Being in almost exactly the same boat, I would have to agree. I was a decent student in high school. There were those in my class who were certainly better off academically in terms of GPA, those who presented at ISEF, etc. When that handful of students and I applied to MIT however, only I was admitted, for reasons I attribute to my passions and interests which I simply could not have explored in a meaningful way through any "sanctioned" or school-sponsored activities.

My guidance counselor as well as extremely discouraging, however after being at MIT for two years, I'm inclined to say that admission to a university like mine hinges on both being an interesting person and possessing demonstrable intelligence - not necessarily through scholastic channels.

I would have to imagine these days average high school GPA for incoming freshman to MIT is > 4.0

No need to imagine. It has been sampled and estimated: < 4.0 [0]

'04-'05 seems to be the last year MIT reported high school GPA's [1]; probably because the number is meaningless.

[0] http://www.acceptancerate.com/schools/massachusetts-institut...

[1] http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/2005/c.html

To add on to amluto's point, that's because your average elite college admit is cookie-cutter: great grades, great test scores, probably did a sport, did some extracurriculars with some leadership/responsibility. A cookie cutter average admit to MIT needs great grades to be competitive because they all look similar.

Standing out exceptionally in one category (such as extracurricular projects) is not something the average admit to MIT posseses.

average != minimum

Also, take a look at his writing ability. He makes a couple of long posts further down the thread where he describes how the thing works. It's really quite good writing by any standards, which tends to be quite important for (and, I suspect, highly valued by) colleges. I know my own writing ability was nowhere near that level when I was his age.

You must have gone to a pretty good school district because the school district I was in was so bad many elite schools told us not to bother even if you were valedictorian. The quality of education couldn't be trusted to indicate possible future success at their institutions.

That's interesting - never heard anything like that. Where did you go to high school? The idea of elite schools saying not to bother doesn't sit right with me - a lot of the top schools pride themselves on finding diamonds in the rough, and that would run counter to that.

If you don't mind me asking, how long ago was this?

This person claims she got into MIT in 2006 with a SAT a 1430 SAT I (which I guess would be, say, a 2150 or so now)[1]

[1] http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/how_to_do_everything_wr...

Not op, but for me getting into MIT was fall of 1997.

Yeah, I ask because the highschool workload and expectations have frankly changed. Being a solid B student doesn't get you into MIT (at least, that's what is drilled into your head)

Honestly, there are bunches of people with really impressive EC's that also have top GPAs and 99th+ percentile SAT's.

There can't be THAT many. Unless my math is wrong, they can only be at most 1% of the folks taking the SATs, right?

1,700,000 SAT takers -> 17,000 people in the top 1%.

Selecting the top 10% of those gets you 1700 students, which is quite close to the size of Harvard's acceptance statistic (of 2000)

Your implicit assumption is that anyone with a top 1% SAT score would also have good ECs and 4.0+. This is untrue.

That was sort of my point, and I didn't finish it, although the OP just said "bunches", which could be any number.

The person you're replying to indicates that 10% is 1700, and that 10% may be more representative of the high-EC and 4.0 level.

I'm not sure a few thousand folks from around the country qualifies as 'bunches'. Thinking back to my high school days, we had only a handful of people who were both academically advanced and active in many EC - sports, music, theater, etc. Partially there's just not enough time in most people's days to get 'good' at multiple things, even if there's aptitude. Secondly, not everyone can actually afford to get involves in a lot of ECs (despite aptitude/talent).

I can't think of anyone I know from my school (class of over 600, IIRC) who was all 4.0 GPA who also did multiple EC work. We had people in both camps. And I had a pretty lousy GPA, but did much better on ACT than some of the high GPA kids.

No, my assumption is that there are perhaps 10% of people with high GPAs, and those with a top 1% sat score are no exception.

I bet more than half do. Tend to be the over achiever life.

>Being a solid B student doesn't get you into MIT (at least, that's what is drilled into your head)

I know someone who got into an MIT engineering program roughly around '03 and they claimed to have below a 500 on the old SAT verbal section (scored perfect 800 the math though).

Their claim was they purposefully did not study for the verbal section because 'excelling at rote memorization to get into the top schools in the world is idiotic at best,' something like that.

MIT always had that reputation though.