<p>In my experience, there’s a huge number of people (of which I am one) who come in introverted and asocial and end up introverted and social - i.e. socializing can still be tiring, and they still need plenty of alone time to recharge and not go crazy, but they have a lot of friends and enjoy socializing with them.</p>
<p>Quiet vs. loud is a whole different spectrum. It is true that most loud people are fairly outgoing, but it doesn’t follow that the quiet people are all shy or asocial.</p>
<p>Of course, you still end up with some asocial people who are by themselves most of the time, but even those people will sometimes end up in study groups and such.</p>
<p>Yes, MIT is an intense place, but depression is extremely common in the 20ish age group across all walks of life. People connect the dots between an intense level of work and depression/suicide falsely, I think. In my personal experience with a very very small number of badly depressed people at MIT and other “intense” schools, I would attribute problems with family, specifically parental illness or estrangement and the major worries that resulted from these problems as the biggest reasons these people got into situations where their friends needed to be very very worried about them, not their homework or their grades. I would put the workload behind living situation problems as well.</p>
<p>The wonderful, and not-often-said thing about private colleges is that they are a lot more understanding about personal issues getting in the way of life. MIT itself does have reason to worry about its students (read: cover butt for lawsuits).</p>
<p>The whole situation reminds me of the story in the “Gatekeepers” book about the girl who wrote about how admitting to eating a pot brownie led her to become an anti-drug activist within her high school got rejected from Wesleyan, where students who didn’t express any sentiments about drugs, smoked lots of pot.</p>
<p>Honestly, I think that if you know what depression is, how it feels to be depressed, and where the counselors are at MIT, you are in a far better position than someone who becomes depressed at school for the first time, not only because you can recognize the illness in yourself rather than let it go on for months, and will probably be in contact with counselors from the first semester because it’s a smart idea for someone with your condition.</p>
<p>^^Wendy, the per capita suicide rate for MIT far exceeded that of any other college, at least for the 90’s. Caltech was #2 or #3 I believe. There’s no other reason to explain it other than the stress level and the environment. The fact that suicides spike in the early 20’s cannot explain it. The suicides themselves may not be academically related, but the high stress level at MIT may contribute to it. </p>
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<p>You can’t count on MIT for being pro-active about mental health issues. It seems that the only aggressive thing the MIT admin does to protect itself from lawsuits is to crucify hackers. I remember a case around 10 years ago where this guy was stalking this girl. At some point he obtained a sex tape of this girl with her boyfriend and he started showing it to people. She complained and their solution was to make the guy leave her dorm for a semester. (He was living at the same dorm at the time.) After a semester, they would re-evaluate whether to let him in. She was so upset that he possibly could be moving back into her dorm that she committed suicide. In short, its like MIT admin are living on another planet. They don’t seem to get it.
In fact, it was an undergrad who spearheaded the effort to improve the mental health services.</p>
<p>I think that if the OP absolutely must explain gaps in the academic record, Mollie’s advice to be “no more specific than necessary and [say] that “an illness” or “a medical condition” caused the gaps” is good advice. Still, like WendyMouse, I’ve read The Gatekeepers, which followed the admission saga of Becca Janol, a young woman who confessed in one of her essays to having eaten a “pot brownie”. The point of the book is that admissions officers, no matter how objective they may try to be, always bring some of their own experiences and biases to bear when reading applications. Fessing up to past transgressions and bringing illnesses and other handicaps to the forefront of the process may not necessarily work out well in the end.</p>
<p>Only the OP can evaluate whether or not MIT (or other tech school like Caltech) would be too intense. If admitted, it would be important to visit before attending. </p>
<p>But even though this is the MIT forum, I’d still like to emphasize the idea of considering a different sort of environment. I suggested Harvey Mudd earlier, but as one poster pointed out, it’s still a fairly intense tech environment. What about a top-notch liberal arts school like Dartmouth, Amherst, Carleton, or Grinnell? After all, Robert Noyce graduated with a degree in physics from Grinnell, went on to graduate study at MIT, co-invented the integrated circuit, and co-founded Intel. The path to a great career in physics doesn’t have to begin at MIT.</p>
<p>I personally feel it’s the pretigious mentality of MIT - everyone comes here wanting to be the best, to do as much as they can, to take all the classes they want. It’s hard for some people to learn how to let go, chillax, and take it easy. Why? Because MIT itself encompasses a very ambitious spirit, and once you’re here it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that being admitted is already a spectacular feat in itself. I got into this hole last semester when I was getting C’s on tests and feeling like the most miserable person ever. Upon talking with some high-school classmates back home in Texas, I was surprised that many of them hadn’t even taken Calculus yet in college!</p>
<p>MIT students push their limits; after all, the institute definitely offers up enough opportunities to do so. This subconscious pressure, added with relationship troubles, personal issues, and health (I was out sick with the flu for two weeks last semester and it made me the most cranky person ever) can contribute greatly to depression, self harm, and suicide. Ultimately, though, MIT does offer ways to remedy this, including the Mental Health department and support groups all over the place. You still have to find them for yourself, though; they aren’t going to be constantly on the lookout for you unless you reach out first.</p>
<p>I agree with CalAlum when he states the OP should evaluate whether or not MIT would be the right fit. I suggest doing an overnight stay in one of the dorms and observing the workload and life of current students.</p>
<p>It’s unfortunate that a situation like that occurred (and frankly, I’m not sure about the intricacies of the case - did the girl press charges?), but the MIT administration does a decent job now as Vivi pointed out above. Do you have a more recent example to show otherwise?</p>
<p>No, I don’t have a more recent example. Sorry for going on a rant there.
MIT has probably improved in the mental health area, although it had nowhere to go but up. I just have my doubts after hearing the unsympathetic or downright crass comments from MIT officials/admin about student deaths while I was an undergrad.</p>
<p>This is part of it, I conjecture, and I’ll add a condensed statement of what I posted earlier: MIT represents a school where I think people are out primarily to intellectually advance themselves, more so than many other prestigious schools, which have much more diverse goals. Studying what one loves is a stressful thing (engaging in a personal battle is), even independent of petty competitive attitudes. An atmosphere full of people studying (perhaps somewhat similar) things they love makes it hard for one to step back and stop thinking about one’s intellectual goals.</p>
<p>^Something Jessie has said before, and which I think is very true, is that people at MIT tend to define themselves by their academic abilities and goals. They were always the smart ones in their high schools, and when they get to MIT and struggle, that can cause them to really question who they are and what they’re doing.</p>
<p>But in some sense, this is water under the bridge. The OP isn’t asking if s/he should apply to MIT, s/he’s asking what to say on the application.</p>
<p>My experience (more recent than collegealum314’s) is that MIT is really <em>variable</em> on mental health. There is good care available, but it depends on finding the right people. The implication being, you have to be willing to drop a counselor or shrink who’s not working out and find one that is.</p>
<p>But this is putting the cart before the horse. The question here is what to say on the application, and I think Mollie has the right idea.</p>
<p>(It was still a very well-known and touchy case when I was an undergrad, as it was recent enough that there were undergrads who had been around at the time.)</p>