MIT Interviewer hasn't responded?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

On Sep 21 I sent an email to my MIT EC asking for an interview request, and today (Oct 1) she still hasn’t gotten back to me. Should I be worried? I just realized I sent it from my personal email and not my college application email, but I can’t check on MY MIT what email I used for that. Should I email her from my college app email?

On the same day, I applied for the Shadow a Student program (selecting the date Oct 20) but I haven’t gotten any word about it. What gives?

Please advise on what to do.

2

Absolutely send another email. (I’m an MIT EC). Be friendly but make reference to the email sent on 9/21 – let her know you’re ‘following up’ on it. But don’t be worried.

3

Thanks for the quick advice! Just did that. Added a line ‘I emailed you from my personal email which might have gone in your spam, apologies for the second mail.’

Do you know anything about the Shadow a Student program perhaps?

4

The Shadow a Student program is a great,‘hands on’ way of getting to know MIT. A few hours shadowing an MIT student isn’t going to give you a full understanding of the place, but it does help. I certainly recommend doing it if getting there isn’t too much of a obstacle.

5

ECs can be really busy, but they still typically reply in a week.

I see you’ve sent another email, but if you don’t get a reply, try calling if your EC has a number or contacting interview@mit.edu

6

Each year, this question comes up. Things do happen.

I am a regional chair of the MIT Educational Council (the interviewers) and a few years back, one of the ECs in my region died. The family notified a wide variety of people, but never even thought about notifying MIT. Obviously enough, he never responded to any of his applicants. However, we did ensure that each of his applicants did get an interview with another EC.

Many of the EC’s in my region are busy people. I have a senior government official, a few CEOs, and other folks with senior corporate jobs. One downside, is that many of these people need to travel. I lost one of my ECs for two weeks, as they needed to travel on business. to a place with lousy internet connectivity.

Do not let this stress you out. We are very good at ensuring that those who want an interview, get an interview.

7

My student did not get response for over a month. Then she emailed to interview@mit.edu and got assigned different EC. Good luck.

8

Be persistent. Call Admissions if need be. IMHO, MIT is one of the fewer colleges that gets it right. They really want to make that personal contact, and of all the colleges make it the easiest to accomplish.

9

Contact admissions and they will assign a different interviewer.

10

There is a balance to be struck here. Last year, one of my assigned applicants contacted the admissions office to request a new interviewer when I did not respond to his e-mail within 3 hours. Generally, I think you need to give it a week. People do go away on business or vacation, and it is entirely possible that someone is not contactable for a week.

Beyond a week though, it is harder to justify. Once a week passes, I would mail them again, and give them a few days the second time to respond. I have to prowl my spam folder carefully during interview season, as occasionally an interview request gets misclassified as spam. If they do not respond to the second mail, then I would write to interview@mit.edu to request a new EC and tell them that their previous EC is non-communicative.

Before you do that though, check that you did not make a mistake. Two years ago, an applicant in my region wrote to his EC and did not get a response. That is because he had misspelled the EC’s e-mail address. When he did not get a reply, he did a reply-all to his originally misspelled e-mail to write to him again. Not surprisingly, he still did not get a reply. We eventually sorted it out, but he went through a lot of stress for nothing.

Weird stuff does happen though. Two weeks ago, I had a request come though that one of my EC’s was non-responsive, and the applicant was reassigned. The EC involved was the vice chair for my region. This is a man I e-mail back and forth with at least a dozen times a week. I know how involved he is in the interviewing process, and he is the least likely EC in my region to be non-responsive. Nonetheless, the applicant, for whatever reason, never got a response. I do not know how or why it happened, but I reassigned the applicant.

Of course one important observation here is that if at all possible, request an interview as soon as you are ready. DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE to request an interview. Yes the interview deadline is 10 December, but if something goes wrong (misspelled e-mails, non-responsive EC), you may lose a week or two. Certainly in my region, if an applicant has a non-responsive EC, we will be certain to offer an interview, but if they requested the interview on the 10th, then the resulting interview will be somewhere around Christmas Eve, and nobody wants that.

11

Thanks all for your advice! After sending the second email with the ‘correct’ email I contacted admissions@mit.edu and they gave me a new EC who I just emailed. We’ll see if the response works out. Thank you all!