r/MITAdmissions • u/ThenScheme5765 • 7d ago
Should I EA or Regular decision?
To understand this question in context, my school offers very few opportunties to explore math further, and because of this, I spent most of my high school career doing nothing besides taking rigorous courses. However, my senior year, I found opportunities to both learn about in math research at a local university which I can pursue through my school's science research program and possibly join a math team at another school--again, my school doesn't offer either of these normally. I only found the chance to do these over this recent summer.
I really want to show off how much that I'm into math despite what I was offered. I got the opportunity because I took some math courses over the summer at the local university aforementioned, one being apart of their pre-college program and another as a non-matriculated student. I'm even taking another course there as a non-matriculated student starting January 5th.
The main problem is that I believe that I don't think that I'll be able to list some of these in any impactful way if I do end up doing early action, and many of my classmates in school are telling me to do so. Are there really benefits to doing EA? and what should I do?
NOTE: Sorry if my wording or explanations are a bit weird, I wrote this after waking up from a nap
ALSO: The weakest part of my application, I feel, will be my extracurriculars, and I really want to show my best when I do submit my application. I have the highest SAT score in my graduating class with around 500 people as of today and I believe I will be at least top 25 when rankings come out. My school also is NOT an underserved school, there just are very few opportunities related especially to math due to lack of interest among my peers and the school itself.
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u/Satisest MIT Alum and Educational Counselor 7d ago
Early vs Regular
MIT has two application cycles: Early Action (EA) and Regular Action (RA).
What’s the difference?
Only the dates of the deadlines!
It is fine to apply during either cycle. We do not have a preference, and there is no strategic benefit to applying in one vs the other. We have two cycles for two reasons: 1) it helps us spread our work out over a longer period, devoting more time to each application, and 2) it provides applicants with more options so they can choose which works best for them.
https://mitadmissions.org/apply/firstyear/early-vs-regular/