I know MIT is inundated right now with emails but my son submitted EA app 10/31. Haven’t been contacted about interview yet. Think he should reach out to interview@mit? Live in small town SC, not sure if alumni are in the area. Would he be interviewed by another location since it’s virtual anyway?
Yes you (or rather, your son) should reach out and ask MIT about the interview. Since they’re all being done virtually, location shouldn’t matter as much. But they do try and match you with an EC who knows the school district or region. So it also depends on EC availability. If they can’t offer an interview it will not impact your son.
Hope that helps. Good luck.
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Someone reported yesterday (here? Reddit?) that they called admissions yesterday about not hearing, and they were told just to wait.
A current student posted on Reddit that they weren’t contacted until 11/17 last year.
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ECs are assigned to their local high schools. In some regions there are not enough ECs to cover all the applicants and so some applicants go into the “overflow” pool. I just checked and currently there are about 1700 applicants in the overflow pool.
So, if an applicant does not get an interview it won’t be held against them. I believe that last year we got thru all, or close to all, the overflow pool but most ECs, like me, did their assigned applicants first.
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My son had applied on 10/15, and we were getting worried about the interview call (lack thereof). Finally he got the email today, it had come in yesterday, in spam folder. The EC would like to do the interview today!
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My son still did not get any interview. Anyone else not getting the interview besides him 
Sorry forgot the question mark ?
Hello,
How many applicants are currently in the overflow pool? Thank you.
Mine has not gotten an interview yet. What is the overflow pool? What area do you live in?
From what I understand, overflow pool is the list of students who have not been assigned an interview. We live near a major city.
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As of November 17 there were still about 1500 in the overflow pool. I was recently assigned 4 applicants from that pool to interview as I agreed to do overflow applicants.
The most likely outcome for an EA applicant is to be deferred to RD. Last year we were still interviewing those deferred applicants during the RD timeframe.
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Thank you.
Hi @HPuck35,
The most likely outcome for an EA applicant is to be deferred to RD.
I assume you mean this applies to all EA applicants (and not just to those who didn’t get interviewed)?
So, an EA applicant who isn’t accepted outright is more likely to be deferred rather than rejected. That’s a helpful insight.
Do you know typically what portion of an incoming class is filled via EA?
Thanks
MIT publishes lots and lots of their admissions data. Last year, there were 15,081 EA applications, 759 admitted EA, 10,673 deferred to RA, and 194 of the deferred were admitted in RD.
See more data here:
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Thank you @lll1!
So, 55.6% of the incoming freshman class was filled from EA.
And 70.8% of those who didn’t get admitted via EA were deferred to RD vs 24.1% who were rejected.
Yes, the deferral to RD comment applies to all EA applicants and not just those that didn’t get an interview during EA.
MIT tries to get all applicants an interview but there are just not enough ECs to get to everyone.
Not a universal assessment but just an observation on my part. The quality of applicants I see during EA seems to be, on average, a little better than those that only apply during RD. I guess if you are the type to get yourself organized and submit your application during EA than you might be that way throughout the rest of what you do. But, that is just an average. I do see good candidates that apply only RD. So, I would expect a higher percentage of EA applicants to get admitted in the final count.
You also have to remember that ECs only get an applicant’s name, the name of their high school, their home town and contact info. We don’t see anything else and we don’t ask for any test scores, GPA, etc. The role of the interview is to get some insight into what the applicant is like beyond their academics.
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I would advise against that (being too aware of the interviewer’s background). While I don’t interview for MIT, I do for an HYPS. It’s always off putting to me when an interviewee affirmatively shows that they have researched me. I think it is smart to have an idea of the interviewer’s background/interests through a Google/LinkedIn search, but I would not be obvious about it.
Different interviewers will have different styles. Your D just needs to go with the flow and treat it as a conversation with the goal of leaving an impression of someone who is bright, ambitious, engaged and curious academically. Listening and responding accordingly is also valuable. Sometimes it is obvious to me that a kid has a canned pre-prepared answer to something they think I am asking vs actually responding to my question. Good questions to ask the interviewer are things like how has MIT [school] prepared you for your career, how has the alumni network worked for you professionally, were you able to pursue interests outside of academic while at MIT? Questions about the interviewer’s personal experience IMO are better than questions about the school since that usually can be answered through other sources.
Good luck to your D. She should have fun with it.
Edit: Oops sorry, just saw that I am late to the party, but my recommendations hold true for any interview with almost any college that does them.
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Thank you for that information.
Thanks for pitching in (Any advise at this point is valuable given we still have HYP RD 
). She didn’t bring in too much of French, though she expressed her interest in studying the language at college, which she genuinely has.