[jspatz1]

I have some experience in helping both Dean's List Finalist winners, and MIT admitted students, and would offer you these thoughts. Your status as a FIRST Dean's List Finalist did indeed help your admission chances. Perhaps it helped you move to no. 5000 on the list of applicants instead of no. 8000. You must realize that for each and every one of the thousands of applicants, there is a portfolio consisting of many, many nuggets of information and judgements about that applicant. ACT scores, SAT scores, grades, awards, extracurriculars, honors, projects, activities are all pebbles in your basket, but there are many pebbles, and they are all considered and weighed differently and subjectively by the multiple admissions officers who studied your application. Your Dean's List pebble was a large one in your basket there is no doubt, but it is only one pebble and cannot tip the scale on its own among the thousands of other baskets that you were weighed against. You say that you understood that a Dean's List Award was no guarantee, but it might be that deep down you were sort of hoping that it was.

When I have talked with admissions officers at MIT they express how difficult and painful it is to make their final selections from among so many worthy applicants. There are simply more applicants that should be admitted than they have slots for. The admission rate at such institutions is around 10%, and each and every applicant feels they have a good chance of being admitted, or they would not spend the considerable time, effort, and money it takes to apply. But in the end the officers must make their final selections based on the very subtle and subjective impressions they have from the fringes of your application. Those final impressions are not based much on hard data such as grades and scores and awards, but from the overall impression they get from your application and interview as a whole. At MIT they are always looking to build a class full of individuals who they judge are likely to achieve something great. They are looking for "spikes", not just a collection of high SAT scores or awards. How they judge those "spikes" is somewhat of a mystery, but it is not based much on data. As has already been stated in this thread, your scores, grades, and awards data will determines if you make the first 50% cut, which you probably did, but after that it becomes much more subjective.

Dean and FIRST are not misleading us when they claim that a Dean's List Finalist award in your portfolio will improve your chances of attending an elite university. It will. But you must keep in perspective the daunting odds you face when you apply to a Yale or an MIT. The numbers are so great that there will always be somewhat of a lottery nature to it. Be proud of your Dean's List status, and use it to help yourself get into another fine university.