<p>Did anyone else get a letter from the admission/financial aid office (specifically jessica clark) that was a standard welcome, and then on the bottom a hand written note about what they liked about you?</p>
<p>My admissions officer did that for me last year. It’s not incredibly uncommon, although obviously not everyone can get a handwritten note, so you should attach some meaning to it.</p>
<p>Harvard wants to achieve 90+% yield :)</p>
<p>I got one too. Two differences. Mine was from Angela Francisco Flygh, and apparently there was nothing particularly distinguishing about me to like, because her handwritten note was just a reiteration of the standard welcome. Oh well</p>
<p>You must have been quite disappointed, then realized you are attending Harvard next year and forgot all about it.</p>
<p>I got one!!! It was from my staff representative or something like that, and the person talked about how he loved my essay, with specific references to the things I’ve mentioned in there :). I thought it was really nice of them to send personalized letters to everyone.</p>
<p>I got one. It mentioned that I like going swinging, which was cute. I swear I didn’t put that in my Harvard app, but who knows.</p>
<p>I had sort of been hoping to get such a message, since my current #1 had sent me a message like that, and, I dunno, I feel like my parents might make me go to Harvard, so I wanted to feel like maybe I was special there, not just a number. But it left me feeling decidedly less special than the other little note did. Still very nice though.</p>
<p>^Millancad, please please come to Harvard? I want to meet you some day :).</p>
<p>^If I don’t come to Harvard, I will be a 20 minute walk away at the school down the road. You can still find me :).</p>
<p>^ If you don’t mind elaborating, what do you intend to study and what factors are playing into your consideration between MIT and Harvard?</p>
<p>Yes, I received a similar personalized note from my regional representative. I have actually met her in person before.</p>
<p>I was really surprised and excited that I got a note with a personal message about my essay…it made Harvard seem very personable!</p>
<p>^^^I plan to study linguistics.</p>
<p>I… haven’t yet come up with too many concrete reasons for my preference for MIT. I was never that into Harvard, even when I was applying. One of my friends there liked it, so I applied. And she hadn’t even thought that much about her decision either. When she got in, her sister just said “Come. We will drink hot chocolate together at that one place,” so she went. I guess my feelings are mostly based on how I perceive the schools at a personal level. I’m also not being exactly fair, if I’m honest.</p>
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<p>Interesting! Do you have any specific interest in the somewhat broad field?</p>
<p>Chomsky is your concrete reason for MIT!
JK, I think the two schools are pretty different culture-wise, and it’s pretty obvious which one you belong ;)</p>
<p>@Millancad: In the event that you are still receptive to external biases, I vote for Harvard. :)</p>
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<p>I am randomly leaning toward neurolinguistics and minority East Asian languages. I also adore Sapir and Whorf and have recently gained some interest in orthography. In other words, I am pretty open to influence.</p>
<p>And I feel like I should apologize for hijacking the thread :).</p>
<p>I received a note from Yale but not Harvard, and then I remembered that the admissions office isn’t representative of the school as a whole, and anything they do to make you feel like “more than a number” is meaningless.</p>
<p>You can get Noam Chomsky at Harvard too.</p>
<p>D got a handwritten note saying nice things about her essays but then she just assumed that every admitted student got a handwritten note and admisissions was just doing the same thing as Yale so it feels more personalized.</p>
<p>She did like the comments though – very specific and showed they had really got her. Its going to be a hard choice.</p>