From the Man himself - Brandon !!

So, this is an interesting question ... I can tell you about my experience and offer a few pieces of advice.

MIT was a great fit for me for several reasons. First of all, I love airplanes and applied that, knowing that I wanted to study Aerospace Engineering.

Secondly, I was able to get recruited to play basketball, which works a little differently at MIT. Basically, all of the student athletes have to go through the same admissions process, so Coach only recruits players with high GPAs and high SAT scores. Being D3, there are no scholarships but plenty of need based financial aid.

Thirdly, I think that I stood out as a pretty well rounded person. Mit gets a lot of applications from very very smart kids who can't write or talk to someone to save their life. To help with that there is an interview process as part of the application process after a kind of first round of selection. This was one of the biggest differences between a place like CalTech and MIT. When I visited CalTech I felt out of place because everyone there was so weird (for lack of a better word), while at MIT people were pretty normal, just happened to be really smart.

Ok, so advice ... First of all, they've got to do well in school. I know IB is intense but they should be shooting for all A's.

From there they've go to have something that sets them apart from all of the other students with good grades and good SAT scores. For me it was basketball and I think Sports are a great way to do it.

So I'd say that if they like basketball and will be able to play varsity ... Stick with it. It's going to take some sacrifice but it's all worth it in the end.

I'd also encourage them to get involved with some type of engineering extracurricular. For me it was radio controlled airplanes, I got into the hobby and started a club in high school. FIRST Robotics is a great high school team based competition that if Robinson doesn't have, it should.

Mu Alpha Theta is also excellent, I enjoyed my 4 years on the team and got to compete nationally, which I'm sure helped my application.

Beyond that I think student government was a great experience for me, so I'd also encourage some type of leadership activity. That could even be something like leading a church group or volunteering.

Ok, I'm now realizing that that's a lot of stuff, haha, so the general piece of advice is to just love school, dive as deep as they can into sports and engineering.

The rest will just flow from that. MIT wants students who do things because they love them, not because they think it's going to get them into a good school ... There is a big difference.

In terms of life at school, it has been an amazing experience for me. I fit into a fraternity right away and have made some deep friendships. The work is hard and there is an adjustment period for everyone, it's just a matter of going from one of the best in high school to middle of the pack (for me) in college and for some people that is too hard.

The basketball team was awesome, I got injured at the end of my sophomore year so I only played 2 years and coached a third, but those relationships made on the team were my strongest and the coach and I still talk regularly. My major was also a ton of fun and has allowed me to do things for work that I just wonder how they pay me to have so much fun, haha.

I got involved with a team called Design/Build/Fly, an international student competition, and pretty much all of my job opportunities have flown from that, plus we got to build planes with other people money!

I was able to be president of my fraternity my senior year, which gave me a ton of leadership experience. I even liked it so much I decided to stay another two years for grad school, haha, but now I'm looking forward to moving out to CA.

Also, while I'm at it, I'll chime in on the Public vs. Private University debate, which I'm sure comes up all the time in the IB program. UF would be free and is a great education, one of the best colleges in the country for many things. MIT costs a lot of money and even with financial aid, I had to take out significant student loans.

Obviously, I'm biased, but I think that the opportunities MIT has given me have been and will be well worth the price of admission. It has opened so many doors for me and given me access to its biggest strength ... its people. The network that I've established, not even really on purpose for most of my time here, is tremendous and will pretty much be the driving force behind my career ... besides a lot of hard work.

I'd love to give you guys a tour some time. I'm moving to San Diego in June, but feel free to email me with more questions, etc... I'd be happy to talk with your boys or even meet up next time I'm in Tampa (don't know when that will be unfortunately).

All the best
Brandon