support class which since I built my first PC at twelve, I had no issue with the curriculum involved.
During Winter break, tensions eased a bit (though not completely) and I regained some of my diligency and some piece of mind; as the next semester started, I did exceptionally well in my honors classes along with my other classes. I even won an IT Business award from the school for my promising computer prowess(I got invited to work with the IT director troubleshooting computers on campus during my duration in public school) and almost won an engineering award, though I lost it to a gentleman that had the class for a full-school year opposed to my one semester there. After the 9th grade, 10th grade quickly clicked on by and by the 9th week of it, I thought I should go back into homeschool. I knew the math credit situation was keeping me behind, and I wanted to take calculus by the time I got out of high school.
I enrolled into home school again a week after the first nine weeks of 10th grade, and surely hurried to get back on track with stuff that I wanted to do at home. During this period, it is important to note that my siblings and I lived my Father exclusively, and since my Father is not a teacher, let alone competent enough to teach me my desired curriculum, I had to find a way to do my school work (and assist my Sisters work), and pronto. I devised of a way to do this by setting up an interest/transcript-type list, along with desired academic goals by the end of twelfth grade. It definitely was an integrity-intensive learning curve but by the end of my 10th grade semester I was well on my way. With the help of Khanacademy, Academic Earth and MIT's OCW, I've prepared myself with the material I wanted to learn. e.g. I saved up and bought the required textbooks and took 8.01 and 3.091sc on MIT's OCW for my Junior year, along with Ancient Greek history from Yale's video lectures and Khan Academy helping with roadblocks encountered along my K.A. Stroud Engineering Mathematics/UF pre-calculus textbook curriculum.
I've encountered quite a few more problems during those times and have failed in some ways, and I have learnt from those failures and it has made me the robust, and morally-sound person I am today. Persistence and learning from your mistakes is the best advice I can share with any perspective applicant.
Today, I am taking 6 courses at my local community college, and taking two at home including MIT's OCW 18.01 using this Fall's 18.01 problem sets as homework (it's really awesome stuff, I've got to say!) and MIT's OCW 6.00. (I really wanted to do MITx 6.00, but I didn't want to dive into new waters of an unknown depth with hands full.)
Do what you feel is natural for you. For me, it's taking things apart, putting them back together, messing with ham radio and computers or any other random thing that comes to mind.
So, stop worrying about the interview, and start worrying how you're going to beg, borrow, or steal and International Olympiad medal by next year. Because if you're Indian, and you don't have one, you can kiss good-bye to the MIT Undergrad program. Cheers.
It's not true, of course, but very few international students are admitted each year, and even fewer from any particular country. So people can get away with using small datasets to make large predictions.
