[colinsidoti]

I went to MIT for EECS and left on voluntary withdrawal after three semesters. There were two highlights of my application to MIT: 1. I was the first person to make online, real-time games for the iPhone (pre App Store with AJAX). 2. I held a full time developer job for two summers in a row, and part time two days per week during the school year between.

Once I got to MIT, I learned that my grades and SAT scores were below most of my peers. I had no "hook", and those two points above are really the only unique things I could attribute my success to.

The kicker is, I did those two things without MIT, and you could do cool things without MIT too. Nothing I did was particularly hard, they just took a lot of work.

You say you "don't have the option to attend MIT", but you're wrong. You don't have the option to start MIT with kids the same age as you. I'm willing to bet that if you went out and built some cool things, MIT would be happy to offer you admission. But don't build things because you want to get into MIT, build things because you want to build them, I promise they can tell the difference.

But this brings up an even bigger question. If you're able to build things that are so cool that they could get you into MIT, would you really still want to go to MIT to get an education? Or would you rather continue building cool things?

To answer your question more directly: No, your not at a disadvantage. You're in a different place, but you can still go wherever you want.

[alecbenzer]

I got the opposite end of that stick. Me and a friend both tried for MIT. I had (relatively significantly) higher grades and test scores but he got in and I didn't because he had built a cool website and I hadn't really built anything I could show off (also my SATs could have been better - if they were I suppose I might have gotten in via merit of numbers; the rest of my application wasn't _completely_ barren). I wonder if he'll find MIT like you did.

OP: The question has been on my mind as well (this is kind of a fresh wound). I keep telling myself that great people make themselves, they aren't made by schools. I'd tell you that, too, except I haven't even started college yet, so it's kind of early to go around telling other people that - might just be wishful thinking (though I'd imagine not completely).