<p>Regarding advantages in admissions, are Asians considered a minority when applying to MIT? I am guessing they are not?</p>
<p>Being Asian will not help you at MIT. Many would say it is a disadvantage. Vanderbilt and Notre Dame are probably the best schools that have any interest in increasing Asian enrollment.</p>
<p>Let’s put it this way: MIT didn’t have Asians in mind when it created the Office of Minority Education.</p>
<p>Asians are a minority at MIT, but are not considered an underrepresented minority for admissions purposes.</p>
<p>About 25% of MIT is Asian (<a href=“Statistics & Reports | MIT Registrar”>Statistics & Reports | MIT Registrar).</p>
<p>Asians are enormously over-represented at MIT.</p>
<p>They reject a lot more asian now because the diversity of the schools is so off if they continue to accept more asians, too many asians are alike.
Unless you excel as a math genius, like get to AIME, USAMO, MOP, and ARML, then your chances are not as high. Many asians that are good at math select MIT over Harvard (from my experience) and most of them are Math and Physics genius. So being an “average” asian would not set you apart at all.</p>
<p>Well, that’s the definition of “average,” isn’t it?</p>
<p>I’d just like to add that I think it’s important to remember that things like USAMO and AIME are by no means a guarantee of acceptance for asians. For MIT at least, I think it’s more important that you want to go to MIT and would fit in well and contribute to the wonderful MIT atmosphere than it is to win amazing competitions. Although of course, it doesn’t hurt to win amazing competitions as well. It’s good for asians to keep in mind that the majority of people accepted to places like MIT cannot all be international competition winners. even the majority of asians admitted are probably not all winners of these competitions.</p>
<p>I would just like to say that nothing is a guarantee of acceptance for anyone at MIT. Most of the people who apply have the scores - heaps upon heaps of people have to be rejected due to simply having to keep the class size.</p>
<p>“heaps upon heaps of people”</p>
<p>Quite an image…</p>
<p>@Puzzle & CDZ: It would be best not to group AIME, USAMO, ARML, and MOP together, all of them are quite different in terms of difficulty and prestige, but yes, an Asian with an AIME or even a USAMO qualification is not guaranteed admission to MIT.</p>
<p>^A person with those qualifications is not guaranteed admission to MIT.</p>
<p>Thank you all! </p>
<p>If the average Asian apparently wins medals at all these competitions listed above (most of them which I never even heard of), I’m definitely not the avergae Asian, I guess. As a rising junior in an American School in Mexico City and as the daughter of a diplomat who’s attended eleven schools during the past sixteen years, I simply just want to pursue my interests in neuroscience at MIT. MIT sounds like a really cool place and all I want is to end up in an institution that will help me develop my passions in neuroscience. I hope I can offer something valuable to MIT or other schools not as an Asian, but as a passionate neuroscience student.</p>
<p>My question was not very smart - please excuse me.</p>
<p>by that definition, i’m definitely not the average asian either. 
and don’t apologize for the question. the saying that there are no stupid questions is always true as long as you don’t already know the answer.</p>
<p>^^^Me three! </p>
<p>It’s probably true that being asian won’t do you any good when it comes to applying to MIT. But that should not stop you from trying to realize your dream. I’d say don’t fret about not being one of those “average” asians; just try to work hard, become as well rounded a person as you can, and leave it to MIT (and other schools you eventually apply to) to decide. If it helps, I, for one, am an asian, but by no means one of those “average” asians; I did get admitted by Harvard and MIT, and am going to MIT this fall.</p>
<p>
Assuredly, the average Asian admit does not win medals at (or participate in) all of these extremely high-level competitions. </p>
<p>It is pretty difficult for international applicants to be admitted, regardless of ethnicity, but not all international admits have these credentials either.</p>
<p>There might be a lot of Asian AIME qualifiers in the admit pool…there are like 8,000 total AIME qualifiers per year. However, the other ones (USAMO and up) are far more exclusive, so it is numerically impossible for the average Asian to have those qualifications.</p>