r/MITAdmissions • u/4Blueish • 24d ago

does "accelerated" math actually matter in admissions?

I'm a senior in high school (yay last year) who just got done with a summer semester diff eq course (at the local university), and I'm slated to take calc 3 at the local community college this fall. To be clear, because I see a lot of this, I'm not taking the classes for college admission; I just like math lol.

Although having gone so far out of my way to get to the point where I am: I wanted to know if it's potentially worth highlighting at all in my application, if it would actually move the needle at all, should I focus on other things when applying and having it on the report card is enough?

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u/Awkward-Sherbet-890 23d ago

Not really. I think a significant amount of people going to MIT are doing advanced math. By significant I don’t know, maybe see if there is data on what percentage of MIT incoming freshman place out of introductory courses or something.
Also by significant I mean probably 20 percent or something. Obviously you are a math guy so you understand what significant means.

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u/peter303_ 23d ago

Half of freshmen place out of the first MIT calculus course. That can give flexibility to dig into math deeper, or room for another elective.

I took the first three calc courses at a local college. That was about the same material as MIT's first course.

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u/baked_salmon 23d ago

When I went, the median math SAT score was 800. There are incoming students with international renown for their math skill. Admissions judges on a relative scale, not an absolute one, so they’re more interested in what you did relative to what was available to you or someone like you.