PiperXP

Should I apply? Will I get in? What are my chances? What activities do I need to do?

Many of you ask us to chance you. Nevermind the fact that we are not admissions officers, and all we can do is parrot what they say (Grades? Shoot for the 700s. And then you'll be academically qualified like almost every applicant is.). I'm here to tell you how it should be done

Idealized world: You do what you love. You say to yourself, "Hmm, what schools are in line with what I love?" This is the opposite of what I unfortunately see many of you doing here. Do not mold yourselves into what you think MIT wants, do not ask us what activities will get you in. Be who you want, and find the school that matches that. I promise you, you will get where you need to be if you do what you love. No guarantees that you'll think this is where you should be at the time. Do not get stuck in the mentality that you only have one perfect place for you, either.

The match goes both ways. This isn't about MIT accepting or rejecting you, this isn't a prize to gain, a reward for all that hard work in high school. Are you a good fit for the school? Is it a good fit for you? You have not "failed" in not being a match, nor have you "succeeded" in being one.

I'll tell you one thing. If I had been on these threads before applying, I probably wouldn't have ever applied. How could I beat out all these stellar grades and science competitions I hadn't even heard of? (In the end, not only did I get in - I got in early.)

Just a thought.

kemcab

Well said.

I've been here for a month or two. I usually try to never mind the chance threads and I've stopped worrying about my stats. I'm just here because I find MIT fascinating, and I come here every so often because I'm interested.

However, I've always figured, you know, the odds are against me getting in. I'm not exactly the valedictorian. My SAT scores don't really stand out that much, whether or not they care about really high scores. My ECs are few but hopefully solid. And my school doesn't offer many AP classes or math and science activities. And to be honest, I was never too interested in math team, science olympiad, or robotics. Would MIT be 'perfect' for me? I have no clue. Does that keep me from being intrigued by it? Not really.

fontaine

Very well put Piper. I don't think that anyone ever didn't get to where they wanted to in life because they weren't accepted to their first choice school.

However, I still maintain that "chance me" posts, do in fact have benefit for people who have unique application circumstances (like me), lower than average scores, or something that sets them apart from all the legions of 3.9+/700+ hopefuls. Beyond a certain "stats" and EC range, if an applicant gets in or not is determined largely by chance, while the others have absolutely no idea what to expect. Feedback from members of this forum can very much help those who aren't very hopeful. Obviously, we cannot predict anything, but even something as simple as "Don't worry about X, I had X and I got in" can help. What are chance threads anyway? For some it's to see if one should apply to a school, for others it's to quell anxiety at the looming decision. My advice: take it as it is, help those who actually can be helped.

From the eyes of a prospective frosh...

Mikalye

I've said this before, but it comes up every year so here goes:

I very, very rarely respond to chances threads, because at MIT (or for that matter most of the top schools), academic excellence is a necessary but not sufficient criteria for entry. As a result, scores are not a particularly useful indicator, and most chances threads concentrate on scores and other objective accomplishments.

For example, for the MIT class admitted in 2006, 97% of the admitted class had SAT I math scores greater than or equal to 650, yet only 19% of applicants with scores 750-800 were admitted.

Does that tell you anything? It doesn't tell me much. And if you think that this is useful, then it is published information not helped much by a "chance me" thread.

Also at the competitive schools places are lost as much as they are won. How good are your letters of recommendation going to be? How well did you do at the interview (if there is one)? How articulate are your essays and what do they reveal about you? These are often much more indicative of chances for admission than scores. They are also almost always absent in chances threads.

Another reason that chances threads are not particularly useful, is that I do not know your high school. Chances are that MIT does. A key question is "Did the student take fullest advantage of the academic and other resources available to them?" If your high school offers 27 AP classes, and you took 3 of them, then the answer is probably no. If your high school offers none, and you therefore did not take any, then in most cases that won't hurt you. If your school does not offer any AP classes, but you chose to take the AP Physics exam anyway after studying on your own and occasionally working after class with your teacher, then that is significantly more impressive. If your chances thread tells me you did well on the 3AP's exams that you sat, I don't know whether that is great or awful.

Applications are evaluated in context, and the fact of the matter is that the admissions counselors at the top universities tend to know a great deal more about the high schools and context of the application than the rest of us ever will.

Therefore, if I lack the basic information to make an informed evaluation of the application, why should I possibly reply to chances threads?

I actually find them quite distasteful. On the occasions that I read them, I see lots of really biting, often cruel comments on the posters shortcomings, which cannot be useful in any way. Indeed, it is hard to find the utility in them. For applicants who really do have it all, they are an opportunity to brag a little bit: ("I've got 5 patents, and three published academic papers, but I only got a 2390 on my SAT's. Will that keep me out of MIT?)

For applicants whose applications are, say, more nuanced, they either get ignorant people telling them they are getting in (which could be setting themselves up for a fall), ignorant people telling them that they will be rejected (which just hurts), or more likely, some politely phrased version of "Dunno???"

Now don't get me wrong, everything that PiperXP said about the match is valid. It is well worth rereading the statements that MIT make about the match (MIT Admissions: The Match Between You And MIT). This really is what gets you in or keeps you out. And if you really do think that you match MIT really well, then what you need to do is ensure that the evidence of that match is in your application.

MIT tries to meet the people behind the application, indeed, that is a specific request of the educational council, to identify who this person is in a way that does not show up elsewhere on the application. However, at the end of the day, MIT does not get to review you as a person. It gets to review your application folder, which is far from the same thing.

I will only close by saying that there is a wide variety of expertise on this board. There are a mixture of current MIT students, distinguished alumni (such as the incomparable molliebatmit), some highly knowledgeable parents, and the odd educational councilor, as well as a wide variety of admissions candidates of varying levels of knowledge. I find it telling that, with a few highly limited exceptions, the most knowledgeable people on this board do not post much in chances threads. For what it is worth, I usually only post to correct a piece of incorrect advice. Instead chances threads are filled with people trolling for a rise, and the worst elements of hyper-competitive humanity on this board.

A while back there was a discussion of the two minute animation Music and Life (YouTube - Music and Life - Alan Watts). The kids that I find that match well are the kids that "played" their high school, using the terminology of the animation. Those who have plotted out their 5 year plan to get into MIT usually miss the point, and usually (though admittedly not always) match badly.

Sorry for the long post, but chances threads do irritate me quite a bit.

Vivi

Someone -please- sticky this. You've said it all, Piper.
I also would like to reference an old post of mine (circa December 2007):
Juliette Syndrome Regarding chance threads

eunjilee90

I think I used to be that person until... tonight actually
I just read the acceptance/rejection thread and saw that there is no formula to get into MIT. I saw people with perfect SAT scores get rejected... and still people with low SAT scores were admitted. I guess it's all about showing your passions and commitment..
I didnt actually post a chance thread but I did ask some questions that resemled it.
Im just going to work on my essays from now on, instead of asking questions without answers.... because there arent really.
But please do help when and if I have a question about the formatting and stuff in the app!

kemcab

I reply to them sometimes, but I try not to say whether or not they will or won't get in. I couldn't know. The only thing I could tell them is that their SATs are solid if they're in the 700+ range. All I know at the moment is not to obsess about grades or test scores, because that just causes unwanted stress.

Or, sometimes, if I can't really think anything good to say, I'd say that they have a roughly 10-16% chance of getting in, depending on whatever the admissions rate is. In retrospect, it's quite inaccurate and I honestly shouldn't have done that.

There are many distasteful things on this forum, unfortunately. Aside from the harsh comments from repliers, there's a lot of trolling- sometimes this involves creating some sort of false persona and telling everyone how this fictitious person had everything and got rejected.

The word I hate: "reach." The people who are replying to a chancing thread neither know how they will eventually evaluate the applicant nor do they know or consider the effect of the interview or a well-written essay. Also, people never really consider the context wherein the OP is making the thread. What if he/she doesn't go to a competitive high school like Stuyvesant? What if the OP goes to an inner-city school?

Giving an answer more definite than the current admissions rate, i.e., saying one has a 30% or a 5% chance of getting in, is quite impolite and very arbitrary. Either way it's most likely setting up the OP for disappointment. I don't know and nobody really knows.

I think this sums it up pretty nicely.

jessiehl

While I admire what you're trying to express, it has gotten to the point where I'd like to ban the word "passion[s]" from CC. It has become a buzzword, a cliche (and it has also become devalued, as people have started using it to mean "interests" because they think it sounds better). It has become yet another thing for which people are trying to find the perfect formula. It has become another checkbox that people think they need to have filled in. That defeats the point of actual passion.

It also confuses people who do a lot of different things and aren't sure yet where they want to go in life. They wonder, are they going to be rejected everywhere because they don't have sufficient "passion" for something (and there's usually someone who is happy to tell them "yes").

It is not that passion is not a valuable thing to have in the context of college admissions (or in the context of life in general) - it can make doing what needs to be done fun and worthwhile. It's a great motivator. And being passionate about something is a great experience. But the way it is used on CC has confused the issue. I would like to see everyone stop prattling about their "passion" as though this were a bad romance novel, and start talking about their interests, aspirations, favorite subjects/activities, focus, self-discipline, etc.

CalAlum

I don't usually respond to chance threads, but I do sympathize with the student who sincerely asks, "Would it be a waste of my time (and money) to apply?"

Matt McGann has been posting the profiles of a number of students admitted to the class of 2013, and it's probably intimidating to quite a few readers, because many of them are valedictorians. Still, I believe that about half of the students admitted in the class of 2011 were valedictorians; it's just that competitive.

To any student who wants to know whether he/she has a realistic shot at MIT, I'd recommend trying to answer this question: If you were admitted to MIT, would everyone at your high school --fellow students, teachers, administrators -- completely understand it and agree with the decision? I know several MIT students who were not valedictorians who nevertheless had accomplished amazing things in the context of their school and community; in each case, their acceptance to MIT came as no surprise to anyone at the school. None of use here can possibly make that sort of judgment about a student, but I do think each poster can probably answer the question after a bit of soul searching.

molliebatmit

For the record, if you suspect and/or have evidence that someone is trolling, you can report that person to the moderators. We do quite a bit of work behind the scenes to ferret out liars, though obviously we're not perfect.

My goal for the past several years has been to make CC, and the MIT forum in particular, a helpful, welcoming place to get questions answered and to get opinions. I would like to think this effort has not been in vain.

LauraN

I'd just like to point out that the odds are against EVERYONE getting in, which I think is pretty central to the problem of chance threads. Even if you're super smart and help little old ladies cross the street or whatever else you want to brag about in chance threads, the odds are still pretty much against you. So just...you know, do the things you like and the things that interest you, apply to the colleges you think you'd be a good match with, and then wait a few months until they decide.

I never quite understood the point of most chance threads, since most people who post them have already applied or are going to apply anyway. Just wait a month until the people whose opinion actually counts get back to you.

mathboy98

I seriously wanted to say this, and appreciate that it was already said! To put it this way even, I don't even think most students accepted to MIT have a passion by my own definition, which involves both interest and a mature sense of direction -- you can't be passionate about art just because you started a club and have been doing it for 3 years...let's get real here. It is very, very rare that someone can get out of high school and say "I'm passionate about physics" or "I'm passionate about math" -- part of attending a top institution of learning is even in my own opinion about seeing what these subjects are like amidst the company of great scholars. Having studied advanced material in high school gives one some direction, but I think we're really wearing away the depth and meaning that a word like "passion" should have. I'll admit to also getting the creeps at overuse of the term "genius" -- one term which definitely gets used on MIT forums a little more often than I'm sure a lot of us are comfortable with.

I've been studying math in college with quite a bit of dedication, and still wouldn't go around saying I'm passionate about math, for instance. Anyway, this may just be personal hatred for overuse of certain words, but someone else seems to think so too!

mathboy98

There always will be "trolls" and other such things, but as someone who's recently frequented the MIT forums a lot, along with some others, I can say it's quite a welcoming place.

One thing I'd hope, though, is that posters who have hundreds or thousands of posts (i.e. ones who've hung around CC a lot) would be a little nicer about telling the makers of chance threads about the shortcomings. Sure, great if you were already jaded about all these things as a junior in high school, but many intelligent students who will probably laugh at their Chance-Me threads in a few years made them out of anxiety at some point.
Even if the question "Should I apply???!! Do I have any chance at all or is all hope completely lost and I am doomed forevermore and thereafter" is a little annoying, I don't believe in biting heads off

mathboy98

But MIT only accepts people with a minimum of 5 patents, 2 academic papers and a 2400 SAT + 800 SAT II Math!! For that SAT to not be held against you, and for holistic admissions to take precedence, you'd better be a total genius like John Conway or something...

kemcab

Well, people might lie for other reasons other than trolling- but that doesn't excuse them from being dishonest. Either way, it's occasional (I've only been here for a while, so I haven't seen too much) and on other forums that I occasionally frequent it seldom occurs.

Oh, I know. That's why I'm still applying.