<p>Out of the 5 people I personally know who were accepted to MIT, only one of them is deciding to attend. At my friend's school, there were like 15 people who were accepted and about 5 of them decided to attend. But, these are schools in California so maybe it's different on the east coast.</p>
<p>I also realize that this is a very very small sample size, but it gives a small amount of hope for waitlistees like me. Does anyone else have anecdotal evidence or disagree?</p>
<p>I think that there will be across the board decreases in yield at all top 20 schools.</p>
<p>I don’t know if they will decrease this year but I know quite a number of people choosing HYPS schools over MIT. But again, I also know people picking MIT over those schools. One thing that was quite interesting is MIT admits enrolling in their local state schools because of financial aid.</p>
<p>MIT’s financial aid made it very, very difficult for me to choose MIT over certain other HYPS schools (the one that starts with an aspirated consonant!). But I feel like that’s the same every year.
At my school, this year, M has 100% yield, H 50%, and Y 0%. P & S accepted no one.</p>
<p>S is accepted into HYP and MIT. He really likes MIT, however, MIT’s financial aid pretty much made a decision for us (as parents, I know he was still considering it up to very last minute) to take MIT out of consideration.</p>
<p>Millancad, what drives your apparent dislike for Harvard?</p>
<p>^I don’t dislike Harvard. It’s more that I’m apathetic about it. Nothing about it excites me or ever did (except Widener, I guess). I applied, basically, on a whim, thinking that since people I know and like enjoyed being there, I might like it there as well.
There are a couple of things I like about Harvard more than MIT, but Harvard was never that big for me. </p>
<p>It may also be because I always liked Yale :D.</p>
<p>Is MIT’s financial aid really that bad? Because I know money would become a factor if MIT accepts me (that’s a very big IF).
Jeez, you guys and all your HYPSM acceptances… can’t help but feel exceptionally jealous hahha</p>
<p>MIT’s Financial Aid online calculator is here: [MIT</a> - Student Financial Services](<a href=“MIT Student Financial Services”>MIT Student Financial Services)</p>
<p>Have your parents enter their data, or talk with your parents so that you understand their finances well enough to enter the data yourself. Then start talking about what you can afford. MIT’s financial aid is as good as most institutions. But Harvard and Stanford will give financial aid to families earning higher than $140,000, so some middle-class families are sometimes induced to pick the better aid offer, or pressure the student to make that choice. Especially in this economic environment.</p>
<p>S did not apply Stanford, so we have no knowledge on Stanford’s FA. However, HYP all give us significant more than MIT, MIT gave us practically nothing. Out of HYP, for our family, Yale’s aid was the best.</p>
<p>This gives me an interesting thought : If MIT could match the financial aid offers from HYPS, would people who turn down MIT because of financial aid choose MIT? what do you guys think?</p>
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<p>If you like Widener, MIT students can now check out books and enter Widener just like Harvard undergraduates (as well as a ton of other Harvard libraries - basically only the grad libraries are still off-limits).</p>
<p>I mean, I was studying at Widener just last Friday! : P I love their reading rooms <3 hehe I hope I’m not betraying MIT for falling in love with Harvard libraries…lol</p>
<p>Also, I think there’s merit in all the claims about MIT’s financial aid policy.</p>
<p>Many of my friends here complain about getting very little money, but my family (~90k) receives a substantial amount from MIT every year (MIT matched or exceeded Stanford, Columbia’s, and Brown’s offers - I didn’t get into HYP though). So maybe 140k-ish is indeed the threshold.</p>
<p>@Handlebars: MIT gave me the least money out of 7 other schools. But, the amount my family would pay was about the same everywhere but Harvard. Were my sister not in college for two years while I am, I guess MIT (and everywhere else but Harvard) would have given me basically nothing, perhaps a few thousand. </p>
<p>But, of HYPSM, I only applied to three, and only got into two. So I don’t really know about offers from YPS.
Well, my friend tells me a little about P. Mostly, that her father was pretty sure MIT would be more expensive (but she didn’t get in T_T) and that it costs more than UMich, so we’ll both be poor in college. Yay!
And I guess my neighbors told me a little about S, but their son was class of '07 I think, so they know more about Harvard these days. Anyway, they got great deals at S and H. Almost undoubtedly better than what I have at MIT now.</p>
<p>ETA: Oasis, that is so awesome to hear! Widener passed my library test (do they have a certain Russian play in English) and MIT’s libraries didn’t. I’m so happy that I don’t have to learn Russian to read one of my favorite books. I was getting quite sad walking around there last weekend for Harvard April Visiting Program, thinking “Oh, well I can never come here again :(.”</p>
<p>^ Well, you don’t have to be sad anymore : )</p>
<p>Hehe I love Harvard’s faux snobbishness with their polished turnstiles where you’ll have to swipe your ID to get into the Library and the security guard that checks everyone’s bag when they walk out and the ID scanners next to the entrance to the stacks and the Computer Room that looks like a Hogwarts Dining Hall converted into a research area…</p>
<p>…maybe that’s why I make a point to wear some MIT-insigia clothing every time I go the libraries at Harvard. : )</p>
<p>But seriously, I heart their reading rooms. WHYYYY can’t we have those kinds of airy reading rooms with skylights at MIT? : (</p>
<p>Hopefully, the yield decreases by a lot. That would be cool.</p>
<p>^lol Christian.</p>
<p>For me, it came down to money and fit.</p>
<p>
Oh well, that looks like a lot of trouble to go through if I’m just going to end up being rejected anyways. If I do get off the waitlist, then we’ll see what happens :] As a Cal Alum, you should be excited that I’ll be attending UC Berkeley if I don’t get accepted to Harvard or MIT!</p>
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Gosh you’re ridiculous haha. ONLY got into two. Such a failure!! Hey if you’re not going to Harvard then maybe that spot will open up for me on the waitlist :D</p>
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Yes, that would be exceptionally nice. Please please please</p>
<p>For me, I don’t really care about the yield rate. I think it is the personal choice of the prefrosh to choose which environment he’ll be staying for the next four years of his/her life. For me, I am choosing MIT because I feel that MIT is the community in which I can personally grow beyond my potentials. The support I’ll get from the faculty staff, the collaboration I’ll share with my peers and the academic challenge I’ll face from the psets will definitely shape me to become a better person and equip me so that when my academic years are over, I’ll be the best I can be to help human society.</p>
<p>CalAlum:</p>
<p>Financial Aid at Princeton.</p>
<p>As you can see, families earning over $200,000 per year still get financial aid</p>
<p>[Princeton</a> University | Who Qualifies for Aid?](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/admission/financialaid/how_it_works/who_qualifies/]Princeton”>http://www.princeton.edu/admission/financialaid/how_it_works/who_qualifies/)</p>
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