<p>@1203southview Haha well… I think the interview may have slightly diminished my interest in MIT mainly because he kind of confirmed that MIT was a pretty cutthroat place. He didn’t say it directly like that, but when I asked him about the competitive atmosphere there he was beating around the bush and saying that MIT taught him how to manage a lot of work (or something along those lines). He also later affirmed that working is a lot easier than school, which makes me feel like he didn’t have the most enjoyable time in college (then again, would the response be the same for someone from Stanford/Yale/Princeton/even state schools?). My insight shouldn’t discourage you though because I haven’t experienced the MIT life myself.</p>
<p>@zgamergirl Thanks for the kind words! MIT’s application has been pretty interesting so far, so far none of my other applications have required interviews, much less SAT subject tests. Definitely weeds out the less determined, which is what they want 
Hope you get accepted! </p>
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Actually I do not think that that is true. MIT is a fairly pressured place, but it is not a cuttthroat place. The overwhelming majority of students that MIT admits were at the very top of their various secondary school classes. Beyond that, they tend to be driven, self-motivated students. It does not take a statistical genius to work out that fully half of these brilliant, talented, driven students will be in the bottom half of their MIT class. That drives a lot of pressure to do well, but that pressure tends to come from within. MIT does a great deal to reduce the pace and pressure. This is part of the reason that the first semester is pass/no credit to give students the opportunity to acclimatise themselves. There are no classes of MIT degree (you cannot graduate summa cum laude for example), there are a variety of things that MIT does to allow students to challenge themselves academically without worrying about their GPA (e.g. taking grad classes pass/fail). The word “cuttthroat” suggests students actively competing with each other for success, whereas that is the antithesis of the MIT experience which strongly features groups of students working together collaboratively to raise the collective level of performance. I found MIT to be highly pressured, but not cutthroat at all.</p>
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I also think that working is a lot easier than college, and I had a great time at MIT.</p>
<p>And I totally agree with Mikalye’s post above – “cutthroat” is not a word I would use to describe MIT, at all. There’s pressure at MIT, for sure, but it’s the pressure you put on yourself, and isn’t directed at other people or directed at you by other people.</p>
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<p>Oh dude, the working world is so much easier after MIT. But MIT’s culture is “work hard, play hard” – it was still a fantastic experience. But now I get to “work well, play well, sleep well” and, in the long term, that’s more sustainable :)</p>
<p>I second what Mikalye and Mollie said. People at MIT often competed with their own ideas of who they could become. But students were always out to help each other. (For the record, I graduated recently – a year ago.)</p>
<p>Unlike Piper, I went to MIT a long time ago, but I think the culture is remarkably the same: I don’t think MIT is cutthroat at all. For me it was exactly the opposite. People were very cooperative and willing to share and help. The work can be intellectually difficult and time consuming, but the only competition I ever had was with myself. Though there were plenty of times I thought my head was about to explode, the “Eureka” moment was worth whatever work I had to put in. Nobody bragged about grades or even discussed them. I couldn’t tell you the GPA of anyone I knew. I would say that from junior year onward, faculty treated me more like a colleague than a student, and I developed many faculty (and, of course, many more student) friendships that continue to this day. Work after MIT was certainly much easier intellectually, but as you advance “cutthroat” becomes an applicable concept, and I must say I wish I had learned sooner about dealing with workplace carnivores. I eventually went on to law school at Harvard, and while it was a very mellow academic experience compared to MIT, there were many more highly competitive personalities, though not at all like “The Paper Chase.”</p>
<p>Another thing to understand is that part of culture is griping about how screwed you were by this or that problem set, exam, or lab project. It’s a matter of pride - like boot camp. Perhaps the EC interviewer was just reliving his student days.</p>
<p>Interview got rescheduled to tomorrow… Not sure yet if that’s a good or a bad thing ~X( </p>
<p>^ In terms of the interviewer or you? The interviewer rescheduling says nothing about you or your application. Don’t stress 
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<p>Interviewer chose the date. Though not sure if I would have been better just getting it done, or stressing out another day on it and practicing some of my answers ;)</p>
<p>I have been searching to learn more about the school, and I’m quite impressed, especially with 1st semester pass/no rec and IAP. Of course, it is MIT after all. Basically the Holy Grail of all engineering schools :)</p>
<p>@ARandomGeek How was it? Btw a little late now but it makes you feel any better, my interviewer was late 10 minutes :)</p>
<p>@zgamergirl Not too bad! (I just got back). I was surprised I ended up getting there early, it was a two and a half hour drive there, but I got there 15 minutes early. EC ended up there about 10 minutes early so it was all good. The whole affair ended up being around 45 minutes, and I was surprised that the EC ended up talking through most of that (he had a lot of pretty cool stories about MIT).</p>
<p>The only questions that were kind of general ones were “Why MIT?” and “Why should MIT choose you over the other applicants”. The latter kind of threw me off, I knew it shouldn’t have but I didn’t prepare as much for that question. I definitely rambled a bit on that, but oh well. He asked a few questions about my extracurriculars/sports, which went pretty well, I was able to talk about those more easily. I don’t have too many regrets, I certainly am not expecting much though. Overall it went well but I’m sure I could have done better. My EC was great though, we had a good laugh about the MIT pirates degree and he was very encouraging. </p>
<p>@zgamergirl My interviewer did not take any notes though. He donates money for MIT programs and he was a MIT undergraduate. Our interview lasted about 1 hr and 30min (interrupted by his son’s calls, so he needed to go).
He told me that he usually spent less than 1 hr with his interviewees.
I am worried. Many of his past interviewees went to great universities. An interview within 1 hr is absolutely insufficient.
AND he did not take any notes…Should I be worried?</p>
<p>@Katherine15 - Some take notes, some don’t. I don’t think you need to be worried about anything. (And I’m confused - did you want the interview to be longer or shorter?)</p>
<p>@PiperXP I wanted the interview to be longer:p I am worried because he was actually telling me why NOT going to MI. He told me that he spent usually less than 1 hr with his past interviewees. In my last post, I was merely shocked that he interviewed his students less than an hour and he thought it was sufficient. 
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<p>*MIT</p>
<p>@zgamergirl Just had my MIT interview today! Did you send a thank you note to your EC after the interview? I think I I saw on an MIT blog post that you should send a written thank-you note, but I felt like this was a little strange. </p>
<p>As a recent graduate and a brand new EC who might even get to interview someone this year, I feel that you should undoubtedly send a thank you note. I’ve never not send a thank you note after an interview of any kind.</p>
<p>@Katherine15 Your interviewer told you why you shouldn’t apply to MIT?
@aberlasters Haha I didn’t… not sure how you’d be able to get their address to send them a note, but it wouldn’t hurt to email your EC thanks. </p>
<p>@zgamergirl well, he was telling me why MIT IS NOT a good school, and sometimes I have to consider several factors in selecting a college. He basically told me how MIT is great, but I need to think about other factors: financial aid and others. I think my interview was lukewarm. My interviewer and I have very different background. But he did interview me longer than his past interviewees. I do not know. 
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Nope. As someone who has interviewed for MIT for years, I can tell you that this is not true. An interview takes as long as it takes for me to answer the questions that I have about a candidate. As a rule anything below 45 minutes is probably too short and anything over 90 minutes is probably too long. But short interviews are not necessarily bad (nor good). I can say that the longest interview I ever conducted was spent in a long and ultimately fruitless search for any topic, in any field, about which the candidate actually cared. Long is necessarily good nor is short necessarily bad.</p>