How I Applied the Pareto Principle to Get Into MIT (Part II)
By Path Mentor J.L., a graduate of MIT majored in Computer Science (Originally Posted on August 12, 2019)
Disclaimer: The below experience is personal and particular to myself; no one can guarantee acceptance to any college. Do not try to replicate what I did exactly, but instead focus on the approach I took and mindset I had.
My journey to MIT began at age 16 while in high school in Jamaica, where I was born and raised. Through random circumstances, I had discovered MIT online and the school immediately captivated me. At that moment I decided “I’m going to get into MIT.” While I had no idea where to even start with such a lofty goal, this is how I made it happen:
In my last blog post titled “Maximizing college acceptance using the Pareto Principle,” I spoke about the importance of crafting a story in your college application. What can you share with admissions officers that almost no other student can? My story began at age 16.
After discovering MIT, one of the first things I did was to take a huge risk: I left my country and immigrated to the United States. While most of you obviously won’t have this option (my mother had been living in New York for a long time), the important detail here is the level of dedication I had in trying to realize my dream. I was a young, naive teenager without any guidance; I didn’t even know I could apply to American colleges internationally. I also wasn’t aware of immigration issues, as I began living undocumented in New York with my mother.
So here I was:
16 years old
Undocumented, in a new country
Away from my entire family (except my mother) and friends
No plan on how to get into MIT
No parental guidance or professional services (such as ElitesPath) to guide me
What would seem at the time to be a terrible situation to be in, turned into my golden ticket into MIT, because of the story it allowed me to tell.
Given how unprepared I was, with only three years left in high school, I endeavored to do everything I could to make it into MIT.
Firstly, I read every college preparation book available in my school library. I spent many hours during lunch, before and after school reading any and everything related to college admissions I could find.
Secondly, I honed my Math and Science skills. MIT is a very technically challenging school that expects all its students to be adept at Math, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. To show the admissions officers that I could handle the coursework for these subjects, I excelled in all my Math and Science classes and did very well on the Math Level II SAT Subject Test as well as the Physics SAT Subject Test..
Thirdly, I incorporated extracurriculars that I was genuinely interested in, versus just activities to pad my college application. I played for my high school varsity tennis and varsity badminton team for all three years I attended high school in New York. I was very passionate about tennis and badminton, which made it a lot easier and more powerful to showcase those on my college application. If your child isn’t very interested in sports, find a club, organization or activity they are passionate about that they would gladly dedicate many years to. Those are the things college admissions officers want to read about.
Lastly, my intense passion for foreign language learning had a huge positive impact on my college application. I would spend every weekday evening and all of the weekend learning different foreign languages, beginning with Spanish, then Japanese, and a few others. I would read literature in these languages and make friends in other countries online just so I could practice speaking.
Now, what do you think contributed the most to my getting accepted to MIT? Can you identify the 20% of things I did that allowed for 80% of the results? After reading about my journey at age 16 going from a developing country like Jamaica and moving to the United States without any plan, documentation or guidance, what sticks out to you the most? Will you remember that my grades were stellar, or that my test scores were great? Or will you remember the unrelenting determination of a young boy doing everything it took to get into his dream school? Perhaps you will remember how I spent all my free time learning foreign languages because I was passionate about connecting with people from all over the world in their native tongue? Can you see how I could tell a very compelling story to admissions officers when I applied to MIT?
For you reading this, do not try to think how you can replicate this for your child. Instead, think about what story it is you want to communicate to admissions officers. What about your child’s upbringing, culture, values or their ambitions and passions gives them a unique license to tell a story no other applicant can?
Your child doesn’t need to be the best applicant; they simply need to tell the most unique, compelling story. Yes, grades and test scores are important, but the most important thing in getting your child into an elite institution, is the ability to convey a well-told story, and I have now given you the template to start writing your own story.
