MIT Interview

Please post if Interview deadline is extended

If a student is deferred and didn’t get offered an interview in the “EA round” would they be offered one in the RD round?

All of you who are not getting interview slots are being extremely civil.

I don’t have a child applying to MIT this year, but if I did and my child didn’t get an interview and received this level of poor communication, I would be livid. And I am an alum!

As I have said before, I don’t like this new system for interviews. In the past, the student would contact the EC and the students were warned to not wait until the deadline. The interviews were then spread out over a month or more.

Now, I had 2 students finish their applications a few days before the Nov 1 deadline and 4 at the deadline. It meant I had to cram 6 interviews into a short amount of time. Fortunately I had time and got them done but I can see where some ECs might have been overwhelmed.

From what I understand, the new system was in response to some ECs being overwhelmed and it would turn out that some of the interviewed students ended up not applying. The new system was supposed to make it easier for the ECs but IMHO, it made it worse. I only had 1 student not apply over the 20 some odd interviews that I have done previously.

I’d complain too if I had a son or daughter who was applying and didn’t get an interview.

Do ECs receive a copy of the application (either part1 or part2) before the interview?

Hi geekgurl, I am not an alum. From what I see from the posts by ECs, deadline of interviews in EA round is over. There also seems to be a lot of emphasis that not being called for an interview will not have an impact on the admission decision.

All the best to you!

It’s the second half of November, and the EA decisions will probably come out in less than a month from today. That being said, if I still didn’t receive an interview invitation, is there a chance that I’ll get one?

I have emailed them, and this was their reply…

We understand that most students would like to have an interview, but, unfortunately, we don’t have the capacity to interview every applicant.

Most EA interviews will take place sometime in November, and the timing really depends on the availability of our alumni interviewers. We do not confirm the availability of an interview for individual applicants.

ECs will typically use the email address you provided on your application to contact you, so please monitor your inbox and respond promptly. If we are unable to offer you an interview, it will be waived and your application will not be adversely affected, so don’t worry!

It seems that everyone is struggling with the new system, and not enough people to interview the applicants (maybe 10,000 applicants applied this round)

@Tamarix The EC’s receive NO part of the application. We get names, address, phone number, email, school, and birthdate. Also some status info. That’s it. They also ask us NOT to google the applicant. (As if we have all this extra time to kill…)

@geekgurl Good question. I’ll ask.

@MomMani There is no indication the deadline is going to be extended

I think they’ve received a record number of EA applications although I have seen no official numbers. That, coupled with the kinks in the new system this year may mean more applicants than usual did not get interviewed. I actually suggested to MIT that they consider releasing the name of the interviewer to the applicant once they complete Parts 1 and 2. That way, the earlier they complete them the sooner they can have the interview and the less likely they will be unable to have one.

Oh, and not having an interview because you were not contacted, will not affect your interview. My guess is that this EA round will have a higher % of applicants without interviews than past years.

For those students who finished the interviews, are the interviews showing up on your myMIT application tracking?

As an EC from a state that used to cover 100% of EA interviews (Colorado) I believe MIT made a mistake and needs to contact students earlier for interviews, such as after Part 1.
@Tamarix ECs have never read Part 1 or Part 2 , we do not have access to that and in fact we do not in general look at test scores or GPA’s either. The only role of the EC is to be a personal contact with the student. We write up a short report on fit, and interests. Its not earth shattering to miss the interview, but it still seems that problem is worse now and caused a lot of anxiety among MIT applicants. Please understand the interview is optional and try to feel OK about our process.

I feel terrible that this has gone so badly and will reach out to MIT Admissions after decisions come out.

@mathmomvt I do not know for sure if deferred students will be interviewed if they were not contacted during the EA round. I hope so and I will suggest that.
MIT Admissions will make the final decisions. ECs are just part time volunteers and have no decision making authority when it comes to who is admitted. The EA interview window
was way way too short for most ECs. Most of us have full time jobs.

The RA interview window will be longer but if you submit your application early, you may be contacted early.
The problem I see is ECs do not have time to check the database every day. So its really a bad system and students should be given their EC’s name and number to contact them. Its way way too much work for ECs to go into the database every day in the month of December.

EC student lists may include say 36 students and half of those do not end up applying to MIT, is the problem. So we cannot tell who is applying on our long list of students who have expressed interest in MIT. MIT Admissions will sort this out.

@Smithfamily no, myMIT doesn’t say anything about the interview.

@geekgurl Did you get an interview? What state are you from? ECs will not get any communication from MIT Admissions now, because its a super busy time with a record number of EA applications, apparently.
I really hesitate to ask MIT Admissions questions during the app reading time. MIT Admissions is very busy now as they read applications very carefully. They will NOT count it against you if no EC contacted you.

MIT will assess this process and adjust it. They want students to have a personal contact, but don’t get worked up over it. What you and your teachers say about you , is much more important to MIT than what an alumni says about you who has met you for one hour.

MIT had a lot of California applicants in particular using the MIT EC interview to practice, is why this interview process changed. So the student really wanted to attend Stanford, but used MIT’s liberal policy to get a practice interview. ECs in California wrote up these students and then they did not apply to MIT. Thus the new policy.

Interesting comment regarding California. I am an EC, lived in California and moved to New Hampshire. I had far fewer potential applicants on my list in California than I do now in New Hampshire. I had a couple interviewees in California that ended up not applying, but I didn’t think it was too many. And I don’t think they were “practicing” their interview skills.

I was always under the impression (and maybe I’m wrong) that California had a very large number of MIT grads and therefore a corresponding large number of ECs.

Ironic that I did have one student in New Hampshire apply to MIT and was accepted. He did end up going to Stanford.

@HPuck35 From what I understand from the San Jose, CA area RC I have talked with, they are overwhelmed with interviews and have struggled to cover them. ECs in the Bay Area are covering over 20 students a year. They cannot interview all the students in CA. I don’t know about Los Angeles and San Diego, but the Bay Area is really struggling. I was just at the ALC in September and met the RC at that time from the Bay Area. They have many RCs as its such a huge burden to interview the numbers of applicants in the Bay area of CA. California sends the most students to MIT, more than NJ/NY I believe. I think almost 20- 25% of MIT undergrads grew up in California lately. It seems too high but they get a lot of applications from CA.

@HPuck35 762 MIT undergraduates come from CA. Thats the enrolled students. The applicants are truly a large number of CA students.
https://registrar.mit.edu/statistics-reports/geographic-distribution

Interviewing after part 1 is filed isn’t the answer. ECs I know complained about applicants using MIT as practice. Waiting until parts 1 and 2 are filed is the best way to combat that problem. Don’t think the new process caused more stress than the old. All the students in my area were on edge in previous years because their assigned interviewer wasn’t responding immediately to their request to schedule an interview. The best method I can think of is to publish a list of all students from a particular area, and allow ECs to pick the number that they can handle. Some ECs work a demanding job. Some are semi-retired and have time to interview many more applicants. As the number of students applying to MIT increases, reverting to the old way and wasting time on candidates who are practicing for the Harvard or Stanford interview would be foolish. Here are my suggestions in case ECs reading this thread want to make recommendations to the local chair:

  1. Rely much more heavily on Skype to interview
  2. Don’t interview candidates who aren’t academically capable of graduating
  3. Shift the non recruited fraction of the EA pool to the RD pool from the outset
  4. Allow ECs to determine how many interviews they have time to conduct.

@brassratter ECs have for thirty years determined how many interviews they have time to conduct, so thats not
an issue. We are volunteers and we are allowed to turn down any interviews we cannot handle.

I have never in 30 years had any student use me to practice and not apply. I had one student from community college, decide that it was not a good fit, and I was fine with that.

Can you explain number 3? Students decide to apply EA or RA. As far as I know MIT Admissions and volunteer ECs cannot do that. No one but the applicant can decide to apply EA or RA.

Also, you need to wait and see how many students were not interviewed in this round before you say its not a problem. Have you talked to an ECs in Colorado, Florida or California and have you seen the % of students who received an interview? As far as I know, MIT Admissions has not reported that number, but I believe they may be calculating it and comparing it to other years.

Also have you assessed how many ECs have resigned over this new practice? I see a wave of resignations coming.
But yes there are always new grads who will become an EC each year, so many no big deal. Younger MIT grads make better ECs in some cases. A lot of MIT grads do not like the work of an EC though, so much and only do this for two or three years and move on.

I have interviewed for 20 years and never had anyone use me as practice. I think it would be fine, though, and do not see a problem for MIT so much. The interview is really a marketing tool for MIT and a way to engage alumni. ECs that
believe its " important" are kidding themselves to some degree. Yes, it may help MIT Admissions, but I do not see
it as important because

  1. The interview optional
  2. The interview is a one hour conversation that may find red flags but often does not

And I do take time and interview 10 -20 students a year for many years. I like doing this for MIT
but if it becomes very inconvenient perhaps a lot of us will move on to other volunteer work in our communities. .

@brassratter Number 2 in your list never comes up. I have never interviewed a student who did not graduate from high school. That is not happening. MIT rejects go to Caltech, GaTech, Carnegie Mellon, U of Colorado, Rice U etc.
Its not very common to get weak candidates for MIT. MIT rejects 97% of girls and about 98% of boys. So the rejects are in good company and extraordinary students!

I lived in Ventura County in CA. In 2 years I interviewed 14 students, 12 of which actually applied.

One those that didn’t apply one was into a sport that was not a NCAA varsity sport and a somewhat obscure college club sport. Given that he was national champion in his sport and MIT didn’t have it as a club, I was asking him why he was considering MIT? I was just about expecting him not to apply. I was able to find out that he choose a college that did have his sport as a club (I found out by looking at the web page for his sport which talked about him going to college).

The other student who didn’t apply seemed like a very poor fit for MIT and my interview report reflected that. Of course, he never saw it. I didn’t discourage him from applying (as much as would have liked to). I’m pretty sure he didn’t get into Harvard or Stanford.

So, I never had the “practice” interview student.

I did 6 interviews for EA this November, 2 of which completed their applications on the day before the deadline and 4 of which submitted their entire application on the deadline so I had no idea that they were applying until I checked on November 2. I did interview all 6 but, given that I was on vacation until November 8, it was quite rushed. I was taking vacation time to write emails and schedule the interviews. Fortunately I am retired and so have the time. I live in a rural area and so some of the interviews were over an hours drive, one way, for me. I prefer that I drive rather than make a student who is already busy and nervous drive a distance.

Can we do something to encourage students to get their applications in earlier than the deadline. Something like stating that students who get their applications in by a certain date are more likely (guarantied ???) to get an interview and those that wait to the deadline are much less likely to get an interview. More time to schedule these interviews would be appreciated.