<p>My son has an interview scheduled with MIT next Tues. Before the interview, he plans to speak with my daughter's karate instructor, who is an MIT alumni.</p>
<p>Any helpful advice would be appreciated.</p>
<p>thanks,
jasper</p>
<p>Bring a resume. No need to wear a suit, but be neat and tidy. My S wore khaki slacks and a polo shirt to his interview. His interviewer was similarly attired.
The interview was low key and designed to be informative. The interviewer talked about housing, course selection, etc... A fair amount of the interview was devoted to S's hobby. Very pleasant. S ended up not applying to MIT, but that's because he decided he wanted a different college experience.</p>
<p>Ditto Marite's post. S's interview was informal, and basically similar in content and format to all of his non-MIT interviews. FWIW, S did not bring a resume, not did he sense that one was required or expected, though I know some folks on CC recommend bringing one. S dressed in khakis and a collared shirt. Advice --- try to be relaxed and enjoy the interview to the extent possible.</p>
<p>When D went through her interviews, the MIT interview had the most off-the-wall questions (e.g. Which comic book super-hero would you like to be?), but that probably was a function of the interviewer and not the school.</p>
<p>S's interview was similar to those already posted. I remember him telling me he felt it was half a low key sales pitch for MIT/Boston and half like a friendly chat with a visiting relative he had never seen before who was keenly interested in catching up on the who and what of S's recent years. In the end S wanted program MIT didn't offer therefore did not enroll, says he might try again for grad school....</p>
<p>Good luck to your son.</p>
<p>My son's interview went an hour and a half and delved deeply into the design details of several engineering projects he was working on at the time. He described it at the time as feeling like he was treated respectfully like a senior design engineer.</p>
<p>My MIT interview was informal - I didn't bring a resume and I also didn't dress up (my interviewer told me that jeans were fine in her scheduling e-mail). The most important thing for your son to remember is to relax - the MIT interview is more about your son and MIT finding things out about one another than the interviewer actually judging whether or not he'd be a good fit for MIT. I definitely agree with 4trees' description, except my real relatives are never that interested in what I'm doing with my time!</p>
<p>Mathson didn't get in to MIT so I hesitate to give advice. However if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have my child's first interview at their first choice school. That said, the interviewer was pleasant and didn't ask any off the wall questions from the little I heard about it. I dropped him off at the interviewer's house and picked him up about 45 minutes later. It was before we all had cellphones.</p>
<p>My S's MIT interview was a little different than interviews for other schools. I say this as an alumni interviewer myself. The MIT interview seems to really focus on how good a match you are for MIT, in fact the interviewer told him this in the interview. Thus, he was asked a lot of questions about how he actually solves problems and was asked to demonstrate how he solved a particular problem in a recent math competition. His interviewer was a math instructor for an advanced high school math program, so the interviewers interests do play a part.</p>
<p>At the end of the interview he was told he was a good match for MIT. I hope this is still true because he's applying there for grad school. :)</p>
<p>Glad to hear its a fairly relaxed interview.
Its a reach school for him, but its worth a shot.
Thanks for the feedback.</p>
<p>jasper</p>
<p>D (who was waitlisted @ MIT) brought a resume to an alumni interview, but interviewer didn't want to read it - said he wanted to form an opinion of her without reading about her first. If I remember correctly, as this was about 3 years ago, her interview was of the informal Starbucks variety.</p>
<p>Son got in EA to MIT and did NOT do the interview. He was booked pretty solid with some of his ECs and let them know ahead of time. He did do interviews with some of his other schools, ones where the interviewers met him at school or met him at "away games/meets" or research labs to shorten their driving distance and as he said "see him in his native habitat!"</p>
<p>I wouldn't recommend this for everyone but he figured best the respective schools knew what they were getting!</p>
<p>I now remember why I blocked his senior year from my memory!! Just thinking about the chaos that ensued gives me the willies. </p>
<p>Now that he is a junior looking at grad school's, the chaos is at school and not here at home.</p>
<p>Kat</p>