Regular Action selection begins today

<p>shash<em>rao - like mit</em>2009 says, we have a pretty good sense of schools around the world. Remember that many folks on the committee have been reading international apps for many, many years. :-)</p>

<p>excalibur - we see all of them but only pay attention to the highest score on each test. The number of times that you take them has no bearing on our decision (but if it's a ridiculous number we will probably laugh at you). :-)</p>

<p>browski8 - here's the latest update courtesy of matt:
<a href="http://blogs.mit.edu/madmatt/posts/6952.aspx%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://blogs.mit.edu/madmatt/posts/6952.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>majinkoola - what mootmom says is correct - it is too late to send additional materials. They will be seen, but not by the committee.</p>

<p>Cybero - if it got here before the beginning of february (which sounds likely with a mid-jan mailing date), it was definitely reviewed along with your other recs.</p>

<p>mootmom - thanks! ;-)</p>

<p>Hey ben, just another question, adcoms can recognize the distinctions of awards right? Like before I came here i had no idea what was local, regional, national, etc.</p>

<p>Definitely. If I ever happen to come across one that I'm not sure about, I just ask McGann, who knows ALL. :-)</p>

<p>haha thanks, just wondering cause i think i marked some awards more/less prestigous than they are.</p>

<p>Ben, who is counted as domestic and international? Me, for example, I live in Belgium, but I'm a US citizen. What does that mean I am?</p>

<p>Thanks for the reply Ben. :)</p>

<p>u.s. citizen or permanent resident = domestic</p>

<p>Yep, US citizen = domestic.</p>

<p>Will the members of the committee for intls know the general level of courses in that country (as in India). Since we really dont have much flexibility in the courses, i just put in regular courses for all my subjects since everyone takes them. Some of the other applicants from my country put in different levels. Did i screw up big time or will the readers figure out what i did? I did explain some of it in my essays and my principal said she'll include it in her comments.</p>

<p>Ben, so accidentally marking awards as more prestigous isn't going to hurt me? (relax, soon i'll either be out of things to worry about, or have my decision :) )</p>

<p>
[quote]
i just put in regular courses for all my subjects since everyone takes them. Some of the other applicants from my country put in different levels

[/quote]

Yeah I just put regular in all of my apps, even though the difficulty of ISC courses is equiv to AP or even higher. So in reality, Indian students take only AP/IB level courses!</p>

<p>But I think adcoms know about this. Thing is, every indian takes the same level of courses so even it's of a higher level than US applicants, it doesn't help much because you are most likely compared to others of your own country.</p>

<p>And you are lucky that your principal explained it all in her rec. My principal, well, wrote a two para rec which is basically my biography, to complete the formality :(</p>

<p>Shash_rao - yes, the seasoned int'l readers are well aware and the newer int'l readers are trained and given documentation. No worries. :-)</p>

<p>KirbusPrime - No, with many of the awards it's sort of ambiguous anyway. Don't worry about it. :-)</p>

<p>Ben - is it true that you admitted fewer people this year than last year due to an unexpectedly high number of enrollments last year? If so, this just shows that some people do really have bad luck - this was just a bad year to be applying. I know there's nothing to be done about that, but it still makes me frustrated.</p>

<p>Thanks again Ben... I'm done now, I swear :)</p>

<p>ThinkDifferent, it's true. Their yield shot up from 59% (class of '07) to 66% (class of '08) -- and I think the class of '07 was overenrolled, too.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that last year (I believe), several top Ivies switched from EA to SCEA, which eliminated the pool of EA cross-applications between MIT and its biggest competitors. :) They tried accounting for this, but didn't account enough.</p>

<p>I have read that more int'ls will be accepted because of yield</p>

<p>tedjj where did you get that info from?</p>

<p>in the techh - mit newspaper - it was looong time ago</p>

<p>Alright Mr. Ben, Thanks for the valuable info. There is something that has been bothering me, in my country, we do not use GPA's how is the GPA worked out for schools/countries that use Final Certificate exams?</p>

<p>And also, in transfer admissions, which weighs more, two years of a college transcript or four of High School?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

<p>Alright Mr. Ben, Thanks for the valuable info. There is something that has been bothering me, in my country, we do not use GPA's how is the GPA worked out for schools/countries that use Final Certificate exams?</p>

<p>And also, in transfer admissions, which weighs more, two years of a college transcript or four of High School?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>