How l got into MIT | How to get into MIT without strong Extracurriculars | MIT Application Process

[Music] hello Christine hello hi nice meeting guy hello so like first of all when I saw your profile and everything I find out that your profile have something unique I connected with many MIT students but they have different kinds they are mainly connected with a stem field but when I saw you there is uniqueness and creativity so I just want to know your point of views everything sounds good I'm happy to do so first of all introduce about yourself yeah so I'm Christine I just finished my first year at MIT I'm currently a mechanical engineering major and yeah I guess throughout High School I was not really a stem kid I was more like interested in like community service I had a volunteer program called gensconnect where I paired together seniors who are feeling very isolated due to the pandemic with high school students some college students and I paired them together for weekly like phone calls and conversations so that they could develop a friendship and kind of an intergenerational Bond so that's something I really focus a lot of my time on in high school there's a lot of like Community snipers stuff like that I also did fencing since I was eight years old and I dedicated a lot of my time to that I actually used to do robotics in middle school but had to quit robotics going into high school to focus on fencing so yeah pretty much like no stem background growing up and yeah I guess those are like the two main things I did fencing and community service okay and I love your community service when we are talking about kovid and that stressful time so like that kind of activity club or Community will definitely help thousands of students or elders and mostly seniors in that time and you choose business management major so please can you say something about that what is the story or that measure yeah so I originally came into MIT thinking that I wanted to major in management because I had enjoyed managing my volunteer program so much that I thought like oh hey like maybe it would be cool to kind of continue doing something like that in the future I did end up pivoting to mechanical engineering so I'm not really pursuing management anymore but I still do plan on taking some sauces at Sloan just because like the concentration that I'm planning to do is mechanical engineering is the product development track and that kind of requires some like management classes so I still find management really interesting I just think that I guess I felt a little bit pressured to meet your instam just because everyone around me was majoring instead I feel like that's not a great thing I don't think you should ever be pressured to do something but I think after getting in I was wondering like is there somebody else I should major in so I ended up picking mechanical engineering just because I really like working with my hands and I've always liked it and so I kind of wanted to re-explore that field because I did enjoy robotics in middle school but I had to quit so I wanted to kind of like try it again okay interesting amazing and you told as a undecided major or like you changed your major after getting into MIT yeah I changed my major yeah okay okay interesting it's all about environment MIT stem environment what about your college application Journey anything you find that it is the most difficult part of my application I feel like probably the most difficult part was writing my essays partly because I just was very unmotivated to write my essays but also because like the essence such a big part like once you're in kind of that application period almost everything else is like out of your hands except for the essay portion because like you've already done activities like that's already been done and you can't really like do something else in that last like month that you're applying so really spending a lot of time like refining your essays and making sure that your voice is like coming through and you sound really genuine in your essays I think is really important and it's really hard to do that well I think yeah so that was pretty difficult yeah yeah I already like rendered your essay and I thought that those answers are amazing when someone read those essays they feel connected with you and the Bose answers are too creative like you also use the bowl of soup of distance so that kind of consent and baking related stuff and those kind of things and you also mentioned that your mother is the source of motivation so why you are saying that I just feel throughout my life she's just been like a constant source of encouragement and support I don't remember exactly what the essay like question was anymore but I just felt like I wanted to talk about it because she did inspire me to kind of pursue like community service a lot because I would always see how she was always helping other people so yeah just really inspired me to help others as well okay inspiring and I will add you all activities and extraordinates in the description so let's talk about your current life what is the experience of your current life at MIT yeah so I really enjoyed it I really love the people at MIT I think that's like one of my favorite things since I got in the moment I started talking to people I just felt so like at home and like I belonged in that kind of community so that really like solidified my thing that I belong at MIT I also just really liked the culture nmit there's it's really just like quirky it's kind of like Work Hard Play Hard Everyone is always like working super hard working on their p sets but they're also like helping each other it's a very collaborative environment and then afterwards we'll all just like you know relax and like have fun if possible like there's not a whole lot of free time but when we do find like Pockets every time like for example like I know a lot of people they do like rent cars and they like drive up Upstate just like go have fun like have a day trip somewhere so I think like it's been really fun there's also a culture of hacking you've heard of that that I sometimes like to do in my free time where we literally just like scale buildings and climb up fence systems which is very fun yeah I think obviously though it is really difficult at times like I there's a lot of times last semester where I felt like I'm Gonna Fill all my classes and I felt like I wasn't academically qualified to be at MIT but it all ended up working out in the end I think I'm a fun believer that things work out in the end always so I ended up doing okay even though I felt like I was struggling a lot during the semester yeah so it was overall experience though yeah there's a dream life of thousands of students all over the world and there is anything you can say that a student have a brilliant student and any kind of race or any kind of culture like you know anyone and find that okay it is the best student in MIT or it is the smartest student in MIT so that kind of culture anything so you're saying like is there any culture where like there's one student where people will say oh yeah that's like the smartest student and then yeah okay yeah I don't think so I mean like people do recognize like oh wow that's like be like I am a like gold medalist or like something like that well there's like oh yeah they like wear a gold or silver medalist and just like stem competition but I don't think it really affects things too much yeah I think people all like understand like yeah it's like high school stuff and like they like what they like that's like just like their interest and yes I don't think there's any kind of culture like that no it only makes sense and like what about professors I know that they are amazing but what about your experience like how they treat students yeah I think in general I liked most of my professors there are some that sometimes they feel a bit unapproachable like or I guess in comparison to other professors so last semester I really loved my physics Professor because he was just very approachable I felt like I could talk to him whenever I go to his office hours all the time and like set up meetings with him and he like I just felt like he really cared about me succeeding in the class and so he like he really took the care to basically just like make sure that we felt like welcome in the class other times I think some other classes I don't think that professors put in as much care like it doesn't mean that they don't care about your success in the class it just they're really busy classes really big so it's harder to approach them like that at least that was my experience I really loved my professor for my toy product design class David Wallace he was like the most like fun amazing he's just a great guy I love him so much he was a great Professor really enjoyed his class he really prioritized us having fun and enjoying the work that we were doing while also being incredibly informative and helpful so I think in general my experience has been great yeah yeah interesting and I think after this interview many students after watching this will search those professors because they also want to learn from them and you also does the research in istanford I think you mentioned in your application so what kind of research oh yeah so that was like a summer session program with Stanford I just took two classes there over the summer but while I was doing that I also did research with a separate program called Pioneer academics and that was like the research that I did and basically I wrote like a 35 page paper on like Comfort women in Asia I'm just like focused on like gender and sexuality and yeah I don't know I kind of I I I'm not gonna lie I didn't really enjoy that program that much I feel like also partly because I was doing a lot of other things that summer that I couldn't put in as much work as I wanted to into that program and I felt very rushed all the time so that kind of like added to me not and joining the program as much but I think it still was a really interesting experience because I had never written something like that before of that length and like gone through such an extensive like process to write a paper I have a biggest question you can say that it is a big question what is the difference between Asian students and other students like we are Asian so any kind of difference you find um I will say the Asian population at MIT is quite large yeah I something I have noticed is that people of the same ethnicity will tend to group together at MIT that's not always the case but something I've noticed is like like groups walking around campus well oftentimes have like it'll just be a group of like Chinese people or a group of like I don't know like white people like they're all like don't generally I think they seem more comfortable sticking together I don't know how true this is it's just my like observations but I think in general it's not I haven't seen I haven't noticed like a whole lot of differences when it comes to that interesting it is a great experience and what about suggestions we know that most of the students are applying to MIT Harvard is Stanford so they will definitely watch your interview so any kind of advice you want to give them I feel like the advice that I usually give people is to really just be genuine in your application I know obviously like it's MIT right and you like want to go to like to a good school but in the end like the most important thing is finding a school that fits your interest like if it's actually like fits who you are as a person because if you like end up coming to a school and you don't feel like your personality aligns with like the rest of the student body or like your values aligned just like with the school you won't be very happy so I think being genuine in your application is really important so you can truly show your character who you are to the admissions office they can make the Judgment like okay would this person be happy at our school because I think in general obviously they can make mistakes sometimes and like they can't accept every single like qualified student but I think in general they have a sense of like the kind of student that would Thrive not only academically but like socially and emotionally at that college so truly just like being yourself like just like being genuine in your essays is really important I think Okay and like college admissions colleges and students who are applying you can say that Mary system they're also like a boy and girl knows each other very well and we are connected with each other and best fit for both of them so they've been like marriage so it's time for apologies they're also working on the same kind of concept they also find the same fit so it is true that kind of Mythology like concept yeah exactly yes like not if you don't get into a colleges not because you weren't like good enough it's just like the it just like wasn't a good fit and I think being happier somewhere else anyway so I think it's a good thing yeah exactly because if you didn't select it in MIT and other top universities it doesn't mean that you will never do anything and your life is really it's completely wrong because it's about fit best fit so and what about your future goals what are you planning yeah so I've been really thinking about that this this summer but yeah I'm not completely sure yet but I discovered that I really do enjoy product design after this like toy product design class so I really want to try to continue doing something like that yeah just like hopefully like work like I don't know the ultimate dream is to one day like have a startup and like kind of develop my own product and like so that I can like help people in everyday life is something I really want to do I don't know like it took me a while to get there I think but it is something I I really wanted to do for a while okay amazing so like that product or that thing is related to science technology or you just want to build any product which is revolutionary or will help thousands of peoples so what kind of product currently I don't have like a specific thing I think I'd probably like more more General less like lesser like Medical Technology but yeah I don't know I just really like making making cool things inventing things I like just like working with my hands my groups for my toy product design class is planning on like continuing to develop our toy and so I although I feel like the it's like not as feasible because of like just the various Logistics I really enjoyed just like researching like different like the patents like how patents work and like how manufacturing works and things like that so currently working on that trying to make that toy into like an actual like marketable product but other than that I don't have a good idea of what I want to make in the future yet yeah and I think your family or you can say that father created a sport I think like like a toy of MIT which is like I'm talking about oh yeah I know that was just a stuffed animal that my mom taught me when she visited Boston with my brother and my dad for a fencing competition I believe and while she was there she just she just got a slow she gonna push you from there from The Coop so she gave it to me for like good luck I guess yeah I don't know yeah okay amazing like I love that sloth and I I love when you created that video and it was your brother's birthday I think two days ago so happy birthday to your brother yeah thank you thank you yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah your family is amazing so can you explain about your family how many members are there and what about their dreams like your brother also want to get into MIT or have any kind of other dreams yeah my brother's still pretty young so it's a bit too early to tell for him yeah my sister is at currently at UPenn studying digital media design yeah I don't know she wants to go into like animation my brother again like still too early to tell he is getting more interested in coding right now but currently he still spends most of his days just like playing Minecraft so he's still young he's still young so yeah absolutely and it was great like your sister she's uh Rising senior this year yeah Rising senior okay amazing and what about your friend what kind of friends you have in MIT and how you are like spending your time these yeah so I find a lot of my friends through like just like various like clubs and activities that I do so one example is like the fencing team I'm on the varsity fencing team at MIT so I spend a lot of time with them I also I'm also in a sorority which is something I never thought I would do kind of coming into college I didn't think I would join Greek life but Greek life is pretty different at MIT I would say it's more relaxed or at least like some of them are more relaxed so yeah um yeah I'm in a sorority so I have I've made some like red do that as well I also dorm culture is really big at MIT so a lot of people find like their main friend groups just like they're people who are living in their dorm or they're like Wing So I have a couple friends I lived in next house this past year and so a couple friends in next house as well yeah other than that like classes yeah yeah a lot of it is just like shared shared activities great and Christine any one of them who is Indian any student you know um yeah I guess like my closest right like is this okay yeah but he's probably not super available to talk right now because he's doing research and didn't work so yeah amazing and you say that you will build product so you are interested in entrepreneurship or building business like that yeah yeah I've always really dreamed of like becoming an entrepreneur setting my own work hours I never been a fan of the idea of like a nine to five office job so the idea of like being my own boss and like it may also work from home sometimes is pretty appealing to me so yeah I hope to one day like be an entrepreneur okay amazing interesting and like there are lots of his friends they are just struggling with their asses so also you proved that like it doesn't necessary to be meritorious or only have a STEM related like extra curriculars because you prove that you can also get into MIT or top universities if you are interested or just passionate about learning so any kind of suggestions for them don't just focus on things only for lack of college admissions and focus on your personal goals and passions yeah I think you put it really well it's like yes don't just focus on like what most people think that colleges want to see like don't just like check the box like oh like yeah National Honor Society oh volunteer hours oh debate team model UI like these are things that a lot of people do because they think colleges will like that and and sometimes yeah like oh it's cool to see like okay yeah they have like good talking skills they're they can be a good leader but they see so many of those that you need to distinguish yourself in some other way and the best way to do that is through some sort of passion project so for me it was like my Jens connect like volunteer program that I really I really just love doing that I said so much of my time doing that just because I love doing the work and so if you can find something like that for yourself it'd be really just like really worthwhile I think to pursue that and use that as a way to like stand out okay and Jen's connect is currently active or like someone else managing it like are you currently managing or currently working on it yeah so since the pandemic is like officially over now it has kind of come to a halt some of the Buddies like pairing still talk is because like they're friends but I would say like most of the seniors feel like they don't feel as isolated anymore since they're able to see their like friends and family now so in general it's like kind of coming to a hole but I see that as a really good thing because that means that the seniors aren't feeling as isolated anymore and they don't need that kind of like help and support as much so yeah it has come to a halt but I'm I'm pretty happy about that I think it's a good thing after getting into MIT you find that like that kind of students are likely to get into MIT so any specific type of students you find out like okay then kind of a student have more chances of getting into MIT okay this is not food at all this is just again just something I noticed and not probably this doesn't actually make any difference but something I've noticed that almost like everyone I talk to loves to cook loves to bake or is some sort of big foodie and I feel I have this like Siri this is kind of stupid but I have this theory that MIT likes students who can cook or bake because some of the other gorhams are like cook for yourself because their meal plan is very like their MIT dining is like if the food is okay but they lose millions of dollars every single year for some reason so I think they like the idea of students being able to cook for themselves just so they know how to sustain themselves so a lot of people that I know talked about baking or cooking or some sort of food related thing in their essays so I thought that was kind of funny that that sounds like some kind of like connection coincidence that so many people talk about this and got it yeah but other than that I would just say like the people here are incredibly nice incredibly collaborative and always a lot of people are like have an entrepreneurial spirit and just like really value learning so you know if you're like if you're like that I think you should definitely like give it a shot yeah yeah and it was funny but like after this interview some students will start cooking or baking because they believe well yeah like it was funny and some students are thinking not students everyone are thinking that like MIT students are different kind of students they have different abilities and different kind of intelligence so it is wrong I think because they are also human beings and they love to being and cooking so I'm not suggesting to all students if you are not interested in cooking and baking and so bad don't they start yeah but if you do like you know maybe maybe pursue that a little bit more yeah yeah if you like that then totally understandable start baking start cooking and it is a great extra curricular and it will give you motivation or you can say that self-confidence because you will definitely enjoy baking or cooking so that's the whole point of view and what about like every day I watch many news articles or everything about MIT every day like there is something creative or Innovations so what about those Innovations like these Innovations are from MIT professors or most of the time from students yeah so I was okay so MIT has these things called like undergraduate research opportunity program called Europe and basically that means that undergraduate students can just like reach out to professors and ask for research opportunities and a lot of the time professors will have like work for you to do and some sort of project they're working on and so it's relatively easy to find like research as an undergrad you really just have to like reach out to about I reached out to like two professors and both of them got back to me and I'm now working with one of them for like two weeks two projects like both last semester and the summer so a lot of students do research like that and yeah sometimes that like research gets like published in like those techniques articles and stuff so it's really exciting so you can you can be like published as like an undergraduate and like do that a lot I think I'm not sure I don't remember the exact number but there's like something like 90 of MIT undergrads do a year off in their time in MIT so yeah a lot of people do research it's really easy to get it yeah yeah amazing like if any student want to pursue their career any research so MIT is the best place and like there are lots of things and as you also mentioned that your school didn't provide EP classes so what about that like are you thinking that EP class is mandatory important in college obligation yeah so obviously it's not mandatory I did look so my my school didn't have AP classes but they replaced them with their own like advanced classes because they just didn't like the curriculum and pacing of AP classes so yeah they didn't have APS they also got rid of finals so I almost never had like experience studying for like end of the year cumulative finals which I will say like was great when I was in high school because that meant I like didn't have to work as hard but also when I came to MIT was a pretty hard transition so I kind of wish that my school did have like APS and exams because just because I would have been more prepared I think at least from the exam front and for AP classes I wish I had at least had songs so I could get credit for some classes in college because this is something that I worried about at the beginning of the year where I felt like a lot of my friends had um ASC or like placed out of classes or gotten credit for classes through APS or like just because they had learned some like advanced stuff before but I didn't feel comfortable trying to test out of any classes and I couldn't get credit for anything because it was in AP classes so I felt a bit behind but as I like went on I feel like I realized like oh it's like it's okay like a lot of other people are in my same boat as well then they don't like they'd had they didn't like skip any classes and they're doing just fine and I'm doing just fine so it was good okay so it means sometime it is hard to manage classes in MIT because like many students also mentioned that MIT classes are difficult and challenging and you saw any kind of case or any student who got bad grades or back in their semesters or sell any glasses so if any student felt any classes so what is result any specific kind of thing you know so yeah some people do end up struggling in their classes either due to like just like academic reasons or just like mental like emotional reasons then so it does happen but I think that MIT is like s Cube like student Support Services Program is really good about helping students kind of feel better about that so it does happen but you can always bounce back from it don't worry about it and there's also like yeah it's like there's there's resources in place so I just have a question like we are working for as a non-profit and helping International students and our organization is across the sky limits and we are nearly focusing on International students so we are helping by providing them free study material for SAT exams and everything and we are also trying to connect students who are applying and we are also making community so any kind of view for that like how we can improve and how we can proceed to help more students Brothers I mean I think what you're doing is great I feel like interviewing various like different profiles and kind of getting different like sense of the kind of student that like can get into my team even if they're not like the conventional student that's great I think just like showing people that yeah I feel I think I was very discouraged and I think this could have been good for me to know when I was applying that like I almost didn't apply to MIT because I was like there's no way I'm gonna get in like I'm not a stem kid like they're either they have no there's no point for me to apply so I almost didn't but I think like yeah like having like interviews like this to show like all the different kinds of profiles and kind of people kind of give people representation you know be like oh yeah like oh like my purple is kind of similar to her or him like I can maybe I can give it a shot too you know that's like those that's really important if you go to see yeah interesting interesting I love that and I personally love your profile like your profile have the uniqueness and like it will like break the many students have not made that they must have to pursue STEM related field so that was the main thing and what about your sat preparation like any experience about your scent preparation yeah so I think I've said around like a year preparing I first took a diagnostic test just to see what my like Baseline was and I think I got like a 1470 and then yeah just like over the next year I just spent like pretty much every week or every two weeks I took another practice test and I just like went through it tried to like escort it and then try to see like where I made mistakes or where I even felt like unsure like even if I guessed the answer right like how could I make sure that I truly know the answer next time you know so really going through question my question to like understand each question like fully and the answer and kind of like how you get to that answer is really important but I ended up getting a 1560 I think so like it was good enough for me like yeah I was just aiming for anything above 1550 so after that finished went on like move on to other things yeah okay amazing most of these brands are just like Bend there preparing or practicing they're just like a completed one question and if they're not succeed they'll just move forward but you said that try to like understand the whole question whole question and answer and also analyze like if you does make any kind of mistake so try to analyze the whole thing like why did you make mistake and try to understand that concept very well so yeah it was great like great suggestion or team and any other team like like first of all you used Khan Academy or any other study materials yeah so I actually used on Reddit there's an entire just like link with like a lot like like tons of tons of practice exams like real official practice exams like it really it's the official test from previous years so I I just basically just like went down that list it was really helpful I think just like being able to just like keep doing it yeah amazing and yeah and I will definitely add the link of those Reddit like yeah I will find I think I know those links so I will add those links in the description and it will definitely help to all the students and like it was a great interview and thank you for giving your time and your first of all you are too honest genuine and beautiful like an angel you can say that because like when I was just messaged you you like replied and like always ready for help so why I love that and that kind of nature is I can say that it is only in few my students and few people's I saw so I love that so thank you for helping all the students and sharing your goals or everything so any kind of things you want to share with the students okay like there are thousands of international students so anything you want to share yeah first of all thank you so much for the kind words I really appreciate it and yeah so I could put my email in the description or honestly put in the chat and if anyone wants to ask me questions just feel free I can't promise I'll respond quick super quickly because I will be busy this summer but I gotta get I would try to get to all of them I strongly suggest to all his friends if you have any kind of like most important question or you find that it is like a must to know then you can email otherwise don't spam Christian female because most of the time students just want to like know how you get got into MIT they just have a repented world so if you have a question how to get into MIT so don't email to Christine but if you have any kind of specific question and if a specific doubts then you can feel free to reach out Christine yeah so that was my point of view so yeah it was great interview and like you know Mandarin I think yeah absolutely you know Mandarin yeah so yeah so like if we want to say that cross the style meds so how we can say that in Mandarin cross the skywards oh gosh I oh I don't know how to say sky limits uh okay my Mandarin is actually not the best but let me see let me try to I'm gonna use Google Translate and see how correct their translation is first dive Kylie weights I don't think that's very good actually unfortunately I'm not sure I feel like I haven't really ever yeah I took Chinese school when I was in Middle School but then I stopped and I can only do like basic conversation yeah unfortunately but it makes sense so sorry yeah okay okay it's okay it's okay I will use Google translator because I want to know how to say like Cross by style right like it's sort of a community man so I just want to like understand so I have many students from China so I I want to use that word in front of them so that's amazing so thank you for sharing your own views and you're so kind so thank you Christine happy to talk all right across the sky limits okay thank you okay bye-bye Christine all right thank you so much foreign [Music]

Channel: Krishna MIT

Views: 9,641

Keywords: how to get into mit as an international student, how to get into mit from india with scholarship, how to get into mit engineering, mit student interview, mit student vlog, mit admissions process, mit admissions, mit admissions reaction, mit admissions requirements, how to get into, how to get into harvard, how to get into stanford, how to get into ivy league schools, how to get into ivy league, how to get into ivy league with low gpa, how to score full in sat, mit, harvard

Id: BCGAC3OIPuc

Length: 34min 57sec (2097 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 12 2023