<p>Im in the process of emailing my EC (I would call, but my schedule is all over the place, and I dont know their schedule). How should I go about the email? I know I should introduce myself, but what else? I dont want to just say Im scheduling an interview; I think that alone might come off as being a bit rude.</p>
<p>I think a simple “Hello, my name is ____, I’m applying EA/RA and I would like to request an interview with you.” should suffice.</p>
<p>Perhaps give your school and where you live.</p>
<p>That’s pretty much it. I would also ensure that the subject heading makes it clear that it is an MIT interview request.</p>
<p>Lastly, would it be rude to ask for my interview to be scheduled in December? ( I know the deadline is Dec. 10 to Schedule one).</p>
<p>No, it is not rude to ask for a December interview, but prior to 10 December is preferable, if possible, as we always get a mad rush of interview requests on the 9th and 10th of December.</p>
<p>I e-mailed my interviewer last sunday but he has still not replied. he left a home phone number-would it be okay to call him now or should i wait a few more days?</p>
<p>It’s been six days; give him a call.
:-)</p>
<p>Yesterday, I discovered that I had screwed up. </p>
<p>I had received an interview request at work, and I responded to it saying that I would get back to that candidate, sending my response from my desk at work. That was an error. That interview request was then separated from all of my other requests which are in a folder on my home e-mail, and when I looked for the interviews that I needed to schedule, that interview was not there.</p>
<p>So I forgot about the candidate. Yesterday the candidate wrote to me again, saying that they hadn’t heard from me in three weeks and asking what was going on? I was mortified. I consider myself to be a fairly conscientious EC, and here I just lost this candidate’s request. Auggghhhhh!</p>
<p>So why apart from the public self-flagellation am I reporting this here. It is just because mistakes do happen. Sure I haven’t made this kind of mistake before, and I will try to never allow myself to make this kind of mistake again, but there is a broader picture here. There is some misconception that the system always works perfectly, whereas anything with human beings involved does have an alarming tendency to go wrong from time to time. </p>
<p>So if you haven’t heard from your EC after a week, do write back, very politely asking what is going on. If you still don’t hear, contact the admissions office at <a href=“mailto:interview@mit.edu”>interview@mit.edu</a>, asking very politely for a change of EC. Don’t ever rudely demand to know why the EC has not responded. Anything can happen. Heck, the EC might have died suddenly. </p>
<p>Indeed, I have had the opposite mistake. One year I was contacted late by a student who swore that they had thought that they had e-mailed me requesting an interview, but he later found the request in his DRAFTS folder rather than in his SENT folder.</p>
<p>People make mistakes. They do happen. The system is pretty good at routing around the mistakes and correcting them. In my case, the candidate will have their interview in plenty of time for RD, if a week or two later than they had hoped. We can in exceptional circumstances petition the admissions office to accept the interview report or other part of the application late (though these have to be exceptional circumstances).</p>
<p>Relax. Don’t worry about it, but do follow up on your requests, just in case a mistake has been made.</p>
<p>My son was asked “to what other colleges has he applied for” by his interviewer. There’s nothing wrong with the question, but I was wondering what could be the interviewer’s reasons to ask it. What she wanted to know if the other colleges were also strong in science and engineering? If my son has thought about other options in case MIT didn’t accept him? Any ideas?</p>
<p>Yes, it’s not a nice question, but it is one that I have asked on a few occasions. </p>
<p>Once I asked it when talking to a candidate who spoke as if his MIT admission was assured. I appreciate showing confidence, but midway through the interview, I got to wondering if he had applied to any other schools at all. </p>
<p>In another case, I had a student for whom I thought that MIT was a bit of a reach, so I asked which other schools he had applied to and I got a list like Clara Bell College, Dame Emma Smith College, Keyokuk College, Derby State, and MIT**. To some degree I felt relieved, as it was clear that the student also felt that MIT was a reach, and I liked the student, and wished them luck, but I wasn’t hopeful.</p>
<p>Once or twice I must confess, I have asked it to try to give me a way of steering the conversation around to what the student likes to do. So if I ask and get a list like MIT, Caltech, Olin, Rose-Hulman, Rochester, then I have a clear picture that this is a candidate focused on engineering, and my followup question would be along the lines of what attracted him to the field, and why he/she was certain that this was the right field. Whereas if I get a list like MIT, Brown, Rice, Princeton, Wesleyan, I might indicate that there are a whole bunch of differences between these schools and ask what attracted him/her to MIT as well as to Rice, for example. If I get a list (and I have) like Darmstadt (Germany), Cambridge, Imperial (UK), UCL (UK), and MIT, I would talk about the differences between a UK, a German, and and American university experience and what attracted him to MIT and what conversely attracted him to Imperial.</p>
<p>It’s lazy, and I know I shouldn’t do it, but it is an easy way to move the conversation back on to a student’s personal interests. I should add that there is no wrong answer to this question. There is no answer that reflects badly on the student, apart from students who believe MIT to be a small liberal arts college and similar answers that show that they know nothing about MIT. Even in those cases, if the student is interviewing at the very beginning of the application cycle, even that does not necessarily reflect badly on the student.</p>
<p>-Mikalye</p>
<p>**Names have been changed</p>
<p>I had my interview last Sunday! It was amazing- I never felt nervous at all. What I loved the most was that it was a free flowing conversation, and we never has awkward moments. We interviewed each other basically. We discussed soo many topics from education in the US to the book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. He also did not ask me other schools I was applying to.</p>
<p>is it really bad if the interview was a tad bit awkward? or do the interviewers understand that it might be your first interview and that you might be a little nervous? -_-</p>
<p>Hmmm I was asked the “what other colleges like MIT are you applying to”, but then 2 seconds later he followed it up with “I know there’s no other place like MIT”, and I sort of just started talking from what he said there and he didn’t mention other colleges again…</p>
<p>After my interview a month and a half ago, I thought it was pretty ok. But the more I thought about it – the more I thought I did horribly!</p>
<p>1) I dressed pretty sloppily. A flowy top, sweater, jeans, sneakers. I had my huge backpack and my lunch bag dragging with me.</p>
<p>2) The first thing I said to describe myself was indepdent. My interviewer thought I didn’t like to work with people! And the fact that math team is one of my dedicated ECs didn’t help because that’s the epitome of individual work on teams. </p>
<p>3) I shouldn’t have been honest. She asked “How do you manage so many activites and maintain your work?” I answered “Even though I save things to the last minute, I always do more than what’s expected of me”. </p>
<p>4) She asked me what I wanted to major in. I said psychology. She said MIT doesn’t have a psych major. Oops! (The truth is I’m interested in a variety of things that I’m not exactly sure what my major will be. Psych is what I’m interested in most of all though. However, I was so caught up in the nervousness of the interview that I completely forgot to explain it).</p>
<p>Lastly, it wasn’t a conversation. She planned out the interview: She did a bit of talking (I’m too shy to interrupt or ask questions, instead I listened), I talked the whole time, she answered my questions. Sometimes when I gave answers she didn’t want, she would try to gear me in the correct direction. She didn’t laugh much either or smile. I have to be more prepared and less nervous next time!</p>
<p>@winnie – stop thinking about it. 
You can’t change it now, and you probably did fine. I know the minute I walked out of my interview I started thinking about all the things I could’ve done better… but then I stopped thinking about it. :)</p>
<p>I have several questions about the interview. First of all, how do you find your interviewer in the place where you will be interviewed? This sounds like a silly question, but really, I don’t want to be stuck asking random by-passers at a coffee shop about if they are interviewing me. </p>
<p>Second, how early should you arrive for the interview?</p>
<p>Lastly, would it be a good idea to bring a paper with a list of questions or areas you want to make sure you cover? Do most people do this? I would feel bad if there was something I forgot to mention in the spur of the moment…would interviewers regard having notes as unusual?</p>
<p>And (my second lastly 
has anyone ever brought a laptop to an interview? I feel that maybe having slides that kind of show a picture story of what’s important to me would be interesting. Has this been done before/how would it be viewed? It would only supplement what I’m saying, I think…</p>
<p>@neogreen:
Usually if you meet in a public place you’ll either see someone sitting alone looking as though he/she is waiting for someone or you’ll be the one sitting alone looking as though you are waiting for someone and the interviewer will spot you - they seem to be really good at that.</p>
<p>I had a community service event to go to just beforehand so I arrived about 5 mins early.</p>
<p>I didn’t bring notes because I saw the interview as something similar to meeting a stranger for the first time. Sometimes when I’m standing in line somewhere I just turn around and start talking to random people and on those spur of the moment chats with strangers I don’t have questions on note cards lol. But I understand why you might want them. If you think you’ll feel uncomfortable without them then bring a paper because it’s more important that you feel comfortable but really you’re having a conversation so you don’t want to be checking things to talk about off a list (that might make the interview feel forced and segmented).</p>
<p>Laptop to an interview…hmm… well I’ve personally never heard of this happen so maybe it would be unique and interesting. At the same time the whole laptop slideshow thing might come off as a little formal and forced. Then again, I don’t know how you were thinking of intertwining your slideshow with your interview - it could just as well flow nicely and work So i’ll let you choose what you want to do about the laptop because I’m not quite sure about that one.</p>
<p>Re: How to find your interviewer…</p>
<p>You can email your interviewer before the meeting to let him/her know something about your appearance (“I’ll be wearing a blue shirt”; “I’ll be wearing or holding an orange bandana”, etc.) Several years ago, my daughter’s MIT interview was at a Starbuck’s, and she let the interviewer know she’d be wearing the MIT t-shirt she bought when she’d visited earlier. That was a great interview, very relaxed and informal.</p>
<p>I direct a graduate program at my institution and live fairly far from campus. Perhaps twice a year I interview prospective students who work or in my home region. These interviews are always at a Starbucks, and I always let the individual know something about how to recognize me in the store. Of course, if your message to this effect goes awry, you can always walk up to strangers, smile nicely, and ask, “Excuse me, are you the MIT interviewer?” No one will take offense!</p>
<p>So I ended up missing my interview … (read on if curious)</p>
<p>I was supposed to have my interview at Starbucks, at 5pm, so I got there around 4pm and just did some homework while waiting. 5PM rolls around, no sign of anyone who looks very MIT-like. I scout around a bit, find some guys sitting alone and ask if they’re the MIT interviewer, but they just give me weird looks and say “No”. 30 minutes later, I still don’t see anyone, and I very stupidly forgot my phone at home so I couldn’t call (I didn’t have his cell number anyway, although he had mine). I walk around one more time, and I still don’t see anyone with potential, so I decide to leave and hope that he cancelled the interview.</p>
<p>I get home and find a ton of missed calls, and an email from him saying that he was at Starbucks and was sitting near the entrance.</p>
<p>So I guess I screwed up majorly. Should have worn something identifying myself, or brought my phone at least. I hate myself.</p>
<p>tl;dr Missed interview, did I just kill my chances?</p>
<p>It is still within the allotted time to schedule an interview. Mistakes happen.</p>
<p>Call as soon as possible and try to arrange another meeting. Be apologetic. If your current EC is unwilling, you may call the admissions office, explain your situation, and see if they can assign you a different EC immediately.</p>
<p>If not, it’s not the end of the world. There are still many people who are admitted without an interview.</p>