This video contains everything you need to know if you're an international high school or
college student wanting to attend MIT, Caltech, Stanford, CMU or any other top
tier technical school in the United States. In this video I'm going to reveal
a loophole that might enable you to get into these schools without
having to be a complete genius, nor having perfect grades. So make sure not
to miss this by watching the whole video. There is so much information out
there about college admissions but most of these tips and tricks don't really
apply to you if you're an international student. These numbers apply to Americans only. Also i'll make a separate video
talking about PhD admissions, as they are a completely different story This video will be divided into three parts: 1. I'm going to discuss the statistics
specifically for international students 2. Then i'm going to talk about how you can
maximize your chances of getting admitted to MIT 3. And lastly i'm going to have a discussion
with three classmates who successfully got admitted as international students
from Europe, Asia, and Latin America If you're new to this channel i'm
an international PhD student at MIT And I have friends in admissions department Also consider subscribing to my channel
so you don't miss any new videos coming out about startups, internships, top-tier
university admissions, and other topics. Let's start with some numbers. As
the world's population keeps growing, more and more high school
students apply to university. At the same time MIT continues being
ranked number one university in the world therefore unfortunately we're
seeing a drop in acceptance rates. For American applicants in 2008 the acceptance
rate has been hovering in around 12% Now, just 14 years later this
dropped down to just over 4%. For internationals, this is even worse.
The acceptance rate has been just 1%. Yes, only 123 out of the over 9000
international applicants got admitted last year From my observations and interactions these
123 students can be split into two groups: The 1st and very small group
are exceptional geniuses Students who either won gold medals at
International Physics and Math Olympiad, or some kids who graduated from
high school by the age of 12 This is a very small group
and I've never been in it The 2nd group out of these 123 students are
"regular" smart people so they typically had good grades in high school, did
something that made them stand out, had good scores with the standardized test, and
lastly they got a little bit lucky to get in This brings us to the second part of this video I'll give you some tricks to maximize
your chances of getting into MIT The nice thing about MIT's admission process
is that they look at you as a whole person not just the numbers you represent on the page Obviously good grades and test
scores are very important, but they alone will not get you into
MIT – you've gotta stand out somehow! Furthermore MIT doesn't have any
unfair legacy admissions which is something you can often see in schools such
as Harvard or University of Pennsylvania, where having affluent or alumni parents will
easily 10-fold their chances of getting admitted Trump: "I went to an Ivy League school. I'm very highly educated, I know
words, I have the best words" First off you've got to find out
what you're truly passionate about. This can be research, internships, science,
or maybe some kind of sports competitions But it is important that you get really good
at something, and then stand out with it. MIT as an academic institution
is doing cutting-edge research Anything from cancer research to AI.
And students have the opportunity to join laboratories very early on in their studies Therefore, if you have
previous research experience, this is going to go really into your advantage Science and math olympiads are also a
very good way to showcase your talent Many international undergrads at MIT have
won some kind of competition in that area The most recognized competitions are the international physics olympiad (IPhO), math
(IMO), informatics (IOI) and chemistry (IChO) If you win a gold medal from any of these, you're almost guaranteed to get into
this school or any other top school But even a bronze medal is
a very very good advantage Feel free to comment down below if you have
any questions about these competitions, or if you know about any other
competitions that might really help Another key thing to talk about is timing –
you should plan well in advance what you want to do then optimize everything you do in your
life including internships, research, etc., to build up a resume that will
get you where you want to go The best time to start to do this is right now Next up: school experience in the US During a semester or a year abroad in the US will significantly boost your
chances of getting admitted Whether it's a high school exchange, or
an exchange during your bachelor's degree There are a lot of interesting programs that can
support you, such as the Rotary International I'll put a link in the description Here's a little loophole. And no, this is not yet the big loophole that
announced at the beginning of the video. Sports competitions! I know what you're thinking.
Maybe MIT may not be as much into sports such as Stanford or Harvard, but a coach at MIT can still
give you that final "push" to get you admitted When I was in high school, I
was really good at triathlon I even won a national championship
in triathlon in Croatia Therefore, I reached out to an MIT coach to see
if i could get supported as a student-athlete Here's a real email from MIT's head coach As you can see triathlon is not an official
sport at MIT. But track and field is. What he told me is, essentially, that if
I was able to run 5km in less than 16 min, he would be able to put a small "request"
to the admissions department for me This may sound quite challenging,
but with a few years of training, it's not actually that hard to reach Unfortunately, as I started
training for many hours per day, I injured my leg and ultimately couldn't make it On a more positive note here's a
discussion with my international classmates who successfully got admitted to MIT Hi I'm Arbri, I'm a second year
student studying biological engineering and I'm from Shkodër, Albania Right now I'm researching cancer
genetics, which is pretty cool Hi my name is Grecia, I'm from Guadalajara, Mexico I did my undergrad at MIT in Physics and
EECS, I'm currently doing my master's Hello, I'm Ley, I'm from Kota,
India. I'm an undergraduate senior studying computer science and economics Hello my name is penguin I'm
from Antarctica and I study electrical engineering at MIT, and I'm so smart Does anyone have a pencil? A pencil? I
feel so more comfortable with a pencil Oh, an Apple pencil! So, thank you guys so much for being here. I'm
very glad that you made it on this weekend, and I'm really curious to hear your
stories about how you got into MIT and a general overview of all the international
people that you know here – How they got into MIT Before MIT, I did math in high school. Being
from Albania it's, I think, easier to be part of national teams. And I also did one
exchange here, in St. Louis in Missouri. So here in the US, for my senior year of
high school. And I think that gave me a lot of perspective so then coming to MIT was a
bit easier, I think, then it would normally be Oh nice, so you were at
the IMO (the math olympiad) That's right! Which year? 2019
– It was in Bath, in the UK How did you like it? How long did you
have to prepare for getting there? It took a while. When I think about it, I
think it was worth it. But it was so much work. But then when I got there,
I should have done a lot more work Just the people were very cool and the experience
was very awesome, so getting to know everyone. And then the coolest thing is, that some of the
people I met there I thought I was never going to see again, like Alessandre, but then I have them
in my classroom here at MIT. It's pretty cool Grecia, let's move on to you. Can you tell
us about your story and where you're from? Yeah, hi! I'm from Mexico and I did physics and math when I was in high
school. And, my story was sort of similar I think a lot of international kids
who get into MIT it's because they did international olympiads. So I went to IPhO, as
well. I did 2016 in Zürich, and 2017 in Indonesia. Yeah, it was definitely a big part of it. I did not do an exchange here in the US, so
definitely moving to MIT was my first time Yeah I had traveled to a lot of other countries
for competitions, but not to the US. But, I don't think it was hard to adapt, especially
when you're surrounded by all these olympiad kids So Lay, do you want to tell us
your story and where you're from? Yeah, I'm Lay. I'm from India.
When I was in high school, I also did Olympiads. I was focusing on physics. I went
to the IPhO and the Asian Physics of Olympiad. The IPhO was 2017 and 2016. Many people I know were there. Grecia was
there – that's where I'm first met Grecia. You know each other from
before? Yeah, it's crazy! Nice! And none of us knew that they were going
to MIT, I think. Yeah, that's crazy! I had no idea I would apply to MIT before going
to the olympiads, but then I saw many people who were applying to US universities, so I thought it
was a good idea and maybe I should give it a try Amazing! So, all three of you
went to physics / math olympiads, but you met quite a lot of undergrads
who got into MIT as internationals. How many of them are non-olympiads? How many of them got in, in another way? Do
you have any interesting stories? Something that I think it's not a pattern but
at least what I have seen for people that didn't do olympics as internationals, they usually
tend to have explored different countries. So I believe three people from the Balkans area
in particular, that lived in Europe, and then went to school in Europe for high school
or middle school and are accustomed to that diversity of thought and of work experience I think that's also something
that colleges tend to look for Well I'd rather not to point to specific
names, but I know what sort of projects they do to get into MIT without like necessary
having like a strong olympiad curriculum I know there's like a lot of summer
schools in US universities. These are pretty prestigious – people have to apply and
have a very outstanding scores in high school So they go to this exchange
program / summer schools, and I even know people who are entrepreneurs So, I even know people who
have their startups coming out of high school! wow! And then
they get into MIT because of that I actually know a few successful people
who have to delay their offers for a year or two, to keep working on their
companies and then coming to MIT That's it's really impressive. So they're like 17
years old and already have some companies? Yeah, yeah! Or at least they have ideas
or they have pitched their projects They have gone through some later stages,
so MIT really takes that into account Also something that I forgot to mention is, that I
think that it's harder to get an opportunity as a high school student, but there's a lot of people
who are able to get good research opportunities. That was not really my case, but I know people who
have even published or at least worked in some big projects doing research. And that's probably
even more tangible than going to Olympiads That's something we were able to do Thank you guys so much for participating in
this conversation. Thank you for having us All right, are you guys hungry? Are you recording that? Let's use the comment section
down below as a discussion forum, so everybody can read and benefit from my reply As promised, here is THE major loophole
that could get you admitted into MIT, Stanford, Harvard, or any other top school MASTER'S DEGREES! Getting into undergraduate or
PhD programs at these schools can be ridiculously hard, but getting admitted into a master's
program can be much easier for an international The thing is that the number of spots
for international applicants is very limited if you're applying for a bachelor's degree But for master's degree this limit is
either very high, or non-existent at all You can get into many master's
degree programs without having any crazy first-author publications,
or fancy internship experiences Having said that, keep in mind that
as a PhD student usually get paid, while as a master's student you have to pay Master's degrees aren't cheap! But if
you can do a master's degree one of the best universities in the world,
it's usually worth every penny Even if you don't get lucky and don't get
any financial support from the university nor family, it's often even
worth taking a loan for it The amount of connections and better
job opportunities you might get later will easily let you repay these loans The admission process can be rather soul-sucking, given all the bias and randomness that is involved
in the process and completely out of your control Nevertheless I hope that this video gave you some
valuable insights, and you learned something new If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up
and consider subscribing to my channel over here I wish you best of luck with
your academic journey! Goodbye! Hi, I'm Ley I'm from Kota, India
and I'm an undergraduate senior studying computer science and economics so
Grecia I wonder how did the penguin get into MIT yeah well the admissions committee realized
that there was very low representation from Antarctica and this guy getting us being
the best swimmer wait we don't have audio I was so ready!
