<p>I was deferred and then rejected. I’ve gotten over it. I was absolutely impressed by the MIT admissions staff every step of the way though.
Two things.
- It would be nice to be able to also submit our CommonApp essay (although I liked the short format). I spent a lot of time on it and felt like it contained information that I was just unable to put in my MIT short responses. I realize that this may be a calculated decision based on how much time each reader has. This is a fairly minor issue imo.
- Tell the deferrals SOMETHING personal. A sentence or two from their reader or the committee as to what they can specifically do to improve their application before RD. Paraphrasing, but “Keep your grades up and keep following your passions” is mind-blowingly generic and doesn’t give much guidance. That was what we had been doing for 3.5 years and it obviously wasn’t good enough to get in EA. If you did this, it would be one more place where MIT admissions owns everyone else.
Again, I was super-impressed by the whole process and if any other school did this I would have way more complaints/suggestions.</p>