<p>The new pages for Class of 2012 says that students have to be on campus on August 23, 2008 for Orientation. I have plans to watch the soccer finals of Olympic Games on the same afternoon (UTC+8). I guess my question for more experienced MIT students is that if I were to choose to go to MIT, would I have to forfeit my Olympic tickets? And since I have to order plane tickets soon, this MIT vs. Olympics conundrum has to be solved soon. :(</p>
<p>First of all, where did you find that information? [EDIT: Nevermind. For anyone else who's curious, we</a> now have our own site.]</p>
<p>Second of all, Olympic tickets are a once in a life time opportunity. You'll be hanging out with us for four years. It's a tough call, but it's the OLYMPICS!! Take pictures and just make us all jealous when you get back on campus.</p>
<p>Olympics > orientation</p>
<p>Actually, after digging around that site, it looks like we're actually REQUIRED to be on campus August 23rd. You should probably email a higher up at MIT and ask them if you're even allowed to skip.</p>
<p>yeah im gonna email them.</p>
<p>Required schmequired.</p>
<p>Other than meeting with your freshman advisor and picking your dorm, there are no required orientation events, no matter what the ARC tells you. If you want to keep the tickets, I'd get to campus absolutely ASAP afterward, though -- residence exploration events have been held early in orientation the past few years, and you'll want to have enough information to pick a dorm.</p>
<p>yeah, i attended precisely zero official orientation events during orientation.</p>
<p>don't worry about it.</p>
<p>i barely went to any orientation events either. go to the olympics. no-brainer.</p>
<p>Uhh, tickets will be hard to get this late in the game.</p>
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[quote]
Required schmequired.</p>
<p>Other than meeting with your freshman advisor and picking your dorm, there are no required orientation events, no matter what the ARC tells you. If you want to keep the tickets, I'd get to campus absolutely ASAP afterward, though -- residence exploration events have been held early in orientation the past few years, and you'll want to have enough information to pick a dorm.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, that's the only real problem here. Dorm rush has been at the very beginning of Orientation the last couple of years. Missing dorm rush, or any significant part of it, is very bad. You'd want to get to campus ASAP.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the input. I'm not going to the Olympics soccer match. It's not the opening or closing ceremony. It'd probably be between two countries like Cameroon and Argentina. I can miss a match like that without too much regret. I emailed the ticketing agency and they told me I can transfer my tickets (to my cousin) if I want to.
Plus, I didn't want to miss any days of MIT Orientation.</p>
<p>MIT is certainly > any shape or form soccer...so in that respect it's good that you're not going, especially since you said you wont be missing any special ceremony.</p>