On Being Honest, College Applications at MIT

<p>From what I've read here, and from what I've heard nearly everywhere else, the key to doing well on a college application is not just representing yourself as a collegiate, but also making sure that you're stunningly honest.</p>

<p>But is there such a thing as too honest?</p>

<p>I know I can't be the only one, but who else thought about writing a sex joke when the question about "pleasure" came up?</p>

<p>I didn't write that, but I did write something unorthodox, and it worries me.</p>

<p>What worries me even more is the gravitation towards a more formal writing on the applications. I feel that when writing about events or activities that are of great importance to me, that having to ball them up in fancy rhetoric or even your standard formal rhetoric would kill the message, so I end up writing about them in a not too informal but not quite so formal way. Should I just work on striking a particular balance? Or is there some better way to do this?</p>

<p>Lastly, the college admissions process is something that just seems so daunting. Here I am trying to confine what I feel makes me a good student, a good human, an excellent choice for MIT, onto an electronic application, and I can only help but feel that this imperfect medium is merely a hand from which you throw dice and hope to get lucky (and not the six-sided ones at that, I'm talking Dungeons & Dragons type forty sided ones).</p>

<p>I'm nowhere near the perfect numbers, but I am awesome, and well aware of that fact. But when it comes to being honest about my feeling about myself, and my feeling that I deserve a spot in this school, I sometimes wonder if my honesty is what might prevent me from getting in.</p>

<p>Oh well, maybe this is more of a venting than an actual post, but I'd still appreciate community feedback. Thanks!</p>

<p>I agree with you wholeheartedly, Giroux.
At first I thought I'd write my essays for MIT in stunningly nerdy parlance; then I realized that doing so would probably be really irksome - it's already obvious that I can write and read and talk nerdy to people if I'm applying to MIT. So, I'm going to be informal like you when I write my stuff. </p>

<p>By the way, the D&D dice joke was greatly appreciated. :D Though I honestly don't play D&D (I'm not even joking). Maybe I should start.</p>

<p>I don't play D&D either, but their dice are epic.</p>

<p>It isn't so much that I'm purposefully putting my otherwise-formal words into an informal application. It's just that, when I write about things I really care about, I don't express those things in pseudo-intellectual rhetoric. I would write as though I were talking, and maybe MIT isn't a fan of that.</p>

<p>And the obvious answer is, "you're doing it wrong" and then a suggestion to just be honest, but then there's the whole issue of when being honest is too honest.</p>

<p>Thoughts, anybody?</p>

<p>You're worrying too much. Remember what Thomas Edison said:</p>

<p>"Hell, there are no rules here-- we're trying to accomplish something."</p>

<p>Come across honestly -- nothing is too honest.</p>

<p>Let the readers decide if you will liven MIT!</p>

<p>The admissions people have to read HUNDREDS of essays. If you throw in a classy joke, I'm sure they'll appreciate it just as much as the next person.</p>

<p>Just make sure that you don't sacrifice your message for the sake of humor.</p>