Getting into MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Getting into college, even MIT, isn’t going to blow anybody’s mind. MIT is a great school, but it admits a couple of thousand students a year and (your apparent obsession aside) it’s not really any better than a number of other schools that each admit a few thousand more students every year. Getting into a college like that means that you’ve done well in a structured high school environment and stood out enough to be noticed among your peers. Good job, you know, but you’ve got some more work to do. It’s not mind-blowing, and it’s just the beginning.

Graduating from MIT (or Harvard, or Stanford, or CalTech, etc.)* is more impressive. For most American students, college is the first time they go into an educational setting where they’re self-motivated and (at least somewhat) self-directed. Thriving in that setting is impressive, especially in a demanding place like MIT. When you graduate, the school is essentially saying “this guy knows his stuff well enough that we’ll put our name on him.” That’s great, but it’s just college - you’ve got another fifty years of life to go.

That’s the thing that you’re having a hard time with. Degrees and credentials aren’t impressive - people are. MIT grants degrees to around 1,000 students a year, every year. Getting a degree from MIT will open some doors, but it won’t blow anyone away. It puts you smack in the middle of a group of smart, accomplished people. If you take that mathematics degree and develop a general circulation model that accurately predicts climate change, that’ll blow people away. Predict the stock market (this will also help with your money-oriented goals!). Make sense of polling data (Nate Silver went to the University of Chicago). Those are impressive things that make use of the tools that MIT provides.

*Another note about graduating from college: the impressiveness comes not just from the school, but from the fact that the student completed the program. As far as I’m concerned, someone who’s graduated from UConn impresses me more than someone who’s washed out of MIT. Your mileage may vary.

Shagnasty nailed this, but I want to add one thing: there is no one way to solve it. There’s no right or wrong answer to life - there’s only what you do. You have to make decisions without knowing how they’ll turn out. If you spend too much time worrying about making the “right” decision, you’ll drive yourself crazy wondering “what if” later. You make the best decisions you can, throw yourself in, and make the best of them.

No need to be psychic - just patient. Enroll and finish up everything except one class, and just put that one off until the first year your school hits the top three.

To put it in another way: Would you want a person from MIT admissions to read this thread, knowing it was you? If not, why not?

Would it be a good or bad thing if they knew you only wanted to use their name for “power and money”?

I think OP should print out this entire thread and submit it as part of his application!

[sub]With any luck, we could all get admitted![/sub]

Maybe I was a little harsh yesterday because I was all stressed out. But let me clarify my situation a little bit.

First I just wanted to respond to, “The problem is that you’re citing an average application.” But that’s what I’ve been asking you guys. How do I make it more than average. You keep saying that my application is average yet no one steps up and tells me what to do to make it above average.

Also, just as a side note, people were complaining about my grammar and punctuation. Sometimes it may not be the best because sometimes I also use mobile devices to type up responses and it’s hard to be accurate in those situations. However, when I’m on the computer, you can expect near perfect grammar (although mistakes can still happen because again, this is just a forum website. I’m not trying to be as cautious as I would be while typing an English paper.)

Now for my situation:

I’m in a really though situation right now in terms of choosing a career because it’s very unclear what I should do.

To make things make sense, let me break it down a little bit into simplified parts so that it’s easier to weave out of the mess.

I really like STEM Education (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), particularly the “Mathematics” part of it. But STEM education is my area of interest.

Now I’m very talented at the violin, and it’s something I would like to continue playing throughout my life, but it’s not something I want to make a career out of. Yes, I’ll still continue to play in an orchestra probably, but I’m not aiming to make a huge career out of it.

The problem is that I want to start out at least $100,000 a year and after a few years be at $150,000 - $200,000 a year, and apparently I can’t find jobs that involve mathematics, science, engineering, etc. (the career cluster I’m interested in) that makes that much.

The Business, Management, and Administration career cluster is one that I keep considering because my primary goal is money. So that’s why I keep going back to this career cluster. The problem here is that my parents keep saying that it’s not something I’m going to enjoy doing. They say that it doesn’t fit my personality and that I won’t enjoy this job. They say that you have to be clever and have really fine speaking skills, and apparently that’s something I lack, or at least I’m not the best at (I wouldn’t say that I lack it, but it’s not my strong point).

I know I keep beating my frustration on what college to go to, but inside of me, this is the REAL frustration that is going on. What career to I take?

The reason it’s frustrating me is because if I don’t even know what career I’m going to choose, then I don’t know the major I’m going to take in college, and if I don’t know what I’m going to major in in college, then how am I supposed to know what colleges to be aiming for. So in reality, all this talk is useless if MIT doesn’t even come on my list (but it probably will actually because usually it comes in the top 3 for basically any major I think about).

What I would really like to do is figure out what I’m going to make my career in, then find out what major(s) are require for that career, and then search the top 15-20 colleges for that major (I’m only going to apply to colleges that are within the top 20 for any given major).

So for example, let’s say I find a career in math that fits my salary desire (which is $100,000 a year starting out and with few years of experience, increased to $150,000 - $200,000 a year), and I know that I want to major in mathematics.

Then I know that here are the colleges I have to choose from (I went to US News):

Rank
School name
Score
#1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA

5.0
#2 Harvard University
Cambridge, MA

4.9
#2 Princeton University
Princeton, NJ

4.9
#2 Stanford University
Stanford, CA

4.9
#2 University of California–Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

4.9
#6 University of Chicago
Chicago, IL

4.8
#7 California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA

4.6
#8 University of California–Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA

4.5
#8 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, MI

4.5
#10 Columbia University
New York, NY

4.4
#10 New York University
New York, NY

4.4
#10 Yale University
New Haven, CT

4.4
#13 Cornell University
Ithaca, NY

4.3
#14 Brown University
Providence, RI

4.2
#14 University of Texas–Austin
Austin, TX

4.2
#16 Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

4.1
#16 University of Wisconsin–Madison
Madison, WI

4.1
#18 University of Minnesota–Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN

4.0
#18 University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

4.0
#20 Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey–New Brunswick
Piscataway, NJ

3.9
#20 University of California–San Diego
La Jolla, CA

3.9
#20 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, IL

3.9
#20 University of Maryland–College Park
College Park, MD

3.9
#24 Duke University
Durham, NC

3.8
#24 Johns Hopkins University

And then, I would probably choose 10-15 from this list and record them as colleges I’m thinking about applying to.

This is what I’m trying to do. But it can’t happen until I know where I want to make my career in.

The other confusion that I’m trying to clarify is: is it okay if I use my talent in violin just as a side activity when I’m an adult. Meaning let’s say I find a job in STEM/Business (what I’m trying to do), then I was wondering if it was okay for me to play in an orchestra along with my job. Because I’m not going to stop playing the violin, and I know this. But like I said, it’s not something I’m going to make my career out of.

And this leads me to the next thing. To sum it all up for what I should to for the whole “applying to top colleges” situation is continue what I’m doing, except stop acting desperate, find something that I love and really take that to the next level. And don’t think, “Will MIT like this? Will Harvard approve of this?” That’s what my guidance counselor said, and she also said that the best thing for me to do would be to start playing my violin in nursing homes, for the sick, etc.

But there are two problems here:

  1. I feel like my brain is poisoned. Because I can’t get this out of my head, “Will this get me into MIT?” I can’t eliminate those thoughts from my head anymore. It’s like, almost 24-7, those thoughts are in my head.

  2. The problem with violin is that I guess you can assume that violin is one of those things that I “love” to do, but like I keep asking, is it okay if I don’t make a career out of it, but still do very well in it and take it to the next level. See the problem that keeps occurring to me is that, okay, I like playing the violin and it’s something I plan on expanding on, but when I apply for colleges, do they expect me to make my career out of this? Meaning will colleges be turned off by me playing the violin and taking that to the next level, yet have no intentions for a career in this field but in STEM/Business. This is one of the complexities that is actually the most frustrating. If I can solve this problem and figure something out for this conflict, then a lot of my stress will be relieved (but there’s still more cleaning up to do obviously).

Another thing, you guys keep saying, “Contact MIT, and ask them!”

Who do I ask, one of the admission officers? A guidance counselor at MIT? Exactly what, and how do I get a hold of them?

I want Nicole Kidman to be my wife for a little while, then trade up to Scarlett Johansson. Have you ever paused to consider why a 22 year old should expect to be paid more than 85% of Americans, mostly because this person plays violin and went to a good university?

Has anyone suggested that you should be checked out for some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder? Not to be too flippant, but if you’re obsessing with college to the exclusion of being interested in girls, that isn’t exactly… normal? Common? Healthy? It ain’t something.

wrong thread, sorry.

Yes.

“I’m considering applying, and I’d like to ask about what you look for in a candidate”, for starters.

It’s called a “website”. They’re easy to find.

Ya know, I’m starting to wonder if you’re really who you say you are.

No, OCD is common for me. I wash my hands about 25-30 times a day. So no, that’s been going on for a while now.

And I DO want to find love, BUT now is not the time! I’ll do that in college, not now! Right now MUCH more important things matter. Don’t bring up love life anymore. It’s completely irrelevant at this time. I’ll worry about that when I’m in college.

Okay that’s what I thought. I was just making sure. I’m sorry that was kind of a stupid question actually.

Here’s their website: MIT Admissions
Here’s their phone number: 617.253.3400

Call them up, tell them, “Hi, I’m a high school freshman/sophomore/junior/senior, and was wondering if there’s someone I might be able to talk to about my future application to MIT.”

But before you do that, you might want to read this page on their site. So that when you talk to someone, you can say, “I read the page on your website about preparing in high school, and want to make sure I’m not just going down the route of turning into an ‘applicant clone’.” Then you tell them about yourself, and answer their questions. Have a list of 3-5 questions as well. I would specifically ask, “What’s better - to get an A in English, or a B in Honors English?” (Prediction: they will tell you “to get an A in Honors English.”)

I hope that he does read that page, particularly the section on extracurricular activities. Among other things, it says, “Choose your activities because they really delight, intrigue and challenge you, not because you think they’ll look impressive on your application.”

I did read it.

Then go forth, my child, and sin no more.

Well, have you thought about what it says? I think you need to stop obsessing about what will get you into MIT (or Yale or Harvard or Princeton) and try to enjoy your teenage years. You should still do well in school and engage in extracurricular activities, but stop thinking of all your activities in terms of, “Will this help get me into a good college?”

And why are you posting today instead being in school?

There’s no school today. I’m also doing my homework…

But can someone help me with this ^^^?

Also, trying not to think about, “Will ______ like this,” or “Will ________ be enough for __________,” is very hard for me. Every time I sit down to think what I should do to take something I love to the next level, those thoughts about MIT/Harvard/Princeton/Yale keep coming back. It’s like one of those things you get into your head and you can’t eliminate.

I was talking to a junior at UCONN. She got 2250 on her SATs and was a very good student, but only went to UCONN because she had “green card” issues. So she said that I’m worrying too much and that I should be fine since I am well-rounded, etc. but she also said, “Don’t think about, ‘What can I do to impress _____,’ because it’s not a fun way of living life.”

Apparently this advice is very hard for me to follow.

No. Contact MIT. You have the day off - do it today.

I don’t want to do it right now because I don’t even have my careers straight. I’d like to actually settle my career problems, get organized, and cleaned up. Then when I have a clear situation/path, then I’ll contact MIT. It’s useless right now because I don’t even know what I’m planning on majoring in, and it’s not even clear that MIT is going to be one of my options.

What I’d like to do is get the whole careers mess cleaned up, then just sit down, sort my situation out so I clearly know how to explain my situation. And only then will i contact MIT; when I know my situation crystal clear. I contact them when I’m a mess.