Intel winners an academic stars

Colleges & Universities Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>MIT class 2014</p>

<ul>
<li><p>25% of our applicants were valedictorians of their class. 51% of the class of 2014 are valedictorians. HOWEVER, of the 2196 valedictorians who applied, only 427 were admitted. So being a valedictorian was not your ticket, though it is a good thing! In any case, 94% of our admits were in the top 5% of their class. Our median SATs were in the mid 700s for all applicants. </p></li>
<li><p>31% of the class were identified as being “academic stars”. Examples of academic stars include being a Siemens Finalist, qualifying for the USAMO, and so forth. Like with everything else, being “starry” in this way is a good thing, but it doesn’t secure you a spot in the class. Of the nearly 900 academic stars who applied, less than 500 got in. </p></li>
<li><p>19% of the class were identified as being art, music, or athletic stars. These are people who may have played major concerts as soloists, or who have been recruited to be varsity athletes. One of our art stars has designed several US stamps and a major art installation at the UN, and has been supporting his family since the age of 8. Same as with the academic stars, this helps, but isn’t a meal ticket: of the 900+ AMA stars who applied, around 300 got in. </p></li>
</ul>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/882019-statistics-mit-2014-admissions-cycle.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/882019-statistics-mit-2014-admissions-cycle.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Comment:</p>

<p>1) GPA is very important.</p>

<p>2) I bet these 900 “academic stars” were in math and sciences. Intel STS and Siemens semifinalists had to be included to account for as many as 900 academic stars. Intel STS had about 350 semifinalist and so did Siemens, even though there were many overlapps.</p>

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<p>So do you think an academic star with a 4.0/4.0 unweighted GPA (and strong classes) is essentially sure to be admitted (as long as there is not some strange social problem)? I’d say that is not the case. The admissions people at MIT sincerely believe that no one “deserves” to be admitted.</p>

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<p>Quantmech is right.</p>

<p>And I’ll also say that no matter how absurd an elite school makes their selection criteria, people will look at the evidence and fill in the gaps such that their perception of the school is unchanged. If someone tells you that half of the USAMO kids are rejected, people imagine that they must have gotten B’s in english class, looked at their shoes during the interview, or robbed a liquor store.</p>

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<p>I don’t think we should overblow the difficulty of qualifying for the USAMO.</p>

<p>There is no calculus required and many of the problems are more akin to mental puzzles than actual mathematics. AIME scores vastly improve with training and experience. </p>

<p>I like to take the AIME in timed conditions every year and have scored an average of around ten for the past ten years and I graduated over 30 year ago. </p>

<p>At least a dozen 8th graders or younger qualify every year for the USAMO (since the tightening of eligibility) and even 4th graders like Michael Ma have qualified.</p>

<p>I would guess than if you were an USAMO winner (top 12) your chances of admission would be near 100% just as it would for a Top 10 Intel STS winner.</p>

<p>A USAMO Honorable Mention (top 24) would probably have a greater than 80% chance just like an STS Finalist (top 30).</p>

<p>A USAMO Qualifier (top 270) would be similar to an Intel Semifinalist (top 300). Probably around 50/50 chance. is that too low? I don’t think so. If the AIME were given in China thousands of students would probably qualify for the USAMO.</p>