Official MIT Class of 2016 RD Discussion Thread

WhaleWhale
Sat, 17 Mar 2012 14:55:29 +0000

RSI is probably more selective than MIT, it is not surprising that many Siemens and Intel finalists come from RSI. Admissions for Stony Brook is a bit more based on whether one contacts a professor there beforehand or if one has connections to the university, but people admitted there are usually reasonably solid. Nevertheless, a lot of people from Stony Brook become Siemen’s semifinalists because their professors help them a lot on their projects and have well-funded labs. Intel is much more holistic than Siemens, which is why Stony Brook produces relatively few Intel semifinalists.

Yes, Intel and Siemen’s awards aren’t perfect. The winners of the respective competition often were just fortunate to have interesting data and an interesting project to begin with. Nevertheless, colleges don’t have much criteria to evaluate a person with. Everyone has reasonably high grades and SATs. Some people can BS “personality” and “personal potential” into their essays fairly easily, so colleges can’t place too much importance on these. All they have left to look at are ECs and awards.