MIT dean of admission 谈小中拼奥赛的歧路

You must understand the context of MIT's applicant pool. Very few average students apply there just for the thrill of it as you’d find in Ivy applicant pools that have a far wider range of candidates. MIT's pool is highly distilled, with students who have scores and grades that mostly fall within the right range. There are many USAMO students in the pool, as well as students at the top of every STEM field. They are MIT's typical candidates.

But they do not all have the ‘right stuff’.

MIT is looking to admit people who take big initiative, who create things that weren’t there before for themselves and for others yet to come. It’s an applied kind of education, so the accent is on creative action. Many students who make USAMO are not like this and so are not a natural match. And remember, if MIT is taking only 7–8% of their applicant pool, and 95% of that pool has the grades and scores you suggest, most of those top kids are not getting in. That 7–8% are people who have done the remarkable, above and beyond their metrics.

For Asian students in particular this is often puzzling and even frustrating because often their ECAs heavily involve academic competitions. MIT is looking for much more than that.

So if you want MIT, and you are not on the US Math Olympiad team, please pivot and look to explore other areas of interest that are not necessarily STEM focused. Develop other parts of your personality. Take some social risks by organizing others around a common goal. Follow your curiosity and take it as far as you can. Pay attention to current events and find ways to alleviate the suffering around you. Do things/lead things/create things outside of your high school, reaching into your larger community. Use your skills to help others succeed.

All of these things will not only make you a better candidate. Because your brain will grow more neurons across the corpus callosum between the brain hemispheres, making it easier for both sides to talk to each other, you’ll be smarter in the end. And way more interesting to MIT

要点是如果小中不在USMO美国队，就得想别的招。