We often hear “My kid has a 4.0, can they get into MIT?” It’s not an easy question to answer, mostly because it’s not the right question to ask. Yes, having perfect grades is the absolute floor if you want to get into MIT, but it’s far from the only thing you need. So when we hear this question, we usually have to respond with a question, “What do their extracurriculars look like?”
Why do extracurriculars matter at MIT?
MIT has an insanely low acceptance rate of 3.96%. It is about as competitive as they come. This acceptance rate is actually made up of two averaged rates: the early action rate of 4.7% and the regular decision rate of 2.2%. These rates are shockingly low which means MIT can be as selective as it wants to be. Many students with fantastic grades and scores won’t get in. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s the truth. You have to find other ways to stand out.
This is where MIT’s holistic admissions process comes in. Yes, they look at grades and scores (and they really look at scores… over 25% of admitted applicants had perfect scores on the ACT or SAT), but they also look at more qualitative characteristics. They explain it as they “admit people, not numbers.” This means they will be looking carefully at your extracurriculars.
So what should you be doing?
Each applicant is different, but there is a certain caliber of applicants that we often see get in. Today, we want to break down what that applicant looks like using an applicant that we worked with in the past as a model (we changed some facts for privacy, but notably we didn’t exaggerate this at all.) Take it as a case study of the types of applications that come across MIT admissions counselors' desks.
AB… L: Always Be Learning
Our case student loved biomedical engineering and she followed that passion outside of school. While she went to a STEM-focused high school, she actively sought out learning opportunities outside of the classroom. We recommend this for all hopeful MIT students. MIT calls these opportunities Additional Academic Enrichment and looks for them on every resume they receive.
Our student took a summer program in biology at Columbia. She also took an online course in Healthcare systems engineering at Johns Hopkins. She was constantly reading academic journals and learning on her own. She also shadowed a doctor for a summer in hopes to learn more about the healthcare industry.
Pursuing your academic interests outside of the classroom is the first step. MIT wants you to do something with that knowledge.
Get Real About Research
Once you have explored your academic interests, it is great to do research. Colleges love students who are passionate about research and have shown off their research skills.
Our MIT test case had a huge passion for research. She started small by doing independent research into healthcare statistics. She then published that research in a journal for high school research. Having already done some research, she interned at an Infectious Disease Lab on Yale’s Campus where she assisted a professor on research into the protein structures of viruses. She did this work for about a year and was an integral part of mapping protein structures. This was quite an undertaking and most weeks this was a 30+ hour commitment. Their work in the lab led them to a prestigious Biochemistry fellowship at the same lab.
Many students start with self-directed research projects and then take on larger projects. Assisting a college professor or even a lab is a popular choice. With research, the sky's the limit. Our student even got to present their research at a national medical conference and was in the running to receive a scholarship award from Google.
Build Something Cool
MIT loves students who build cool stuff. While our student was more research-based than building-obsessed, she still participated in her school’s annual hackathon (she was at one point an outreach chair for it) and was on a regionally ranked FIRST Robotics Team which met for over 10 hours a week during the school year. We don’t think we have ever had a student apply to MIT who hadn’t participated in a hackathon and/or a robotics team. These are great places to show off coding and engineering skills.
Follow Your Passions
Every student has passions outside of math and science. Even our most STEM-obsessed students pursue other passions. For our case student, it was community service and music. She started a non-profit to help young girls get into STEM and also was a part of her school’s community service club. She also volunteered at and wrote a curriculum for another local non-profit that helps girls learn to code. She stepped up as a note-taker to help students with disabilities at her high school. Her non-profit work led to her being named the Community Service Advocate for her school.
When it came to music, she played the flute in her school’s orchestra as well as a local youth orchestra. She was an ensemble lead at both. She also taught flute to children. She taught some students in person as a job and she also taught music via Zoom to students in rural Botswana.
Everything Else
We love helping our students create streamlined narratives when it comes to their academic niches and extracurriculars, but every student always has a couple of things that they have done just because they like it. This student was the president of an AI club. And we love that. We have had MIT students work at ice cream shops and play varsity tennis. But they have done this on top of everything else.
So what does all this mean?
You probably noticed that this student was busy. She had over a 4.0, got a 35 on the ACT, and still found time for a laundry list of extracurriculars. It was probably in part that high school classes came easy to her, but this is the kind of student that MIT is looking for. The kind of student who can seemingly do it all. MIT wants to see passionate students who have a legacy of creation, leadership, and academic exploration outside of school. This is what that looks like.
Need help figuring out extracurriculars? We do it all the time. Reach out here.