My Chances Are?

[ibfederer]

How are you getting 6s in each subject if all your grades are 90+? The official May 2013 grade boundaries can be found here:

http://www.ibsurvival.com/topic/25025-may-2013-official-grade-boundaries/

Keep your grades up and you're probably in with a chance, but remember Harvard have the lowest acceptance rate, this year they only took in 3% of applicants.

Good luck

Wrong, Harvard accepted 5.9%. Stanford was lowest, with 5.1%.

Haha sorry I based my figures off of what our teacher told us

All good! Harvard does seem to be overrated...

I suspect that high grades are not actually a basis for serious consideration of your application - rather, it is a box for them to check. A pre-requisite to be considered, if you will.

I had a few friends who are currently in MIT, and the fact of the matter was that you could *tell* they were heading there eventually. The way they talked about their subject with confidence, curiosity and passion was inspiring. These were the kids that were heading places regardless of the university they eventually went to, and that was what made them attractive to the best universities. They were also the people tinkering around with their outdated robotics technology after school ended.

When I read their essays, and their references, it was a class higher than the average students'. Their essays showed a genuine passion in their subject/field, and their reference was not the standard "X is a very capable and diligent student blah blah". The references mentioned the potential of the student, their non-standard traits (an almost compulsive need to question facts, or the rather annoying habit of pestering their teacher with questions not in the syllabus), an anecdote or two about the uniqueness of the student, etc.

In fact, their essays were - for lack of a better word - "quirky". They were just a little too informal, not particularly stylishly written or even (gasp!) had bullet points. However, they were shockingly interesting and heartfelt. The admissions personnel would have to be mad not to seriously consider them.

Hence, I think perhaps you should focus less on getting good marks to "get into" Harvard or MIT or any of those universities, and instead focus on developing yourself in the field you like. The IB is easy to score well in - it's not particularly a great achievement by itself, and US universities tend to recognize this. Do well in the IB to get your foot in the door, but it's really only your passion and drive in the actual subject itself that'll get you into the very best universities.

Wonderful answer, well said.