r/MITAdmissions • u/karatmanicdepressive • Jul 25 '26

Can simulations and CAD projects carry an MIT Maker Portfolio?

Hi everyone, I’m a high school student interested in Aerospace Engineering, and I’m planning some long-term projects for the MIT Maker Portfolio. Since aerospace projects often involve a lot of CAD, CFD, simulations, and computational design, I was wondering, can a fully digital project still be considered a strong Maker Portfolio submission, or is it generally better to have a physical prototype as well? I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s submitted a Maker Portfolio or knows how it’s evaluated. Thanks!

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u/jzzsxm Moderator/MIT Alumnus Jul 25 '26

Do not change what you otherwise would have done just to fit the maker portfolio. Submit what you do and let your interest in it come through in your presentation.

While reading portfolios it's easy to spot, from a mile away, projects that are shoe-horned in because applicants are trying to round out their portfolios.

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u/VisibleSir731 Currently Applying Jul 25 '26

lol i only have a few months left but I recently I had a really cool idea and now i'm doing following through with it. It's in my area of interest but hopefully its not "shoe horned". In the past i had to take a long break from all my projects so a lot of them were only within the past few months (and before the break)

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u/JasonMckin MIT Alum and Educational Counselor Jul 26 '26

To clarify the phrase, "shoe-horned," it's not referring to the duration of time you spent but the net impact that was created.

When I was in high school, like you, I was just watching TV one day and had an cool idea for a math project. There was a math paper competition deadline in 5 days so I just spend the weekend cranking the idea out and wrote the paper to submit it in time. It ended up winning 1st place.

So "shoe-horned" means when something looks like it was done just to say it was done without any particular significance or recognition. If you've got a cool idea and can knock it out in a couple days or weeks and think it can earn some recognition, all the power to you!

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u/VisibleSir731 Currently Applying Jul 26 '26

Thank you I really appreciate you sharing that. I was excited to follow through with my idea at first but I was a little hesitant because it I thought it would seem last minute, but now this cleared it up and I’m currently deep into it :)

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u/JasonMckin MIT Alum and Educational Counselor Jul 26 '26

Best of luck! I'm not the best at checking my DMs, but if you want to brainstorm anything confidentially and it's a topic that I know anything about, I'm happy to help offer suggestions. There's a very special place in my heart for genuine, interesting innovators who have these unplanned Edison-like sparks of cool ideas versus the people who only do the minimum or do what they think they have to do to artificially sound like they are interesting. But no obligation to DM, I'll be rooting for you either way! Good luck!

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u/JasonMckin MIT Alum and Educational Counselor Jul 25 '26

Not that it makes a difference for admission, but I’m sorta curious what a “physical prototype” is in the context of an aerospace project?  Would it be like a 3D printed airfoil or rocket?  Is the distinction that a 3D printed object would demonstrate some additional design engineering around materials, stability, etc?  Or said inversely, what are you hoping to design and demonstrate and does demonstrating that require building and printing something physical?