I am an indian citizen residing in the US (as I have done for most of my life). I want to ask if anyone here has any insights/information on how my ‘unique’ status will affect my admissions possibilities into top unis, MIT being the foremost of my aspirations. Will I have a fair chance against all the indian olympiad winners (I’m not allowed to participate in olympiads due to citizenship), or will I inevitably fail to measure up to their projected glamour? For MIT in specific, I have heard that only olympiad winners or JEE ‘toppers’ have been historically accepted. I would say that I am tolerably competitive, as I go to a school which sent 2+ kids to MIT this last cycle and I have comparable activities and grades to them. Does anyone know whether there is any perceivable chance of me getting accepted, even if that perceivable chance is just like a US citizen?
Your status is actually not unique, as there are hundreds, if not thousands, of similarly situated applicants every year.
You will be considered an international applicant but evaluated in the context of your US high school.
The chances of acceptance at schools like MIT are extremely low, so it’s important to have a balanced list of schools.
You haven’t provided any information about your stats, EC, awards or other achievements, so it’s impossible for anyone here to give you meaningful feedback.
I suggest starting a new thread, selecting the “chance me / match me” category and filling out the template.
Your ethnicity can no longer be considered in the college application process here.
Are you a citizen of India? If so, your status as an international student will have an impact on your admission chances…
MIT has extremely LOW acceptance rates. So, your chances are low like everyone else’s…extremely low. As an international student, your chances are even lower. @skieurope might know the %age of accepted international students at MIT.
1.92%
OP said:
The real question is not whether you are an Indian citizen, but if you are a green card holder. If yes, you are considered a domestic applicant.
If I understand your question correctly (edit: and I am assuming you do not have a green card), my suggested answer is something like that you will not be automatically rejected because you do not have the same sorts of qualifications an Indian citizen living in India might have, but to be competitive your qualifications might have to meet an even higher standard than a US citizen living in the US might have to meet (edit: unless you do have a green card).
That said, it is not impossible that your qualifications would meet that standard. The further problem is they will then still have lots of people with competitive qualifications to choose between, and they will make those choices in ways that are not easily reduced to qualification comparisons, and in the end most people with competitive qualifications will still not be picked.
Because that is how the admissions math has to work. They have far too few enrollment slots given the volume of highly qualified applicants they get.
So if you have qualifications similar to US citizens who are sometimes admitted to MIT, I would go ahead and apply. But you should understand the odds are still very low, and will likely depend on something else standing out about you that cannot be easily reduced to observable qualifications.
Even if you are a green card holder, acceptance rates at MIT are 5% or less.
So…apply and see. No one here can tell you whether you will be accepted. And if you are or aren’t, you will never know why.
Indian citizens in the US are common, not unique.
What matters is if you have US permanent residency (green card) or are on a visa. If you are a US permanent resident, then you are considered a domestic applicant at US universities. Otherwise, you are almost certainly an international applicant, which is generally disadvantageous for admission and financial aid at US universities. A few states like Texas may allow international students graduating from high schools in the state after enough attendance to have residency for tuition purposes.
Having watched the Big Bang Theory on occasion, I am confused about Sheldon Cooper seeking admission at MIT, which is basically just a glorified trade school 
In the final season of Young Sheldon, Sheldon and George visit MIT because it’s his first choice. But upon exiting Logan in the middle of a snowstorm, he decides southern California would work better
Ah see I never watched Young Sheldon so did not know this shocking backstory…
It depends on the visa status. A green card holder would be considered domestic.
https://youtu.be/bAP4Bmi9XVA?si=WRbhFBOeOhCnVh5D Here it is. Down to Stanford, Caltech, MIT, Princeton and Harvard.
@sheldon_cooper Could you please clarify your citizenship status!
Are you a U.S. permanent resident (holding a green card).
Or
Are you only a citizen of India?
If you live here, do you have a visa…and if so, what type?
Having spent four years at MIT, and more time in the area, I think that (particularly if you are not driving) the nor’easters that bring wind and rain might be worse than the storms that bring snow. Snow falls off your clothes relatively easily.
That being said, the most important two points were brought up previously by others. MIT is a reach for any applicant. MIT is even more of a reach for an international student. If you have either US citizenship or US permanent residence then you are a domestic applicant, and would be applying to a university with a roughly 4% or 5% acceptance rate. If you have neither US citizenship nor US permanent residence, then you are an international student and would be looking at an acceptance rate less than 2%. This is the acceptance rate among a wide range of applicants, most of whom are strongly qualified to attend MIT and do well.
However, there are a LOT of universities in the US that are very good, and a lot more in India and elsewhere. If you are even remotely qualified to attend MIT, then you should be able to get accepted to multiple very good universities. MIT and Stanford graduates routinely work alongside U.Mass and UNH and Rutgers and San Jose State graduates, and in most cases no one cares where any of you got your degree. Employers care whether your code works and whether your equations are correct and whether you are a reasonable person to work with.
I was at MIT a long time ago (far more recently I attended my 50th reunion there). I recall quite a few students who had done very well in high school. However, the definition of “done very well” was very broad and varied a lot from student to student. What one person had accomplished was quite different from what a different student had accomplished. As one example, one person I knew had won the Asian championship in a particularly class of sailboat. She was also the daughter of the king of a medium sized country. Another had created an art project that consisted of a machine that ran around a room randomly over a period of 20 or 30 minutes until it got tangled up in its own electrical cord and unplugged itself. Another had a third degree black belt in some form of martial arts. A few others had won some form of chess competition. 800’s on various math and science SAT tests were pretty common (and something that you stopped talking about after the first week of freshman year because you just didn’t care anymore, and you were busy with homework).
If you are considering applying to MIT, then you should know that studying there is a LOT of work, and has been compared to drinking water from a fire hose. The work and the information comes at you at very high speed. You need to find the ability to work very hard, and it is best if the desire to work very hard comes from inside yourself. If this describes you, then apply and see what happens. However, you also should be applying to a range of other schools, including universities where you are actually likely to be admitted. You also should pay attention to the cost of university, and make sure that you can afford to attend. You might want to run the NPC, or have your parents run the NPC, and make sure that your parents are okay with the result.
Also, read the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site. The recommended approach of “do what is right for you, and do it well” is what my family has used. However, it got the four of us admitted to eight different universities (one each for a bachelor’s degree, and a different one each for a graduate program), and only one of the eight was MIT. The other seven were however all good schools and a good fit for us.
Finally, look for schools that are a good fit for you, and that you and your parents can afford. Finding an affordable good fit is way, way more important compared to the ranking of whatever university you end up attending.
Hello, I apologize for my lack of clarity. When I said citizen of india, I intended to say that that is the furthest level of citizenship/designation I have. I am on a H4 visa, as child of H1 holder I think.
Hello, and thank you for responding. The things that you mention about qualifications are something that I have heard any time one speaks of MIT, but your experience helps confirm it to be authentic. As for the variety of people, I presume many of the people you spoke of in your post were ‘domestic’ applicants? Regardless, thank you for your advice, and I will focus on ensuring that I am as qualified as I can be and that I apply with a pragmatic mindset (the best mindset I can afford at least) 
If you’re looking for suggestions on how to create a balanced list of schools that match your interest, you may want to follow my suggestion:
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