Rejected EA to MIT. Next steps???
I was rejected EA from MIT. I thought that I would be competitive for MIT, especially as a domestic student. Deffered, I understand! Still, I'm just shocked that I wasn't even in the top 70% of EA applicants. I'm now rethinking where I should apply RD.
Stats:
White, male, very high income, California, ultra-competitive Bay Area public school known for its difficulty
1590 SAT (790 Math, 800 EBRW)
3.86 UW, 4.41 W. I had a 3.5 GPA in sophomore year due to undiagnosed severe ADHD. Since then, I have been properly medicated. I have otherwise gotten all A's (except for an A- in Phys C) since.
13 AP's. The standard stuff, Calc AB, BC, Phys C, etc. Scored 5 on every exam.
Class Rank: 17/401
- I have taken 13 dual enrollment math classes at a local community college and a local private college, all the way up to a few senior-level classes (Mathematical Statistics and Operations Research 1).
- I did research under a math professor at a T50 for 3 summers. I was on a published paper as third author and another published paper as second author. I made meaningful contributions to the research process. In one of the papers, I suggested the 'key idea' that led to the breakthrough, so to speak, in the proof.
- President of my school's math club.
- Member of my school's math team for 4 years. (the team is not the same as the club)
LOR's:
- The math professor I worked under wrote me a glowing letter of recommendation. He was very impressed by me and that my mathematical ability and maturity was better than many of his graduate students. (11/10 letter)
- Math club advisor wrote me a LOR. She taught me in Calc BC and clearly liked me as she chose me to be president of the math club over 11 other applicants.
- AP Lit teacher. She did not know me well but I got an A in the class.
I have applied EA to: UMich, UChicago, UW Madison, UW Seattle, and USC
I have also applied to the UC's.
I had originally planned to apply RD to: Harvard, Princeton, John's Hopkins, RPI, and Harvey Mudd.
Now I am seriously reconsidering. If I was not even in the top 70% MIT applicants, then I doubt that I'll be in the top 2% of Harvard/Princeton applicants. Hell, I'm probably in the bottom 10% of MIT EA applicants, given that MIT mostly rejects international students EA and rarely rejects domestic students.
Does anyone have any advice for me?
I'm very, very upset. I really felt like MIT was the right school for me, especially when I visited and met several current MIT students.