<p>How does MIT react to applicants who have good stats but are mentally ill? I have gaps in my education that would be hard to explain without telling them about my depression, and I'm wondering if that would be an automatic rejection.</p>
<p>Thanks for your advice!</p>
<p>Listen to me at your own discretion: I don’t know much more than you about MIT admission policy.</p>
<p>That said, I doubt MIT would auto reject the mentally ill, as that will look very bad for them.</p>
<p>Sometimes, MIT students take time off to deal with mental issues such as depression. They have to reapply for admission (not the same admissions office as first-time applicants like you, but nonetheless). If they show that they have sufficiently overcome their problems and can continue as a successful student, they are readmitted. I know several cases like this.</p>
<p>This sounds like a good way for you to use the optional essay. You can explain what you went through and how you’ve handled it.</p>
<p>Why don’t you post this question on the Parents’ Forum, and make it general, not specifically about MIT? I’m sure there are people there (including students) who have dealt with this issue and aren’t just guessing.</p>
<p>If it were I, I would say that this is the kind of thing it’s worth hiring a good private college counselor for. It affects where you apply, and it would be great to have experienced guidance on how to deal with it most effectively in your application.</p>
<p>It would be imprudent of anyone to assume that you’re too unstable to attend their school simply because of your condition, and I doubt that they will reject you based upon that unless they feel you are a serious risk.</p>
<p>It depends on whether it is situational depression or an extended clinical depression. If your parents got divorced and you had a really bad semester because you were depressed, this will be understood and won’t hurt you. Same goes if there was a major illness or death in the immediate family. </p>
<p>However, if you have depression just because of your brain chemistry or your upbringing, expectations, etc., then this will hurt you. Or, if the depression lasts more than one year after a traumatic event, I suspect it may hurt you as they would wonder if you would be ok at MIT. You are better off with MIT thinking you just didn’t care then that you were depressed. I don’t know what you mean by “gaps”; do you mean you were out of school or that you performed poorly? If you were not in school, you should find a vague way to explain why you were out of school.</p>
<p>Keep in mind the suicide problem was so extreme at one time that there was a suicide by an undergrad every semester for 5 years. MIT is especially sensitive to weeding out people that may have depression problems. For example, the questions about what you do for fun weren’t there 15 years ago. They are there to see how you handle stress.</p>
<p>Also, a supremely qualified candidate (even by MIT standards) was recently rejected by MIT. I suspect it was because he wrote about overcoming OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder.) This is probably the most vanilla of mental illnesses that you could have, and a lot of great scientists have it. I suspect mentioning OCD might have made the difference. I don’t want to mention details of his record or his screenname here because I don’t want to drag him into a discussion, but he was the most qualified reject from a top 5 school I’ve ever seen. </p>
<p>I try to give people advice on how to make their applications more attractive rather than just tell them just to “be themselves.” However, if you have a history of depression, you want to seriously think about whether MIT is the best environment for you. Because MIT has its own history of pushing people off the edge.</p>
<p>^ I know a couple of OCD people at MIT, including at least one who talked about it in her essay. Plenty of outstanding applications are rejected every year - it happens when the majority of the applicants are qualified.</p>
<p>MIT wants to know you can succeed there. That may be harder to prove with a history of depression - but an auto-reject? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>^^Well, that’s encouraging, although it should be noted that depression may be scarier to them than OCD. Regardless, my post was just a logical extension of the rhetoric coming out of the admissions office about how they are looking for people who can deal with stress well. I’ve never actually worked in admissions so I don’t know for sure. And I think I remember Marilee Jones saying they were trying to cut down on the suicides through their admissions decisions–not in those exact words, but something along those lines.</p>
<p>If it were me, I would only talk about depression unless it was situational depression, which I have defined in my earlier post.</p>
<p>^I’m quite curious to see the quote you’re referring to.</p>
<p>And yes, depression is a little scarier than OCD. If it’s necessary to bring up in the application, the OP will have to show that the depression won’t keep him/her from being a fully-functioning MIT student.</p>
<p>Thank you for the nice replies. I guess I should find a way to not tell them then.</p>
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<p>I remember that quote in Newsweek, and I also remember Marilee Jones being furious and writing a letter to the Tech explaining that Newsweek had misquoted her.</p>
<p>Look at this old blog entry of Ben’s, and scroll down in the comments until you hit the part about the Newsweek article and the misquote. The full text of Marilee’s letter is there.</p>
<p>[MIT</a> Admissions | Blog Entry: “The Day Before Selection Begins”](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/the_match_between_you_and_mit/the_day_before_selection_begin.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/the_match_between_you_and_mit/the_day_before_selection_begin.shtml)</p>
<p>I don’t know how disclosure of mental illness affects admissions decisions (according to Marilee’s letter, it doesn’t, but that was four years ago, so I can’t guarantee that nothing’s changed). I can say with certainty, though, that there are <em>plenty</em> of mentally ill students at MIT, including students with depression.</p>
<p>Generally, you always want to “put your best foot forward” in an application and interview process. This means emphasizing your strengths and de-emphasizing weaknesses. For this reason alone, I agree with others here who have suggested that you not mention your depression.</p>
<p>But I’d encourage you to set aside the application process for a moment and think about whether you’d be really happy at a pressure-cooker like MIT. The academic demands are enormous. Students who were valedictorians at their high schools have blogged about weeping over MIT transcripts filled with C’s and D’s. Also, if your condition leads you to prefer to be alone at times, or if you sometimes withdraw from social situations, you might have a hard time fitting in on a campus where students are expected to collaborate on p-sets and socialize in living situations.</p>
<p>I doubt if the admissions committee would set aside your application because you have suffered from depression. But at the same time, they overtly claim to select students who work well with others and can handle the pressure. So think it over. You might be happier at a small college with a fine engineering/science program, a place like Harvey Mudd in California.</p>
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<p>I’m a little surprised; while I know MIT students are supposed to bond strongly, and work together, I kind of always imagined a decent subset of the population is quiet and introverted in any science/technology type school.</p>
<p>I agree that you should seriously think about weather or not you’d be happy at a place like MIT. I know someone who dealt with depression in high school but was able to overcome it and do extremely well, both academically and socially. He got to MIT thinking he’d be fine, but by the time the first test rolled around it was clear this wasn’t the case. He was stressed out most of the time, wasn’t able to handle the pressure that classes were putting on him or the atmosphere of MIT in general, and he was becoming more and more withdrawn and unhappy. He changed dorms a couple of times, but nothing was really helping, and he wasn’t able to do well in his classes because he was having trouble handling the pressure. Eventually he decided to take time off, and at this point I don’t think he’s planning on coming back to MIT.</p>
<p>That being said, you know yourself best. If you read the MIT blogs, talk to current students, do adequate research about the school, and you still think you’d be a good fit, definitely apply. Just remember MIT is a lot of fun, but it’s also really intense.</p>
<p>As for your original question… I have mixed feelings about it. I definitely don’t think they’d through out your application just because you talk about depression, but they’d definitely look more closely at it to make sure you’d be able to handle MIT. I agree that the application is all about emphasizing strengths and de-emphasizing weaknesses, but at the same time you should feel free to be yourself. If you want to talk about your depression (which is completely valid), just make sure you make it clear why you think you will be able to handle MIT’s atmosphere.</p>
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<p>There is. And most people want to be alone some of the time, and some people do work alone. But I still think CalAlum brings up good points worth thinking about.</p>
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<p>I don’t know much about MIT, but one of my best friends went to Caltech. Is the pressure level similar? Are students happier, or more depressed? (I have also heard bad things about student happiness at Caltech)</p>
<p>I concur with the advice given by one poster in the Parents Forum, who suggested being no more specific than necessary and saying that “an illness” or “a medical condition” caused the gaps in your record. I don’t think that’s unethical (because depression certainly is a medical condition, and you’re under no obligation to explain your medical history to them). Additionally, I think the determination of whether your depression will or will not affect you at MIT is yours to make – I don’t think the admissions officers have any business judging.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that a lot of people were unhappy at Harvey Mudd and Caltech, too. I don’t hear these things about the ivies, and I’ve known plenty of people who have gone to them (even in the same technical majors.) I think there is something about tech schools that makes the student body tend to be unhappier, something beyond the rigorous majors that are prevalent there.</p>
<p>You should visit these places and ask yourself how you feel there (campus, weather, etc.) In particular, how do you feel about being in a techy environment? </p>
<p>If you genuinely think being at MIT would be exciting and you enjoy the environment, you may have less risk of depression hurting you there. When you’re making this decision, you should listen to any strong feelings you have one way or the other. You may not be able to justify it to others or even to yourself, but you should listen to your feelings nonetheless. This is especially important for you, given the extreme atmosphere at MIT and your own history of mental health.</p>
<p>Just to add, I also know people who suffered depression throughout high school, but absolutely love MIT and find they’re actually much happier here than they ever were in high school. For a lot of people, MIT is the first place that they feel they truly fit, that everyone just seems to get them. So yeah, I definitely recommend visiting, and seeing how you feel here.</p>
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<p>A reason I can think of is that the Ivies consist of a huge number of very different talents and interests, possibly with little common binding factor. Difficulty of coursework doesn’t tend to get one down in the end, I’d conjecture, it’s always your environment + the nature of your interactions with those around you. </p>
<p>If the atmosphere at, say Caltech, is “intense” by nature, and everyone around you is talking about quantum mechanics or something, it can probably get a little wearing, even if Caltech students do know how to have a good time.</p>
<p>It is inherently stressful, yet potentially very rewarding, to think about something one loves deeply, as graduate students like Mollie will no doubt say. And if the only people around you are those who may love similar things to what you do, somehow your work may remain on your mind in a subconscious fashion at least more often than typical. Too much of this can put a lot of pressure on an individual, I think. For some, the flip side of having the wonderful community of MIT that understands them outweighs this factor. But in the worst case scenario, an individual would become paranoid and prone to thinking about work too much, maybe start comparing him/herself to those around, and such things. Even if the worst case scenario doesn’t occur, I can see why there’d be pressure.</p>
<p>Is it purely a function of being cooped up with people who’re somewhat like-minded in terms of interests? Would a school for professional snow-man-building be quite as stressful? Maybe not, and maybe a tech school has an additionally intense atmosphere that just doesn’t help things. </p>
<p>Of course, MIT is meant to be about collaboration and changing the world for the better and all that good stuff, so ideally one could go there and just enjoy, but the above gives my general feeling as to why some tech schools have some unhappy students.</p>