<p>I wonder… what kind of person gets into MIT?</p>
<p>only someone exactly like me! mwahahahaha!</p>
<p>in slightly more seriousness, you’ll probably end up with some combination of v. intelligent, passionate, multifaceted, and atypical. not that we know anything, really. that probably helps you not at all, anyway. why d’you ask?</p>
<p>The most important characteristic, quoted from another 09er, would be “passion”.</p>
<p>at least from my school, the kids that have enrolled at MIT really passionate about what they want to study and do later in life. ive noticed that some of the kids who go to an ivy aren’t necessarily the best kids…they just look good on paper. anyway, i believe that the kids who end up going to MIT are very genuine, and they end up living happy and accomplished lives.</p>
<p>how would mit treat a person who shows passion in something that’s not directly correlated to their future plans… i.e. i want to be a chemist… but most of my activities show a passion towards music…</p>
<p>that works out fine. i probably demonstrated as much passion for dance as for science, and it seems to’ve been just dandy.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I really like “atypical” as an adjective for MIT students. Most of us are unusual in one way or another… some people use it as an epithet, but I happen to like being out of the ordinary as a school.</p>
<p>I think you will be amazed how much more MIT cares about personal qualities over the more “tangible/statistical” parts of the application. This might sound a bit dismaying. Unlike IIT, MIT does not admit on test scores and certainly not on scores only. Definitely reveal passion for science, and take into account that MIT students are strange [and not strange in the way that your parents want you to be – like, “My son Joe is so strange! He got a 2400 on his SAT I! Isn’t that just strange?”] More like strange in the sense that we bake pancakes at 3 AM, drop 10,000 bouncy balls of a roof because we feel like it, etc.</p>
<p>10,000? Is that it? That is strange…</p>
<p>ha ha – I don’t know the figure. You’ll have to ask EC ppl ;)</p>
<p>oh, bouncy balls are not that strange. even if you add strobe lights.
and actually, we do that (not ec, b/c their courtyard has grass in it) and the figure i usually hear is 7,000. it’s plenty entertaining for the small space involved, so having more probably wouldn’t be that useful, and would eat rush budget money we could be spending on inifinitely more useful things, like a papier mache pony or cigarettes.</p>