MIT Admissions: Successful Applicants Without Perfect SAT Math Scores

[ktpr2]

Seeing how MIT continues to produce world class researchers, inventors and engineers, they must know what they're doing when they reject nearly perfect students... perhaps math olympiads and 4.0s don't mean that much in real life?

 

[Pengwuino]

Well GPA doesn't mean anything in real life because you can BS a gpa but you can't BS real life work and get away with it.

 

[noobie]

Sorry to hear that Moose. I've been told by MIT admissions before that the whole process is almost rolling a dice because the candidates are so good across the board. I'm sure there are other great schools that are more than glad to take you.

 

[juvenal]

Yes, the whole gender equality thing is a bit wierd. But I've noticed a trend that many highly qualified guys get rejected while other less qualified guys get in. I've seen kids who've done international math or physics olympiad or who have a nasty amount of APs or something else amazing get rejected for seemingly no reason.

Maybe it's possible they blew off the essays? The essays are very important.

 

[Moose352]

I would think that they didn't blow away their application, considering they got into several other top schools and ivy leagues. It's really perplexing when peope get in over othesrs, who by any rubric, are more qualified. Oh well. That is how it works. Life goes on.

 

[TsunamiJoe]

I don't know what to say, did your sister perhaps have more letters of recomendation from more related courses? or perhaps betters grades in those classes?

 

[Andromeda321]

Everyone, please remember that the college admissions process is INCREDIBLY random, especially when you have thousands of equally bright kids vying for a spot. There really just is a point where a line has to be drawn, and that line can be very arbitrary at times.
Case in point: a boy at my brother's school a few years ago sent in his application to Carnegie-Mellon University. He had a very long name, and somehow his application got split in two: same SAT scores, same essay, same letters, same everything, just two different names.
Only one of them got in!

 

[Moose352]

I'm not complaining that I didn't get in. MIT was never my top choice. It's just that, like many other people said, admissions is random, and sometimes seemingly illogical, and I've seen too many miserable people whose dreams and aspirations have been shattered completely. Don't do that to yourself.

As for why my sister got in and I didn't? Beats me. There may be many reasons. Maybe they didn't like that I was already affiliated with MIT. Maybe they thought I was stupid. Whatever. It's worthless to speculate.

 

[mathwonk]

In the 1990's I read that the average SAT score at harvard (possibly before "recentering" i.e. inflating) was in the mid 1400's. So 1510 is definitely still way above average.

Recommendation letters are important too, but as stated here earlier, with so many applicants, they do not really know how to choose intelligently, so it is a bit of a crap shoot.

As also stated here, the US has so many outstanding universities, and they are getting better all the time, that one can do extremely well almost anywhere. E.g. people who would have been faculty at top IVY schools 30 years ago, are now teaching at small state schools. moreover the fall of the iron curtain in the 80's brought another wave of brilliant eastern european talent to the us, and filled even more spots with great faculty.

so as the years go on, pretty much since 1960 or so, the quality of the higher ed faculties in the US has been steadily increasing. I speak as a faculty member of a good state university, with almost 30 years service, in teaching, hiring, recruitment, and research..

the main distinction between schools, is the better schools have better students. so if you can resist the temptation to be led astray by weak inattentive students, you can find good faculty almost anywhere. Of course the top schools have the most distinguished faculty, but essentially all the schools have good faculty now.

But if you want to go to MIT, you absolutely must apply. As my buddy told me when I asked the same thing,

"I can tell you with certainty, if you do not apply you will not get in."

 

[noobie]

Harvard's avg SAT score was at most 1400 during the 90's before recentering. MIT's avg while I was there was only 1330. I scored well over 100's over the mean but I was sweating bullets over whether or not I would get in.

 

[poolwin2001]

My interviewer told me that as MIT had few female students when he studied there(80s)they are now in drive to keep male:female ::1:1.

 

[Azytzeen]

I know of people with a 1460, Math score lower than Verbal, and got into MIT. Just have a good GPA.

 

[TsunamiJoe]

but be sure you GPA is good because of relavent courses to MIT|thats one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of the GPA, is because you can buffer it so easily, that its unfair to other students who instead of taking advanced classes, they take(at my school rather) business courses to get an easy A

 

[Euphoriet]

Yes.. gender and reace often play a big role.. I'm wondering how it will take for to one day have so much diversity (mixture of races) that it will not really matter anymore (and gender is going the other way now for many universities).