Thoughts on EA decisions

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

<p>This is my second round of EA decisions on CC, so I feel like I may have earned the right to wax philosophic. I also do not have a [url=<a href="http://www.mitadmissions.org/Mollie.shtml%5Dblog%5B/url"&gt;http://www.mitadmissions.org/Mollie.shtml]blog[/url&lt;/a&gt;] anymore, so I'm in need of places to wax philosophic in the first place. :)</p>

<p>First, I want to say that no matter what your decision is, it did not come out the way it did because of your race. It did not come out the way it did because of your SAT score. There's no one "reason" you were accepted/deferred/rejected. It's a little frustrating, but that's the reality of a holistic admissions process.</p>

<p>Your decision is not a value judgement on you and on the way you live your life. If you still believe that MIT's admission rate is ~14% because only ~14% of the applicant pool is MIT-worthy, I have confidence you'll change your mind on this issue at some point in the next few years. There may only be a handful of really smart kids in your high school, but when you go to college, no matter where you go to college, you will realize that there are a lot of highly gifted kids your age across the country. </p>

<p>Personally, I don't think it's possible to pull out "the best" small percentage of people out of a very talented applicant pool. Too many of you just haven't had the ability in high school to show what you're really made of.</p>

<p>For that reason, I don't think anybody should really be shocked by his or her decision. If you got in, well, it's because you're fabulous. If you got deferred, well, it's because you're fabulous, but a lot of other fabulous people applied too.</p>

<p>Those of you who were deferred, you absolutely would not have been deferred if the admissions officers didn't believe you would be competitive for admission in the regular action round. I know it's rough to have to wait even longer when you're antsy enough as it is. Just think of this as a second shot -- you can update your application and make it stronger for regular action. You have the benefit of hindsight.</p>

<p>Best of luck to everybody, both at MIT and at other schools. As always, I'm available to answer questions about MIT on the board, via PM, and via email (although I'm notoriously bad at responding to emails!).</p>

2

<p>I'm still trying to figure out why MIT's early admit rate is as low as Harvard's REGULAR admit rate. </p>

<p>Also, can we really update our applications? To what extent -- can we resubmit entire parts of it?</p>

3

<p>MIT Admissions wants to fill up AT MOST 30% of the class early, and since it is Early Action, a lot of people are going to apply early... so that explains why MIT's EA acceptance rate is low and often lower than its RD acceptance rate.</p>

4

<p>MIT stops accepting people early after they have potentially filled 30% of the class.</p>

5

<p>From Matt, last</a> year:

[quote]

Should I send in extra materials?</p>

<p>The only thing we ask that you send in is the midyear grade report. You can download one off of the MyMIT website if you need one. Your semester grades are very important so keep working hard. We'd like this report as soon as possible after your grades are available; by the beginning of February would be great, but definitely by the end of February.</p>

<p>You may also want to keep us up-to-date with any news in your life. This is not required nor is it expected, but if anything exciting happens definitely let us know. It's best if you send any such letter by the end of January, but you may keep us in the loop through the time we mail regular action decisions in mid-March.</p>

<p>Should I send in a whole new version of my application?</p>

<p>No. You do not need to "improve" your application, or redo/edit/modify part or all of your application. You were deferred because your application was already strong enough to make you a contender in the Regular Action round. Let your application stand.</p>

<p>What about extra essays, recommendations, etc?</p>

<p>You may send along anything that you feel would be helpful to the committee. We do not expect or require any of these things. Simply sending in additional materials does not by itself increase your chances of admission.

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