<p>Hey,</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, could anyone offer some insight of how much data MIT uses? i.e. do they look you up on facebook, keep a record of all emails you send them and google you? :P</p>
<p>I wish they keep a record of all the emails I sent them + all my comments left on their blogs. Have quite a while breaking my F5 key on that blog site.</p>
<p>I guess they will if needed. Essay is the typical example. But I’m not sure about facebook, emails, etc. They cannot spend a day wandering around the internet for just 1 applicant.</p>
<p>@kenhungkk: How many times have you had it fixed? :D</p>
<p>Yeah I’m curious too - how ‘deep’ do they go into each person? For example, if a person says he’s ‘worked on software projects’, how can he show that he’s not just done ‘simple things’, but has actually worked on stuff pretty deep and made new algorithms etc.?</p>
<p>@12npm12: Well over 10 times XD.
@nikki93: You send them to MIT to show it.</p>
<p>I think most of the individual admissions officers will keep emails they send and receive, but I am not aware of a central database tracking email contacts.</p>
<p>MIT will not look you up on Facebook or Google you, partly because they just don’t have the time to do that for 15,000 applicants, and partly because they actively try not to be evil. If you comment on the blogs under your real name, though, be aware that they’re likely to remember you – if this bothers you, you should be using a pseudonym. They occasionally read sites like CC, but not with the intent of divining the identity of any individual poster.</p>
<p>Ben Jones had a blog entry on this topic [url=<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/qanda/questions_and_answers/your_profile_on_the_web_can_it.shtml]here[/url”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/qanda/questions_and_answers/your_profile_on_the_web_can_it.shtml]here[/url</a>]. Key point:
</p>
<p>It’s your job to show your talents and accomplishments to MIT, not the internet’s job.</p>
<p>^ So it is fair to everyone, huh? I believe they are skilled enough to find their “matched” applicants with only things written in the application.</p>
<p>@kenhungkk: Haha. Poor you keyboard, it has such a bad owner 
So did you buy a new one? You certainly are an MIT-blog addict :D</p>
<p>@nikki93: kenhungkk and molliebatmit are right. It’s your job to show them that, not their job. Btw… new algorithm? O_o</p>
<p>@molliebatmit alright, just figured that since sometimes when you apply for a job they google/facebook you, mit might do it as well.</p>
<p>@kenhungkk haha wow, I thought I was addicted to the blogs!</p>
<p>If an applicant himself specifies a website (about his projects) URL on his application, will they see it then?</p>
<p>@12npm12: Yeah well I’d written a graphics algorithm for a ‘glow effect’ in games, a little different from how it’s usually done, and also one for point-in-concave mesh check. 
Nothing really ‘ground-breaking’ though. I just used it as a general example for my question, not referring to myself, nothing specific.</p>
<p>^ They will have a look at everything you mention in the application, but no further than that, as confirmed by molliebatmit.</p>
<p>@nikki93: It sounds like a new method to approach the same problems, but quite interesting :)</p>
<p>
Of course. That would be considered “within the application”, because you provided the URL.</p>
<p>Additionally, if you post a link to your blog, they’ll read it - Ben Jones recognized me at CPW from my blog’s photo :)</p>
<p>Well my website is blog+projects+music+biography. :)</p>
<p>@k4r3n2: Wow, they actually read the blog eh? Nice to see they look into each applicant well. And also, he recognised you, despite having read a few hundred applications? That’s awesome! :D</p>
<p>I suspect that MIT does Google applicants in some cases, even if they don’t post a link. In her EA application, under “supplemental information,” my daughter submitted a brief paragraph about the fact that she had gone through the peer-review process and presented her research as first author at a professional scientific conference. She didn’t include a link, but she did provide the name of the conference, and because all the abstracts were posted online at the conference website, an admissions officer could have verified this simply by Googling her name and the name of the conference. She was admitted EA. Of course, we’ll probably never know for sure.</p>
<p>Gosh, Google search is scary. On a goole search I bumped into a kid with the same name as my kid, and similar interests (hence the “hit”)… but that other guy has some untasteful youtube stuff. (Luckily there were photos too so I knew it was somebody else.)</p>