Getting into MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

In My Humble Opinion
221

These statements right here are your problems.

1.) “Secret code”: You want there to be a special formula you can figure out, the right words to say, and bingo, you’re in. Doesn’t work like that. They’re looking at the person, not knowing the equivalent of a “cheat code” that lets the extra-special high-scorers in on the good stuff.

2.) Believing that only a few colleges can fulfill your dreams, and if you don’t get in, you’re utterly lost.

Let me draw an analogy for you. Have you ever heard about how guys who act desperate to get a date with a woman do not, contrary to claims from TV/movies, actually impress the girl? Desperation comes off as not only unattractive, but also frightening. If you continue to approach your college admissions process with the kind of desperation and insane single-mindedness to get into MIT (or another high-end school) that you’re showing here, you will utterly turn off admissions personnel. They already know everyone wants to get in. What they want to know from you is what you can offer them and what you will do during and after your education there.

And re-read what ZebraShaSha wrote.

222

I know “everyone” wants to get in. The question is HOW?

HOW do you get in?

Just someone please tell me, HOW?

You know unclarity really upsets me. It agitates me because it just makes things way more complicated and confusing that they need to be.

And what about my lack of creativity? Is that going to end my chances of getting in because “creativity” matters so much? Just wondering…

I read somewhere that Harvard wants to see how you can make a change in the world.

Now there is SOME clarity in that answer, so is maybe THAT where I should be headed?

This poster also said that they’re interested in the POTENTIAL of you changing the world, not so much actually changing the world.

And they also said this is easier said then done which is why less than 10% get accepted.

THIS actually makes SOME sense (it’s still not entirely clear, but still good enough). Now is that what ALL of the top colleges want? That’s another question.

The problem is that if I don’t know what they want, how am I supposed to direction my efforts. If there was some basis on what I should and can do, it would make things a LOT easier.

What I’m trying to ask you guys repeatedly, am I weak? Is there any part of me that’s going to seem “weak”. Is there anything I need to do more/improve? And if there is, WHAT? If I do that WHAT, then do I have a chance?

I’m going to have to keep trying to beat the answer out because until there’s a clear answer, everything is going to be unsettled inside me.

In fact, many hours of my day are just spent in unsettled thinking about this and it’s gotta top happening so much.

223

Yes.

Let’s put it this way – do you have a “secret code” for your friends? For your potential girlfriends? Or do you look at human beings as unique individuals, whose qualities all come together to make them likeable and worth investing in?

Why? What do you think is going to happen to you if you don’t get in to a top school? What would happen to you if you got into Occidental College? Or Eureka College? Or Whittier College? Or Texas State? Hint: You might become President of the United States.

Yes, you can still get in if you are not creative (although if playing the violin isn’t creative, I don’t know what is). What we’re trying to tell you is to do what YOU want to do, what drives you, what makes you feel passionate, not what you think will be appreciated by an admissions officer. If there is any secret code not just for getting into college, but for being successful in life, that is it.

224

Absolutely, it’s probably one of the best life lessons you could possibly learn. Life is what happens while you are making other plans.

They are the top schools because the don’t have a secret code and they don’t guarantee admissions for some arbitrary test score. That would make for a boring, mostly useless institution. There are many great schools, some with the prestige you seem to be looking for, many without. I know I’m writing to someone that isn’t listening but that prestige you care so much about doesn’t really matter much in the real world.

225

Tough love time. Yes, you are weak because you are desperate. You come off as a status-seeking, manipulative, player who doesn’t care about anything but what others think of him. Interviewers can smell this a mile away and will shit-can your application in a blink of an eye. They’ve seen 100’s of people like you, who want to get into their school for all the wrong reasons and they’re not interested.

To have a chance you need to drop that attitude, figure out what it is you like and find a university that meets your needs. You’re going about this ass-backwards right now, trying to change yourself to meet their expectations. IT WON’T WORK. They’re too smart for that. If MIT or Harvard isn’t in the cards for you, it simply isn’t in the cards. It may be the right place for you but you’ll never find out if you are busy planning your whole life around some perceived notion of what they are looking for.

226

I just want to respond to, “If you don’t get in to a top college, you will get into some other great university.”

After all this hard work, stress, debate, effort, time, and ACTUALLY exceptional stats [like good grades, standardized test scores, extra-curriculars (I don’t know how many times I’ve mentioned this but this phrase is now stuck in my head)], if all I can do is get into some above average university that no one really cares about, WHAT’S THE POINT???

I want to be able to just go up to some random person, say I got into ___________ (and it better be prestigious), and the guy listening is mind-blown. I strive for that kind of “respect” and label of prestige.

Do you know what makes me happy? WHEN I IMPRESS OTHER PEOPLE! It’s just how my nature is. I get happiness from impressing people. I just really like to do that. Showing-off how good I am, etc. to the point where the other person is mind-blown is what I’m always striving to do. (You know what’s funny. I use “false modesty” a lot. It’s funny because people always fall for it whenever I use it!)

And APPARENTLY, that’s wrong! But WHY??? Why is it wrong? Why is this so-called disparity WRONG??? What makes this WRONG?
Now, for the actual constructive part for trying to get accepted, I gotta clear some things up here because here’s another thing that is really unsettled about me right now.

I have a complex situation where I’m really good at playing violin and have great talent in that (now please don’t take this as showing off) but the problem is that that’s not what my aim is in life. What I really want is to get some job that involves mathematics/science/STEM that starts out at at least $100,000 and then after a few years goes to $150,000-$200,000 a year, and apparently that’s not very likely with a career in violin. So I’m still going to continue playing violin but it’s not my career aim. This is a problem because I thought I had a shot at Yale School of Music, but I don’t want to actually major in Music. I want to major in “something” related to mathematics and science. It’s still a “something” because I don’t exactly know “what”, but we have a general idea. A Business major is also in the air because like I said, my main aim in life is to make at least around $150,000 a year and also get a partner that makes around the same amount so that in total me and my “partner” are making $250,000-$300,000 a year and have an extremely successful life with excellent prestige and respect. This is my whole master plan!!! This is what I’m going for. But the problem is that I don’t know how to use violin to my advantage when it’s not even something I’m aiming for career wise and that’s very unclear.
As you can see, unclarity annoys the h*ll out of me. Unsettledness (I’m just going to start making up words here), disturbed, messy, etc. is something that’s very difficult for me to cope with because I DON’T KNOW HOW TO SOLVE IT!

AND THIS IS REPETITIVE. It’s going to keep going on until someone (not just here), but in real life as well if they can, steps up and gives me a clear answer for what to do. Until then, I’m a mess.

227

Look at the bold. I desperately need this. How do I get it? Should I get my parents to invest some money in a college guidance counselor (because the school one isn’t much help. She keeps saying, “Don’t worry much about what they want. Focus on what you want.” The problem with this is that there are so many other students that do this and if I don’t focus on what they want, I’m going to get killed during the admission process if I give them something they don’t want). It’s like going up to a customer and asking, “What do you want,” over and over again and they won’t tell you clearly, but you don’t want to just make anything that you “think” will be good because you’re afraid the customer won’t like it. This is exactly what’s going on. It’s similar to that analogy I made about trying to beat out of a customer, what they want?

“OH MY GOD, WHAT DO YOU WANT?!?”

“I DON’T KNOW!”

:smack:

228

Going to a school just to impress other people might as well disqualify you. They should admit somebody who actually gives a shit what the school is about.

229

You are going to have to learn to deal with that. It is one of the most important life skills you can have. This is the one place on the internet where you can get real opinions from many talented people that made it into top schools. However, we are all telling you the same thing and you better listen because your attitude and focus are completely screwed up to put it politely. The adult working world doesn’t work the way you (or virtually any other teenager) thinks it does.

If you truly love violin, stick with it but you probably aren’t going to make much money at it. If the only reason you are doing it is to get into a great university, save yourself the effort and devote it to something else.

This fascination ‘impressing’ people with early school credentials works until you are about your mid-twenties and then it stops and the game changes to people judging you for what you have done since you got out of school. I am a well-respected consultant to mega-corps for example but I only tell people where I went to school if asked and it rarely comes up. You absolutely have to get over the impression that there are only a few schools that are worthy of your presence and nothing else will work.

You don’t even know what you want to do for a living. You could be a math professor and that is a great job with good benefits and lifestyle but not hugely powerful. You could also be an quantitative analyst on Wall Street which is the same as any high pressure cubicle job but it pays a ton.

You need to get over the power idea. No single person in the U.S. has all that much power including the President and with great power comes extreme hassles and sacrifices. Everyone answers to someone else and most jobs are quite mundane and routine once you get good at them. If you just want money, use your skills for that. Any power position is going to require sacrifices and passion for something that you haven’t expressed a true interest in yet.

230

None of those are “exceptional”. Good grades, good test scores and generic “extra-curriculars” are not exceptional. In the context we’re talking about, they’re average at best.

This is the most misguided motivation you could possibly have, because the only people you will be impressing are clueless rubes who don’t matter anyway. You have no idea how many useless nitwits I met at MIT and Harvard. Anyone worth impressing will be impressed by the actual work you’ve done, and won’t care where you did it.

That’s fine. I like to impress people to. And you know how that’s done? By actually doing impressive things.

It’s not wrong. The problem is that you are citing a totally average resume and expecting MIT to be impressed.

You want to get into MIT? Do something fucking impressive. Good grades and shit is not impressive.

Dump it, then. Stop wasting your time on it if you don’t care about it.

Prestige, respect and money come from being good at what you do, not what school you went to. Other than people that I’ve hired fresh out of school, I have absolutely zero idea what school any of the people that work for me went to. If you are worried that you will not be prestigious and respectful if you don’t go to a “great” school, believe me, nothing could be further from the truth.

The world is unclear, unsettled, disturbed, and messy. Get used to it, it’s not going away.

My advice? Let’s fast forward thirty years. Imagine you are retiring at age 45 after a lucrative and prestigious career, and are looking to start a 2nd career: it can be anything you want, because you certainly have the money to do it. You don’t have to worry about fame, fortune, and glory, because you have it already. You can do whatever you enjoy. What would you do?

Figure out a way to start doing that immediately. Take all the time you would otherwise waste on useless extracurriculars and resume-padding crap, spend it on that thing - and you will have as good a chance of getting into MIT as it is possible to have.

231

I will just add one more thing that I forgot in my previous post - if you are doing those things simply to get into a “great” college, there is no point. Sorry!

My advice is drop all the things you don’t care about. If you don’t care about it, it’s a waste of your time.

Take english and history classes so that you learn how to write well. This is essential to success in any field. Take math and science classes so that you learn analytical skills, also essential to success in any field that matters. Even if you don’t enjoy them now, trust me, they’ll be useful later. Other than that, drop all the other shit and just do what you enjoy doing.

232

Dude, you need to be looking at majoring in Business, and get yourself a MBA degree.

You’ve been talking almost entirely about majoring in Math and Science, with occasional mention of Business. You need, instead, to be thinking almost entirely about Business (which should include some strong Math as well).

You want to make $100,000 right away? Who can do that? It’s the big money men who do that. The Wall Street wheelers and dealers. The guys who know, inside and out, what a derivative is and how to create them. No, I’m not talking about the Calculus kind of derivative. I’m talking about the incomprehensible-to-mere-mortals investment kind of derivative. And whatever other kind of investment instruments the Wizards of Wall Street are coming up with.

Even there, of course, you need to be among the BEST EVER in the field to succeed like that.

You need to read a whole bunch of books by or about the BIG MONEY business and the BIG MONEY men. Get thee to thy local public library and start reading some biographies about big bank presidents, major oil company chairmen, big-name investing traders, people like that. Learn all there is to know about the business of business. Learn about how those bazillionaries got their bazillions, and learn what those guys had to know to get there.

There’s still no guarantees, but if you set your sights in that direction, and you’re really just about the best there is at knowing all that stuff, there’s a chance you could become one of the bazillionaires too.

When you do, I hope you’ll remember and appreciate my advice and offer me some support in my old age.

ETA: And also, as several others have already said: Being able to write English absolutely brilliantly perfectly is really important, it turns out. If you’re not too strong in English writing, you really need to study it even more than all the Math Science and Business until you thoroughly master English writing. If you’re going to succeed in business anywhere in the English-speaking world, it’s essential!

233

This is sort of the same strategy as the guy on the high school football team whose plan is to be an NFL player.

234

Granted, he’s made it clear he’s just in it for the money and power. If that’s what he’s single-mindedly after, then I guess there’s nothing else for him to do but be single-mindedly after that. My point, though, was that IF he’s going to be single-mindedly focused on a successful career with money and power, then Business is the direction he needs to look, rather than Math and Science. (Some other posters have said so earlier in this thread too.)

ETA: And BTW, take another look at my long post just above. I added a paragraph at the end, stressing the importance of learning to write good English.

235

You’ve got a good guidance counselor, and it sounds like you’re getting personal attention and good advice. Listen to it.

236

Here’s your problem: You don’t know what you want. This will be a detriment to getting into MIT. They want people who do know what they want to do, like create cold fusion or put computers in everyone’s skulls or build a space elevator (those are a bit over the top), and then who have done stuff to make those things happen. What they want to see is direction, risk-taking, and focus.

Right now you want the effects of direction, risk-taking, and focus, which is money and prestige. But you’re skipping the part where you do something to earn them.

237

Relax.

You had us all worried.

If what you consider to be a “top college” is one that you can say “I got into ____” and hear impressed/respectful noises in response, then you have a lot of options. Check out US News and World Report’s college rankings – don’t just look at the National Universities list, National Liberal Arts Colleges count as well – and take the top fifty or hundred or so of each list. Attend any of those schools and you will find people throughout your life who are impressed that you did.

And if the goal is to be considered prestigious by people who consider a household income of $300,000 prestigious, you should do just as fine at any one of them than at any of the others.
There is not a school in that group that does not have graduates who have achieved both of those goals.

With your grades and work ethic and probable board scores, if you apply to a good mix of reach and safety schools, you will probably get into one or more colleges that would meet your needs.

238

Impressive to your parents or impressive to future employers or …? If it’s the former, then this is something you’ll need to work out for yourself (and note that living to impress your parents is not the healthiest of roads). If that’s not the goal, then note that the “impressiveness” of a school is somewhat subjective. Consider the two most widely regarded university rankings and their most recent top 10 university rankings.

U.S. News and World Reports (U.S. universities only) gives this top 10:
Harvard
Princeton
Yale
Columbia
Chicago
MIT
Stanford
Duke
Penn
Caltech

Times Higher Education (world universities) gives this top 10:
Caltech
Stanford
Oxford
Harvard
MIT
Princeton
Cambridge
Imperial
Berkeley
Chicago

Notice how different these two very well-regarded reports rank universities. What’s more, if you look over a 5 year period, say, the rankings jump around considerably. There simply isn’t a universal answer to “What are the three best universities.”

If you are worried about getting into places, apply to a whole bunch of the above. (There are 14 different universities listed if you combine the above lists.) If you are a crack student like you say, you’ll get into several (maybe all!) and then you can pick from the ones that happen to accept you, and your life will not be ruined (no matter what your ill-informed parents say (*)) if you go to a school that’s ranked number 7, or whatever, on one of the lists in any particular year.

(*) yes, I’m making a bold assumption here

239

For someone who claims to be “an analytic person” you’ve shown a complete inability to process the most basic of objective advice in this thread. The single most important thing you could be doing right now would be to simply CALL the MIT admissions office, and ask to speak to someone about some concerns you have. I feel that the advice your high school counselor gave you may have been … less than helpful - and you need to get advice directly from the source.

What is your hangup regarding contacting MIT directly? Are you concerned they’re going to mark something negative in your permanent file or something?

240

Nono, if you want to GRADUATE from one of the top 3, clearly the only method is to be psychic and anticipate which will be rated highest in 4-5 years.