<p>I know this sounds stupid, but should I state somewhere that MIT is my first choice. I think telling a school that they are your first choice can backfire because they might thinks it's insincere and your saying that to every school. What do you guys think</p>
<p>I think its cliche. Although my interviewer asked me if MIT is my first choice.</p>
<p>No. It’s your first choice or not, I think that doesn’t matter. Passion is the thing that matters. Show them, not tell them.</p>
<p>I think it’s a net positive for you if you make it known that MIT is your first choice. This desire of course doesn’t have great weight in the admissions decision, but can be a tipping point, because all schools want to maximize yield. I’d be careful how you do this, though. My son told his GC in high school that MIT was his #1 choice, and we think this may be part of the reason why he was not accepted to some other schools (which would have been a problem had he not been accepted at MIT, as is true for most). The GC communicated with several of his schools. Why would HYP waste an aceptance on someone who was unlikely to matriculate? The best way to communicate is via the interviewer or somewhere in the application. Try to do it in a matter-of-fact way without being fawning.</p>
<p>There’s also a difference between throwing in an ‘oh by the way MIT you are my first choice’ and communicating it in a more subtle (but probably more effective) fashion. I never explicitly stated that MIT was my first choice, but everyone who read my essays told me that they dripped with passion and love for MIT, and that it was pretty obvious that if I got in, I’d go.</p>
<p>I feel like if MIT is really your first choice, you’ll be able to communicate this without needing to explicitly say it, unless you’re better at controlling your emotions than I am :)</p>