Will two B's in APUSH hurt for MIT admissions?

lewiskim
Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:06:16 +0000

So, I really like math/science/computers, and I really want to attend MIT. But this junior year, I ended up with a B in both semesters of APUSH. I was wondering if I would still be able to make it to MIT despite my weakness in history. Here are the activities that demonstrate my interest in math/science/logic though

Math courses, just listing the Honors and AP or past AP level courses
Precalc Honors
AP Calc BC
AP Stats
Differential Equations - At community college
Linear Algebra - At community college
Multivariable Calc - At community college

(All A’s, all fives for the AP classes)
Math SAT II - 800

Science Courses, just listing non-regular classes like i did for math classes
Chemistry Honors
Bio AP
Chemistry AP
Physics C Mech AP – At comm. college, got five on AP test
Physics C E&M AP – At comm. College, got five on AP test
Physics fluids/waves/thermo/optics – At comm. college, past AP level, so no AP test
Modern Physics – At comm. College, past AP level, so no AP test (this is the last in the physics series at the comm college)

(All A’s, all fives for the AP classes)
Biology SAT II – 780
Chemistry SAT II – 800
Physics Sat II – 800

Computer Science
Computer Science AP
C++ I - at comm college
Programming for Google android (cell phone applications)
Programmed for FIRST Robotics club since sophomore year
Wrote small games in C++, kind of new to this one though
Wrote a simple chess AI, not too bad at playing, uses recursion
(All A’s all fives)

Extra curricular
JETS team captain and president/founder – number 50/239 in the nation, and we didn’t have a coach
FIRST Robotics, as mentioned under computer science
*This one I’m proud of, and internship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory this summer, did my own research on X-Rays, UV Rays, and Fiber optics under a professor there, made an abstract/poster/PowerPoint
For a small engineering competition, my team and I took apart other toy cars and put together our own really large tank to carry stuff around. The project didn’t work, but still, we basically put together a small car from spare toys and it worked.

SAT I – 2350

I’ve also taken other classes like foreign language and literature and history/economics/gov, some of those were weighted classes, and all A’s in those except for APUSH.

So, I really like math/science/computers, and my passion simply isn’t in history or literature. Don’t get me wrong I think those are important, and I really did try hard, but I just couldn’t do very well in APUSH. I’m just not cut out for history I think, not good at memorizing history.

So final question, will the two Bs in APUSH hurt my chances for MIT even though I really love math/science/computers?