What is MIT's view on self studying and taking hard math classes earlier on?

rainynightstarz
Wed, 06 Jun 2007 20:11:57 +0000

My school’s students are very smart (2nd in the Nation for AMC and first in California this year and First on the Western Mandelbrot) :
750+ people took the AMC
57 qualified for AIME
and 5 got into USAMO (there is at least one person that got into USAMO since 8th grade from each grade)
and we got people into MOP for a couple years in a row, just not this year. A freshmen was off of red MOP by 1 point
One person was at black MOP in the first week last year, then got moved to blue MOP
I, on the other hand never made USAMO. Even if I make it my senior year, it won’t be early enough for college admission. However, I am going to keep working on it since it’s one of my personal goals to achieve even though i only got one more chance!
Well ,my school ,especially my graduating class is SUPER smart, and everyone is very competitive i guess. (1 took calc BC freshmen year, 8 ( me included ) took it sophomore year, and about 25-30% takes either calc ab or bc junior year, the rest either takes calc senior year or never get there in high school, about 70% of all calc bc students gets 5 on the AP test)
Only two people got into MIT from my school this year, and only 2 last year. I won’t have the national awards that they had. (some smaller private school near by gets 8-12 a year, they not only have more classes but also better teachers. we had plenty of “good” teacher leaving us because they get paid better else where. My Chemistry AP teacher for example don’t even have a bachelors nor masters in Chemistry, and there is mistakes on every tests she gives. We would be able to achieve so much more with better teachers).

And as of taking outside classes, since i only live with one of my parent who works till pretty late, I couldn’t take the classes this year since there was no way i could get there.(hopefully i can get a car next year) so i took AP stats instead. I guess most colleges would count AP stats as one of the easier APs, but on the contrary i had really hard teacher, who wrote the very first AP stats test, and out of everyone that and a A and a 5 on the Calc BC, only 3 had an A in that class. It’s ironic that the AP class that most people think is easy was actually the hardest math classes I have taken.

4 on the AIME is pretty low huh? i keep making stupid mistakes(such as counting ends and not counting ends >.<), must do more practice. Problem solving is really fun since it makes me look at situations differently.

three more serious questions
does placing in local math competition at more competitive areas(such as the bay area) mean a bit more than placing in local math competitions at places where math is less competitive?

What does MIT adcom think of the FIRST robotics competition? I will be co-president next year, spending 10+ hours a week and lots of stress to take care of everything. We also have to write our own grants and fundraising about $18,000- $20,000 for the competition. Is that something that would make me stand out?
Our team seeded 4th at the Silicon Valley Regional this year, and seeded 1st at the Lone Star Regional. GO 846!!!

Does having an art portfolio that is good enough for art schools mean anything to MIT even though I might not major in any kind of design/architecture ?

My rant ends there for now =)

Thank you for all your feedbacks! I really appreciate it and getting a better perspective!