My son sent me a link to this. I hope the student gets in. What a great sense of humor! John Mongan: What A Great Guy!
It won’t let me copy/paste it. It’s a reply to one of the canned letters everyone gets after taking the SATs.
Haha this is epic. Hilarious!!!
I finally did the due diligence on the letters that were sent to my son. He and his friends are juniors in high school. It’s all new to them and they are getting these ridiculous letters. The letters were actually written in 1994 and John Mongan attended and graduated from Stanford. The letters were once featured on Car Talk. The brothers were MIT grads. MIT has changed their letter. Sorry CC if this has been posted every application season since 1994. I did a search and didn’t find it. Mr. Mongan has a new generation of fans not even born when he was choosing schools!
This gave me a morning chuckle!
So, John Mongan didn’t attend MIT, but the question on everyone’s mind is; “Was he admitted to MIT”?
Ha! Had a good laugh over coffee on this one.
Loved this! Even if it is posted every year, there are new readers who appreciate it, like me.
That is hilarious! That guy sure has whit - and balls.
That is HILARIOUS. I wouldn’t dare to say this to any admissions officer.
I don’t think he got into MIT, based on some research I did.
Humor is in the eye of the beholder.
I think a better question is “did he apply?” My bet is that letter was sent well after he got his early acceptance to Stanford. Although either way, I do think MIT would have found that letter hilarious and it would have worked in his flavor rather than against him in reviewing his app. I happen to like the John Mongans of this world.
As noted above this is a VERY old letter. I think Michael Benhke left MIT in 1997.
Ha, I haven’t seen this gem. But MIT did respond on the web, in a bit whiny way to say the student didn’t recognize that the MIT letter itself was a parody, you can tell they were a little butthurt over it though.
http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~john/resp.html
The ‘student’ has this bio on a book on tech interviewing that he published.
John Mongan is a self-taught programmer with professional experience as a consultant for software and pharmaceutical companies. He has three patents on software testing technologies. He holds a BS in chemistry from Stanford and a PhD in Bioinformatics from UC San Diego, with thesis work in supercomputer simulations of protein dynamics.
And further it looks like he has a MD/PhD and is an Asst Prof at UCSF Radiology. Not bad for a smartass.
Haha seems like MIT’s trying to say “Oh yeah, well, it still worked! So there! HA!”. Guess that guy couldn’t take a joke.
I lost it once it said, “You think I can pay for school? Don’t be too sure”
MIT says the original letter was a parody…SURE it was, I totally believe MIT (sarcasm font needed). Weak comeback by MIT.
LOL XD.
A perfect slap to MIT. Wonder what Mongan would have written if it had been Uchicago.