Extracurriculars for Caltech/MIT?
I was wondering what kind extracurricular activities would be useful in an application for these schools? I have heard that Caltech and MIT don't generally look at extracurriculars and focus on academics a lot more. Is this true? Currently I am doing Chess, and have won a national inter-school competition in New Zealand and came third in the Australia Secondary School Opens, as well as on the training squad for the National Mathematical Olympiad, also play Tennis and Participate in Model United Nations. Would these extracurriculars be helpful for an application?
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IF you don't have the grades and SAT score, nothing will help. Students who apply to these schools are top notch. Perfect grades, high SAT scores, math and science awards. leadership positions in anything they do.
MIT only takes in about 1000 freshman each year. only a small hand full are going to be international students. Plan on over $50,000 per year for these schools. They expect their students do have top notch academic transcripts and outside school activities
Extracurriculars are only beneficial if you can maintain the same caliber of academics as the rest of the applicants, which are top notch SAT scores and GPA. You'll find that when it comes to elite colleges, academics get you onto the same playing field as everyone else and then everything else that's non-academic comes into play. In other words, having SAT scores under 2200 and a GPA under 3.85 is almost guaranteed disqualification because after all, you are going to schools to learn, not to do a lot of extracurricular activities.
The short answer is yes, they will help. But, the middle 50% SAT score in math at Caltech is 800 for a reason. Academics are much more important than extracurriculars at these schools; if you really want them to count apply to Stanford and the Ivy Leagues.
Way too early to tell if your going to get accepted or not. You have not taken the SAT, ACT, PSAT or any of those tests. Also, your sophomore and junior year you can screw up. Maintain the good grades, but get more extra curricular activities and keep in sports.