<p>Just like this board is slowly filling up "the essay" questions & doubts, I'm asking my questions here too</p>
<p>In the app, the required essays are:
Please explain your reasons for wanting to attend MIT.
Please discuss why you are considering transferring from your current college or university.
</p>
<p>Well, MIT is top-notch, has great faculty, great sfr, awesome research unv, blah - blah !
The reason for transferring is pretty obvious! But the obvious answer is never good enough.</p>
<p>So how should I write #e1, shall I write strongly in favor of MIT or what ??</p>
<p>It’s not obvious. At least not to me, but maybe to you. That signals the need for an essay explaining.</p>
<p>Yes, MIT is a great school. If all you wanted to say was why you’d consider attending it, sure, that’s blatantly obvious. It’s a top notch school that probably has whatever you’re looking for academically. </p>
<p>The key is to be more specific than that. What kinds of things would you be able to get there that you wouldn’t get elsewhere, and how would these benefit you?? Ever watched Good Will Hunting? As much as there is much dramatization to that, when the Professor states that only a handful of people could tell the difference between him and Will, he’s right. Can you tell the difference between an MIT professor and a professor elsewhere? Sometimes the professor elsewhere would be just as accomplished. </p>
<p>I think focusing on how top the faculty is often must be a mistake, because the faculty at most top notch research schools are so up there that their “top-ness” shouldn’t even be the distinguishing factor. Maybe what they do could be the distinguishing factor, though that’s usually reserved for grad school.</p>
<p>Why would you consider transferring into a school with potentially very different requirements and a new environment when you are where you are? Would you actually benefit much more from what MIT has to offer? Where are you transferring from - this will / should play a huge role in the answer.</p>
<p>^ Just to clarify my response a bit, I don’t think these reasons are the obvious reasons to come to MIT. My main reasons for applying here had nothing to do with academic rigor (so long as MIT was a decent school, I would’ve wanted to come here regardless). But if that’s the reason the OP has, then that’s his/her reason.</p>
<p>My reasons for transferring are pretty straight forward.</p>
<p>The US Citizens can have x,y,z options to select any particular unv they want but being international I really don’t have much options to look for since finaid is also a huge factor. And seriously I feel very dumb right now as I feel I don’t have a “good” reason for transferring.
I’m studying in the #1 unv in India. I have proven myself here, I just want to progress in my life & studying at MIT will give me help advance. These reasons are the most common reasons & are my real feelings, but MIT will never be impressed cause they hear it from every other applicant. I’m a very common applicant with nothing uncommon so I guess I will get rejected since I didn’t had a good reason for transferring :(</p>
<p>It’s valid to want to move to somewhere you think you’ll advance more in, however, what I think they’re trying to get at is why MIT and not some other university? There are plenty of universities in the US that are topnotch that you could transfer to. Why MIT other those other universities?</p>
Its the only tech unv where full need-blind scholarship is available for intl students
amongst the 6 need blind, princeton have no transfer program, amherst is arts, yale & harvard doesnt have a very strong engineering program, thus mit only has what i want exactly</p>
<p>these r my main reasons, MIT knows this already so they want to hear something new, which I dont have.</p>
<p>HOLD ON! I didn’t know the MIT app was a collaborative work. So you guys ALL are applying together with 1 app? I thought it was an INDIVIDUAL application! Seriously guys, an essay is to be written by yourself. NOT BY SOMEBODY ELSE. I know you want help, but seriously, the essay is YOUR ESSAY! NOT SOMEBODY ELSE’S. There IS NO RIGHT ANSWER. But if you write something that obviously doesn’t seem like it’s you, then they will snoop that out and reject you.
From the MIT Blog:
<p>I just wanted to let the OP know that by itself MIT’s academic rigor and reputation is probably not a good reason for transferring, even if that’s the supposed reason given at this point. The “number 1” universities in India (and China, France, Germany, …) often will present the same level of rigor. Further, depending on what you want to study, you could head to Caltech, CMU, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, UChicago… many schools with super-insane rigor in math/science/engineering subjects which could help one make just as terrific a career or graduate program, since they have top of the line repute in several subjects.</p>
<p>I think the OP’s reason is a good reason for wanting to attend, but there were two questions asked, and perhaps the OP was making the mistake of treating them as the same question…although it seems now that’s been clarified!</p>
</p>