Advice on applying second time to MIT

<p>Hi I want to apply to MIT once again. I was rejected for the class of 2016. I just wanted your suggestions about this.</p>

<p>My general suggestion in this case - don’t.</p>

<p>Why do you think next round will be different?</p>

<p>Agree with PiperXP; don’t. Putting your life on hold for a year isn’t worth it. There are many other fine colleges out there. Attend one of these and be happy about it.</p>

<p>It’s not worth it.</p>

<p>[Holding</a> out for a piece of Pi | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/holding-out-for-a-piece-of-pi]Holding”>Holding out for a piece of Pi | MIT Admissions)</p>

<p>What Patrick posted.</p>

<p>As an international EC, we regularly get a small number of students who are reapplying to MIT. Although there is precedent for them to get in, it is extremely rare for the reasons that Patrick cited above. The advice I normally give is more nuanced than the simple “Don’t” provided above, it is based on two things.</p>

<p>1) What were you planning to do with the year? In my region, it is not uncommon for students attending ANY institution (including the domestic ones here) to take a gap year and do something other than study. They are planning to volunteer for a non-profit in the 3rd world, or spend a year hiking the entirety of the Appalachian trail, or do whatever else they were planning to do in that gap year. The best advice that I give to students planning to do this is to apply to MIT in their last year at school and then to defer their admissions date once accepted. Many other schools do not offer the option to defer the admissions date. For that reason and others, that advice only occasionally is heard, and every year my region interviews maybe 10 students who are applying to MIT for the first time from their gap year. IF YOU WERE PLANNING ON TAKING A GAP YEAR ANYWAY, and if your gap year may change your life and give your application a new dimension, then MAYBE consider a reapplication.</p>

<p>2) People do not apply to institutions. Application folders apply to institutions. MIT spends a lot of time and effort trying to ensure that an MIT applications folder is a reasonable representation of the student. The MIT interview for example, has no academic content whatsoever. Really, it exists to try to get more of the person into the applications folder. Take a couple of months to gain some perspective, and look at the application that you sent to MIT. Is it a reasonable representation of you? In most cases it is. However, in a very small number of cases, your application folder has not done you any favors. This is particularly the case if you are coming from a country/culture where it is considered unseemly to brag. I have occasionally encountered applications where key accomplishments have been left off of the application, because the applicant did not want to seem a braggart. In contrast, every American applicant I have ever met understand intimately that if there is one place where you want to brag, it is in a US university admissions document. An analogous problem is if the student does not understand the process and tries to prepare the MIT application as if they were applying to a local domestic institution. It does not work. If there is a clear flaw in your application folder, and you had no intent to start school in the fall, then again you can MAYBE consider a reapplication.</p>

<p>The bottom line is that admissions decisions do not normally change. Unless your application is going to be materially different the second time around, the admissions decision is unlikely to change. It can become materially different because:
a) You have accomplished AMAZING things in the gap year or
b) Your application was actively wrong the first time.</p>

<p>But if neither of these cases are true, then do not hold out false hope. Go somewhere else and prosper. Good luck.</p>

<p>Thanks a lot guys and thank you Mikalye sir. I just needed some guidelines and all of you have helped me a lot. Thanks again.</p>

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<p>What sorts of accomplishments have you seen left off in the past? (Just curious.)</p>

<p>All kinds of things, national medals, etc. It is one of the things that we can look for as an international EC. There are interesting differences between the way these things are approached in different countries. I have lived on three continents now, and there are indeed huge differences in tiny things.</p>