1530/1600, applied to a bunch of places, only got into UCLA. med school after that. this was back in 1996. jeez I'm old
1560/1600. applied to 3 UC's, got into all 3. went to UCLA. med school after that. this was back in 1995. jeez I'm old.
He's backed up a lot of that stuff in the past. And, there's a lot more to getting into MIT than just your percentile ranking on the SAT. I find it believable that a 90%ish score can get in.Everything you wrote in this thread is horseshit. Go lie somewhere else.
He's backed up a lot of that stuff in the past. And, there's a lot more to getting into MIT than just your percentile ranking on the SAT. I find it believable that a 90%ish score can get in.
Me: 780 on math; stupid mistakes (eliminated 3 of 5, starred the questions, and when I went back, I answered the 4th thing I eliminated, rather than the remaining thing). Verbal was quite good as well. Selected Alfred Univ for Ceramic Engineering (#1 in the world in that field & #2 most competitive school in the Northeast back then.) Hated engineering - or rather, hated the book smart no common sense engineers I went to school with. After a summer internship, plus the company called me back to work over the winter to do more work for them (related to comp sci minor), I went to academic advising for help with resume/end of senior year stuff. After an interview with them, "wow, it's obvious that you hate engineering." Thought about it, and quit. I kick myself all the time for not finishing up the last semester. I just didn't feel that it was a rewarding/satisfying career. E.g., after 2 weeks of work, could make ceramic floor tile that perfectly matched a color sample from a developer. Or, after 6 months, one of my friends increased a company's yield of a particular compound from 48% to 49.3%. Six months in a lab with one other person, day after day doing almost the same thing, just with a lot of tweaking.
A few years later, I switched majors to applied mathematics, returned to a different university. I was the "University Scholar" - their equivalent of valedictorian of the university. 4.0 in my major, while commuting 32 minutes each way to school, plus working 40+ hours a week at my job, and taking either 18 or 19 credit hours each semester. With a few dozen credit hours through another university in education (4.0), became a math/physics teacher. Then a master's degree & a few dozen more credit hours.
I had some great recommendations from teachers/references at the time. Some projects that were published in some major publications, and a background with several successful internships where I went WAY above and beyond in comprehending and completing assignments.
While doing HVAC/Fire Sprinker work for two large projects my designs were totally 100% accurate and simply reviewed and signed off by the lead engineer. They didn't see graduates do that level of work.
To me it was boring though, I wanted to go into biological sciences; but didn't want to live for my retirement as a surgeon, doctor. Pharmacy was an option, and I was heading that way. I lost interest.
I am happy with my career though now. Not far off from Pharmacy money and my schedule is much better.
Never took the SATs. Got accepted into a bunch of places (UW Madison, Purdue WL, UIUC, Iowa State U), ended up choosing ISU and staying there for the better part of a decade.
Did get a BSEE with 4.0, and a PhdEE with 3.90 (skipped MSEE).
Total slacker in grade and high school - too busy gaming and chasing girls
my focus on money extremely low.
I'm amazed at how many high ACT scores are in this thread. I must be a big dummy because I only got a ~27 when I took it. I think there were only a handful of people that got above 30 at my school, but I don't think a single person in this thread was below 30!
Heh, what can I say? The tuition at ISU was attractive, and they did throw a bunch of money my way.Now THIS is impressive. Should've gone to Purdue though.
This is ATOT! Recognize!
I think he's lying. Normal/small schools will interview you. But not elite schools. Those schools aren't hurting for talent and they certainly won't fly someone across the country to interview anyone. At best they will get someone locally. When I was accepted into the various schools I got the contact info of an alumni that I could call in case I had any questions. Before that, nothing. Just an acceptance letter and an invitation to the campus.
I simply do not believe that someone with a math score in "the 90%s" got into MIT. Was it SAT I, SAT II, AP Calculus AB/BC? Or, as in my high school, differential equations? He's very vague.
Perhaps only because I'm able to spend more class time having conversations with my best students (in calculus class), but I'm aware of several of my students who in the past year or so have been interviewed locally by representatives of several ivy league schools - the representatives came to this area, rather than the students traveling to those schools. I'm unaware of this happening off campus for any non ivy-league schools. Now, perhaps they used someone more local; not flown in from the school, but they certainly weren't as local as even being from within my county. I've also recently had a student accepted by and enrolled in MIT. I spent quite a few hours helping him with parts of the application process (particularly the longest letter of recommendation I've ever written, following everything MIT wanted included in such a letter), so I'm aware of what their standards are.
From MIT themselves, "The most important thing to remember is that at MIT we admit people, not numbers..." If you look here: http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats you can see that of the 1800 and some admittances last year, 60 of those students scored a 690 or below on the math portion of the SAT. (Not that my former student was that low.) 25% of the students scored 750 or below on the math portion of the SAT (750 was the 1st quartile). Whoa, (just looked), that's still the 98th percentile; didn't realize that this forum was the 1%ers in intelligence.
Perhaps only because I'm able to spend more class time having conversations with my best students (in calculus class), but I'm aware of several of my students who in the past year or so have been interviewed locally by representatives of several ivy league schools - the representatives came to this area, rather than the students traveling to those schools. I'm unaware of this happening off campus for any non ivy-league schools. Now, perhaps they used someone more local; not flown in from the school, but they certainly weren't as local as even being from within my county. I've also recently had a student accepted by and enrolled in MIT. I spent quite a few hours helping him with parts of the application process (particularly the longest letter of recommendation I've ever written, following everything MIT wanted included in such a letter), so I'm aware of what their standards are.
From MIT themselves, "The most important thing to remember is that at MIT we admit people, not numbers..." If you look here: http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats you can see that of the 1800 and some admittances last year, 60 of those students scored a 690 or below on the math portion of the SAT. (Not that my former student was that low.) 25% of the students scored 750 or below on the math portion of the SAT (750 was the 1st quartile). Whoa, (just looked), that's still the 98th percentile; didn't realize that this forum was the 1%ers in intelligence.
Engineer, elite member, I'm still waiting? Aren't you up to it? I'll try to be gentle with you in case you really are, as you seem to be, frontally deficient.
Mike
I'm amazed at how many high ACT scores are in this thread. I must be a big dummy because I only got a ~27 when I took it. I think there were only a handful of people that got above 30 at my school, but I don't think a single person in this thread was below 30!
You were published in a major publication? All this while you were in high school? Jesus Christ you're lying. Do you know how difficult it is to get published for regular researchers? Did you enter the Westinghouse Science Talent Search like other hs aspiring scientists? Did you win? I entered after doing summer research at Rockefeller University working on multiple sclerosis in Dr. Zabriskie's lab. I also did another summer program at Cornell University Medical College (they were right next to each other). This was when I wanted to be a neurosurgeon. But, after that, I switched my focus to engineering.