Chances at MIT?

Chance Me / Match Me
1

I want to major in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

  • I slacked all of freshman year and got mostly straight Bs, 1 C, and 2 As. Sophomore year, I got mostly As, 1 B and 1 C, junior year I decided that slacking off was something I never should've done and got straight As and 5 A+s, senior year grades I don't know yet
  • I take all honors and AP classes, except for 3 classes. My school messed up my schedule sophomore year and ended up putting me in a regular math class. I also took normal English last year because we only had 1 other English teacher and everyone that survived her class ended up with arounds Cs and Ds, including smart people so I didn't want to mess up my GPA even more, speaking of which, my GPA = 3.68ish unweighted
  • SAT score: 2,100 (probably not good enough, but could've been worse I guess)
  • Clubs in school = Japanese club, Astronomy club, art club (president), computer programming club, theatre, and bowling.
  • Out of school = I work at a local frozen yogurt place.

What are my chances based on this information? I’m going to assume very low, considering everyone else applying is a heck of a lot smarter than me. But, is there any hope at all? Can normal, average people like me get in?

2

Unfortunately, I don’t think MIT is in the cards for you undergrad. Do well in college and try for graduate school. Best of luck!

3

You would need to take a math and science subject test to be even considered for admission. Even then, your chances seem slim.

4

@Falcon1 is correct. But the good news is that where you go to grad school wwhere ill be much more important than where you go undergrad.

My sister was a bit of a late bloomer, enough so to miss out on her top choices. She transferred to Brown, majored in math, got her PhD from MIT in Marine Geophysics (the joint program with Woods Hole), and has had a distinguished career.

So just keep up the hard work and focus. Apply, by all means, but it’s a big longshot, and you can get excellent preparation at any number of schools.

5

Now why would perhaps the best (top 5) university in the world want average students? MIT is MIT because it does not accept the average student under normal circumstances.