<p>To bobbymcprescott : Thanks a lot</p>
<p>^@Teargrant, pick someone who knows how to write a really strong letter. MIT actually provides some examples here: [MIT</a> Admissions | Info For Schools & Counselors: Writing Evaluations](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/schools/writing_evaluations/index.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/schools/writing_evaluations/index.shtml)</p>
<p>Yeah find someone who is close with you. I am close with my superintendent, so I got a rec for the waitlist, a very very good rec. I would suggest that you stay away from another teacher recommendation unless they say something completely different than all the other teachers that wrote you recs and they think that you are the man the myth the movie the legend.</p>
<p>PS: Northeastern has a great co-op program and grad school admission from Northeastern to top tier schools seems common if you take advantage of your time there.</p>
<p>thanks for the boost for Northeastern. I know its not nearly as prestigious as MIT, but I love the school and think it has great opportunities.</p>
<p>So since you are going to JHU, are you by any chance thinking biomed engineering? just a guess</p>
<p>No, but good guess for JHU considering their rep with biomed. I’m going for physics. They have a decent program (tied for #19 all around in the new US News grad rankings), and their research is what I’m interested in (astrophysics and theoretical particle physics being two of their four main areas of research in physics).</p>
<p>Good luck with Northeastern if you don’t get off the waitlist.</p>
<p>Ah… well I’ve heard about physics at JHU being pretty impressive as well. </p>
<p>Thanks and good luck for you as well.</p>
<p>To cicero_oratore and CalAlum : thank you so much for your advice</p>
<p>By the way I’m writing a letter of interest. Do you have any suggestion what should I write? I actually want to take nuclear physics. So, in my letter, I wrote a paragraph telling how my grandfather’s disease has inspired me to take nuclear physics. Does it sound too much? Any comment is highly appreciated</p>
<p>TearGrant: I certainly do not think it sounds like too much. As long as you don’t wax on for pages about it, a continued expression of interest is good. Showing what inspires you to what you want to do is really good. I think a motivated student with a goal is something that they would like.</p>
<p>Yeah, at this point stay away from personal anecdotes. If you want, include a paragraph about why you would be a good fit for the school and reiterate your good character traits, but take no more time than that. Here was the format of my letter:</p>
<p>Reaffirm interest in MIT/Harvard/CalTech
Acknowledge that I will have to lose my deposit if I want to attend
Rehash my positive character traits and why I am a good fit for the school
Recent awards/accomplishments in wrestling (lots to talk about there)
Tutoring that I’ve been doing
How I am keeping busy during the spring (track, programming, independent study for physics)
Told them that I hope my letter helps them make a final decision, and then signed it.</p>
<p>It was slightly more than a page long double spaced at 12-point font.</p>
<p>My daughter will send the deposit to Vanderbilt - BME. She attended the engineering open house and loved the program, campus and people. But if MIT takes her off the wait list, she will accept it.
She will be sending a letter of interest to MIT this week. Also a friend of ours who knows my daughter very well and is a fan of her, wrote a letter of recommendation to MIT. The letter talks more about who is she and why he thinks she is a good fit for MIT.
Good luck to all!</p>
<p>cicero,</p>
<p>You staying on multiple waitlists, correct? So how do you handle it if you get multiple offers?</p>
<p>Yeah I’m staying on all three. I was thinking that if I get multiple offers (which would most likely come at different times) that I would ask if I could delay sending in a deposit and tell them why.</p>
<p>What is the normal length of a letter of interest? Thank you</p>
<p>Keep it short. One page.</p>
<p>What about two pages, does it sound too much?</p>
<p>I’m sure that’s fine too. :)</p>
<p>Just remember, the adcoms are probably tired of reading essays. As long as your letter is brief (bullet points) and contains new info, you’re good.</p>
<p>to HurtLocker: Thanks a lot</p>
<p>Any news on the waitlist?</p>
<p>Feliz there will be no news on the waitlist until May 1st.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, that would be highly optimistic. Remember that the deadline for admitted students to accept an offer is May 3rd. That is the postmark deadline, which means you have to add a week to that to ensure that letters are received particularly from international applicants. So MIT is unlikely to know the precise yield until after the first week of May. From that they will know roughly how many people they need to accept off of the waitlist. Based on previous years, they will enter selection in the second week of May, and waitlist decisions will be sent out sometime in mid-May. Some students may be accepted from the waitlist, most will be told that they will not be admitted, and a very very small number will be kept on the waitlist, as there are often two trips to the waitlist. </p>
<p>There will be a small number of students who were accepted at MIT while waitlisted at whatever their first choice school was. These students may have accepted MIT’s offer of admission as their second choice school, but then got in off of the waitlist at their first choice school, and then notified MIT that they will not be attending after all. This is a normal part of the process, but it does mean that an extremely small number of students will be waitlisted twice, which can be very tough on the students involved.</p>