<p>Does an interview increase your chances of acceptance at MIT?</p>
<p>Also, if I were to schedule an interview, should I do it over the summer before my senior year, or during the fall?</p>
<p>Can someone tell me the questions they ask during the interviews?</p>
<p>Historically, the percentage of students admitted who interviewed is significantly higher than the percentage of students admitted who didn't interview (something like 16% vs 5%, off the top of my head). After you submit your basic information on MyMIT (the online application system), the system will assign you an EC and give you his/her contact information. You should contact this interviewer and schedule a time for him/her. </p>
<p>All of this information (and more and improved, of course) should be on the MIT admissions website and in the application instructions, by the way.</p>
<p>It's possible that having an interview increases the chances of acceptance per se, but it's also pretty likely that the interviewed and non-interviewed segments of the applicant pool are different -- at the most basic level, the students who choose to be interviewed are probably more serious about MIT and have more competitive applications in the first place.</p>
<p>Amit Mx, it's great to schedule your interview early, before everybody's scrambling to get one. There are always a few frantic posts on CC after the deadline to contact interviewers, asking if students can still be interviewed -- the ECs are usually very kind and flexible, but it's good to schedule early!</p>
<p>There is no list of questions that every interviewer must ask, and therefore different ECs tend to conduct interviews in different ways. None are looking to grill applicants, just to help the admissions committee see the real person behind the paper application.</p>
<p>i'm going to mit, and i'm pretty sure my interview certainly didn't give a good impression -- i did all my college apps rather hurriedly, and i didn't even bother to read the bit about needing an interview. it was only when my friend told me two weeks after the deadline that i should have had one that i contacted my EC and scheduled an interview.</p>
<p>that being said, please don't do what i did, but don't sweat it too much because clearly it wasn't that important since they still admitted me.</p>
<p>Iotstream, maybe you just got lucky :P, but congrats anyway haha.
I'm going to MIT as well, but I'm positive my interview helped. My interviewer and I clicked pretty well, and we talked about some pretty whack stuff, including our mutual interest in Bill Amend's Star Wars spoofs in Foxtrot. He called me a day or two after I was admitted to convince me to come to MIT (he knew I had SCEA'd into Stanford 3 months before). Yeah, the interview turned out to be beneficial to me :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the info! I'm almost positive I will be scheduling an interview any time now :).</p>
<p>Well it is hard to "prepare" for the MIT interview. As an EC (interviewer), I am looking for what is not on the application elsewhere. It really is just a chat, and it usually is enjoyable for both parties.</p>
<p>The interview is particularly important at the edges, if you have a spectacularly good or a spectacularly bad interview, it can matter, and matter a lot. I have written an "anyone but this guy" interview report on one occasion, and given how competitive the admissions process it, that had to hurt.</p>