<p>As I was stumbling/stalking through Chris Peterson's blog, I came across a link to a very interesting article that came out last year on The Chronicle. It talks about the impact of easy-to-use analytics on the admissions process — basically, empowering us to find out whether or not schools even looked at the supplements that we sent to them. </p>
<p><a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/opening-the-black-box-analytics-and-admissions/33587">http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/opening-the-black-box-analytics-and-admissions/33587</a></p>
<p>The ending has a very interesting implication: that, led by the hand of honest adcoms across the entire profession, admissions processes could (and should) move towards even greater transparency.</p>
<p>As an over-anxious RD applicant, I can't deny that I would love to know what's going on inside MIT's committee... And what happened to my application. The feeling that it was sucked into a black hole (which won't spit anything out until Pi Day) is inevitable. Yet using the Internet's unstoppable superpowers in order to stalk their every move on our websites seems like an overkill, perhaps even borderline spying. What do you guys think? </p>
<p>(P.S. If any of you used analytics software on your supplements, did you get hits from Cambridge? If you did get hits, what have you inferred from them?)</p>
<p>MITChris proxy server FTW</p>
<p>I sent a YouTube video to the committee. I do not know who saw the video but the YouTube analytics page shows a few hits in MA. Hopefully for the best xD Good luck everyone!!</p>
<p>Heads up, hits from MA does not necessarily mean admissions office. There are a few current or past MIT students on CC who live in MA.</p>
<p>I noticed some guys from the Admissions blog on my website when checking my access logs. Not too sure how to feel, but it’s very nerve racking.</p>
<p>You can find consultants that catch and tag admissions committee members and then release them back into the wild. Then all their movements can be tracked. It’ll cost you a pretty penny, though.</p>
<p>@DarkSouls - Did you post a video here within the past couple of days? If so, I was definitely one of those hits :P</p>
<p>@davelee1054 - I’m confused. If you posted a link to the MIT website, referrals could be from anyone. If you didn’t… how can you tell they’re from Admissions?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Doesn’t help my main point, though, which is that we <em>can’t</em> avoid sending a message. If I run Ghostery and block Google Analytics on your site when I visit it, then you’ll just think I didn’t visit it, which will still send a message. Or, maybe I actually didn’t visit it. Who can tell? Not you, and not always ourselves…</p>
<p>I wrote that piece because this is something most applicants (with websites anyway) already know and most admissions officers have no idea is possible. Always interested in opportunities for informational arbitrage. </p>
<p>PiperXP,</p>
<p>I linked to a website hosted on my own server. My access logs resolves the hostname, and it resolved to <name>.mit.edu. An IP check confirmed that the IP indeed was from MIT.</name></p>
<p>@lidusha
I know haha. It just gives me hope that maybe ,just maybe ,an admission officer saw it xD</p>
<p>@PiperXP
Yup!! 
I hope even if I didn’t get in some people enjoyed watching it :)</p>
<p>@davelee1054 - I live in an MIT apartment building using MIT internet (my boyfriend is getting his master’s from MIT). Current students are also using MITnet. Unless <name> is admissions-specific (which I find unlikely), I’m not sure you should take that as a sign either way.</name></p>
<p><name> was one of the blogger staff on MIT Admissions. Hopefully that’s a good sign?</name></p>
<p>^ Of the staff? Then yeah, they probably checked. (If it’s of the student or alumni bloggers, we play no role in admissions decisions or reading applications at all :P)</p>
<p>davelee - wait, what are you doing? Email / PM me if you like. </p>
<p>(just fascinated - not sure what you’re talking about, or why/how a blogger name would be associated with a given IP) </p>
<p>I saw no access to my documents at all and since the URL I supplied was MIT specific I guess that means nobody from admissions opened it.</p>
<p>To give MIT some credit (and myself two stress-free days) they <em>do</em> say they aren’t interested much beyond the abstract. I was pretty sure that those papers were the best part of my application, but they probably said “damn this guy is awesome, better accept him” before getting to them 
Good luck everyone!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Somehow I picture Ralphie in A Christmas Story dreaming about his teacher writing A+++++++++++ on his paper. I like your attitude Pj5naJff! Good luck to you on Friday.</p>