@PiperXP I would have one if MIT would flash the awards and achievements of international students in their website. Also i'm not saying that students don't make it to MIT without medals. Had Olympiad medals been the determining factor, this guy i mentioned above would have easily made it to MIT.
Although ICEUI2 mentions 100 seats, this is still not the whole picture since people in each country have access to only so many seats. Not sure what the number might be but Korea may only have a couple of seats at the low end and may be 4 at the top end assuming Korea actually gets 4 seats each year. So it depends on how many got in from Korea and what they had to offer compared to this candidate.
They are a bunch of medals for knowledge. where is the original research? Winning knowledge based competition is not a true test of someone's capability to contribute to MIT.
They do have an unwritten quota and people keep track of that based on the number of kids being admitted from the country each year and the alums doing interviews in the country should have access to this information. It is almost impossible to get into MIT from a foreign country without an interview and the weight given to the interview is overwhelming in the admission process. So you do have to take also into consideration on who is making the impression if 100 people went to interview in Korea (I am making that number up and dont know how many applied) and they can only pick 4.
The reason an unwritten quota makes sense - India and China together account for 40+ percent of the world's population. How hard would it be to find 100 good candidates just in one of those countries? How do they represent the world if they give 50-75 seats to a couple of countries in Asia and other countries have to share the rest?
The process is stacked against getting into MIT at undergraduate level from a foreign country because the number of seats are so limited and they have to look for some candidates in each country. If this candidate was competing against the pool in US, who knows.
yes and no. There are 200+ countries and only 100 seats total. There will be some countries getting seats on a regular basis and rest will be pooled to be given seats randomly. Not every country can have a quota.
Although it is old, check out the attached. I think there are newer ones out there.
it is the number at the given time in the undergraduate school (4 years). People have tried to interpret the number admitted each year by using the numbers provided at the top for other years. I remember seeing one covering until 2011 but I dont have the patience to look for it.
What was the studen'ts gpa? What was the student's high school coursework? What was the student's intended major? How were the student's essays? Did the student appear to be arrogant in his/her applications? How did the student envision impacting MIT?
Skip the word "quota." Over time they seek a balance for internationals. If it's been a while since they took a kid from Uganda, a strong candidate might be interesting. Or might not be.
Admissions is not all about stats. Even at MIT. And, what the general public thinks consitututes "shine" isn't necessarily what comes across in the full CA. (Those ECs....) Essays also matter, in that they show a kid's perspective, judgment and, to some extent, fit. Read MITChris's posts.
I'm sure that statement is not true. There are Indians who made it to MIT without an Olympiad medal. You are over-generalizing Indians. Perhaps you met some Indians with Olympiad medals who got into MIT, but it doesn't mean that every MIT indians do. Just for a personal experience, I know a very bright Indian student who got into MIT without any Olympiad medals. Sure he was very bright, 2300+ SAT, medals in mathematics competition in a Canadian province, etc.
I'm applying to MIT as a South Korean citizen studying in Canada this year if I don't make Columbia ED, but my objective stats are not impressive at all. I only got 2240 in SAT. I don't have any international award, maybe because I have been heavily focusing on economics and political science and there aren't much international contests for those. I played Trombone in my high school and provincial youth band for 4 years, fundraising with my private band, interned in Korean National Assembly(office of an authority) and Korean media company, and got a positive reference letter from the very high authority etc. It's not outstanding and I'm aware of my chance for getting rejection is far greater than the infinitesimal admission chance for internationals (3.2% last year). I just want to tell you that not all MIT applicants have such high stats but can have lot of other ECs unrelated to math and science. I know of lot of Koreans who were accepted to HYPS, and clearly their essays had huge influence. A significant number of them got rejected from all top 15 universities except 1 or 2 prestigious school (often either Harvard or Princeton)- clearly a crapshoot. It's basically mid2200+ SAT (minimum I guess?)+EC+essay+crapshoot. It's not only about the score and awards.
