MIT. It stands for Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It’s the Harvard for students who want to study math, engineering or any type of technology. Last year, almost 27,000 high school graduates applied, hoping to be an incoming freshman. Of those, only 4.1% were accepted.
When SBHS senior Isabel Wellins found out she got accepted, she shrugged.
“I saw it and was like, ‘Oh, it must not have been that hard,’” said Wellins.
No, she’s not full of herself. According to other SBHS students, she’s actually quite humble. And, she knows her reaction isn’t normal.
“[I know] that sounds bad,” said Wellins. “ ‘Cuz you see the craziest kids.”
According to Wellins, it’s not uncommon to see MIT applicants who started a non-profit, won first place at a national math competition, or even published a research paper. But, she didn’t do any of that.
“I didn’t do anything crazy,” she said. “I was just doing my thing.”
Wellins is one of two SBHS seniors that got into top tier universities from the class of 2024. The other is Diego Figueroa, who got a full-ride to Northwestern. Wellins will be studying mechanical engineering, whereas Figueroa will be studying electrical engineering. Both are stellar students, who rank number two and number three in their senior class, respectively. Both participate in a litany of extracurricular activities: National, Math, Science, English, and Social Studies Honor Societies, swimming, soccer, and softball. But, there may have been something else that put a thumb on the scale for each of these stand-out students. Both of them participated in preparatory programs outside of school.
Last year, Wellins took part in the MIT Introduction to Engineering and Science Semester (MITES) program, where she participated in online courses, social events, workshops, and webinars throughout the school year. She also attended college admissions counseling via interactive Zoom meetings and conferences.
“It is a great way to meet new people who are like-minded and to get information from admissions counselors,” she said.
Another activity that may have boosted her chances of getting admitted to MIT was participation in the MIT WISE program, or Weekend Immersion in Science and Engineering. This program featured an all expense paid two-day trip to the MIT campus in Boston, where students got a first-hand glimpse of campus life.
“I liked their programs, and it’s MIT obviously,” said Wellins. “But I did a program there over the summer and that’s when I realized that I liked the school.”
Wellins plans on majoring in mechanical engineering at MIT to pursue a career in prosthetics design. During the summer before her junior year, she participated in an internship at a prosthetics clinic.
“I got to see patients and watch and learn a lot,” said Wellins. “It was more personal because I got to hear stories and you get to watch people learn to use their limbs again.”
On the other hand, Fiegueroa decided to embark on the college admissions process in different way. The first thing he did was collect all the information, emails, flyers and letters, from all of the colleges and universities that contacted him. He put them together in a color-coded spreadsheet. He had exactly 160 schools.
“I organized them by location, acceptance rate and school size,” he said. “I didn’t want a huge school.”
One of those contacts came from QuestBridge, a program which offers scholarships to the nation’s most prestigious universities to high-achieving, low-income students.
In the summer before senior year, Figueroa participated in a National College Admissions conference hosted by QuestBridge College Prep Scholar, which he was admitted to in the spring of junior year. The daylong online conference allowed students to meet college admissions advisors from 50 different schools. Prep Scholars also increased his chances of receiving a scholarship from Questbridge.
“The Prep Scholar program is a program for low-income students that introduces them to the best schools in the country,” said Figueroa.
He was also encouraged to apply to QuestBridge by a college adviser, Manuela Decotto-Sanchez, who came to him for free by way of the Matriculate program. The program connects low-income, high- achieving juniors and seniors to a college advisor for no cost. Sanchez is an international student from Argentina who attends Williams College.
“She kind of got me into all my colleges,” he said. “Matriculate helps kids like me apply to their schools.”
It panned out for him, as he received a full-ride scholarship to Northwestern University.
“At first I just didn’t believe it,” he said. “And then my dad refused to believe that I won. He thought it was a scam.”
Northwestern accepts 7.2% of students who apply and costs about $89,000 per year. But, for Figueroa it won’t cost him a dime.
“QuestBridge gave me a chance that I could never dream of,” said Figueroa. “A chance of winning a full ride.”
Although Wellins will receive financial aid from MIT and scholarships from other organizations, the total cost of attending the university will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“I’ll go broke for MIT,” she said.
