<p>Is it true that if you were a female minority, say an aborigine from Australia or such, you would have a higher chance of getting accepted to MIT then someone who had the same stats but was an Asian or Caucasian male?
I heard that it is easier for females (just slightly) to get into MIT as it is a tech based school attracting many men and minorities are always given slightly special treatment.</p>
<p>[MIT</a> Admissions: Affirmative Action](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/affirmative_action/index.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/affirmative_action/index.shtml)</p>
<p>MIT looks at life circumstances. If you met with adversity, as many (but not all) Australian Aborigines have, they’ll take that into consideration. In the US this usually applies to applicants who went to schools with few resources or who had unsupportive families. ‘Affirmative action’ as practiced by most schools is more a product of correlation than anything else.</p>
<p>Higher acceptance rates for certain subgroups do not necessarily imply that it’s easier for those subgroups to be admitted.</p>
<p>At any rate, international admission to MIT is exceedingly competitive (as MIT must abide by a cap on the number of international students admitted), and AFAIK, affirmative action plays a negligible role in international admissions.</p>