What Question Would YOU Like To See On the Application?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

<p>This thread is for MIT applicants past, present, and future. </p>

<p>As many of you know, we are not a common app school. We instead have a few short answer questions. They are very simple, and very straightforward. </p>

<p>For example, the first question this past year was: "We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it." </p>

<p>This is not a trick question. </p>

<p>Not a trick question. </p>

<p>The rest are all similar to that - questions inquiring broadly about a time you've been creative; about your community and world; about a time you've overcome a challenge or something didn't go according to plan. </p>

<p>So here's a question for all of you: </p>

<p>What question would you like to see asked? </p>

<p>I don't mean for this to be an opportunity to brag or be blatantly self serving (e.g. "I would like you to ask about a time that we won a math award, why yes, I did happen to win the county math fair!!"). This is an honest question. </p>

<p>Put yourselves in our shoes. What sort of question do you think we should ask of all of our applicants to ascertain useful data upon which we could then make our admissions decisions. </p>

<p>I'm not saying we will use anything you post (indeed, we've essentially settled on next year's application already, since it will go online in a mere few months). But maybe something you say will inspire us, or lead us in a new and interesting direction. Maybe CC as a community can figure out an interesting tell us how to ask you to tell us something interesting. </p>

<p>(Yes, I did that on purpose). </p>

<p>So whaddya think?</p>

2

<p>We realize that all of you are all high achieving individuals. How do you prioritize your many activities? What is most important to you and why?</p>

3

<p>If you were a tool, what kind of tool would you be and why?</p>

<p>I am on the waitlist for this year, so I have done your app. In my opinion, MIT had the best application that I filled out. I thought the 5 short question allowed me to let you know who I was as a person compared to the common app essay. I thought the questions you had on this years application were very good as they are.</p>

<p>-Nate Whitney</p>

4

<p>Something broad. Limiting an essay to something like “looking through a window” or something like that kills my creativity. Yes, I know a creative person could make something great out of that, but I hate having to whiddle my tools down to all the times in my life i’ve been near windows. There was a “What is life?” question a few years. Something like that wouldn’t just let you see how the person looks at the world, it would also allow you to see who can think “outside” of the curriculum…Kids get essays like the window one all the time, but rarely get extremely open-ended questions that go beyhond asking for specific experiences.</p>

5

<p>Not familiar with the MIT application, but here’s my remark based on my general [copious] criticisms of how college apps can be structured - presumably you want useful information that actually tells you about the applicants beyond what’s immediately evident from a transcript.</p>

<p>One suggestion concurs with junhugie’s philosophy - open-endedness is a great thing. I think a lot of applications ask questions that just seem like you should answer them in a certain way, and are really strange and unnecessarily so at times. I think straightforward and open-ended really opens things up, and might reduce the chance an applicant will be tempted to BS. </p>

<p>A question honestly inquiring as to what someone does specifically for intellectual pleasure is nice too - this is a dimension other than acing tests.</p>

6

<p>I really liked this year’s application. The short essays made me cut out everything unnecessary or tangential and a lot of the narrative (once I start writing it’s hard to stop me, so I ended up at 1000 or so words for some essays and worked from there). I wouldn’t do it differently. I didn’t really like the common app questions, but the ones on the MIT app were open-ended enough (eg the “your world” question, where I wrote about a potato field) and they let me show different aspects of my life. I have to admit, at first the whole thing looked very intimidating and it was a lot of work, but it was perfectly do-able.</p>

7

<p>I think it would be interesting to word a question around the “naming ceremonies” of the Aboriginal and Native American tribes. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>You could ask something like:<br>
If you were to give yourself a one word descriptive name based on who you are and how you want to live your life, what would it be and why?</p>

<p>I did this exercise many years ago in a work related seminar. It was a blast to see what everyone came up with and it was amazing how the names they chose closely reflected their personalities. Mine was mother or maybe nurturer - not because I wanted to have children, but because I like nurture people, protect the underdog, make their problems go away, etc.</p>

8

<p>I remember talking with my older friend about college and I recall him wanting to apply to MIT but the question he choose to answer had already been answered with a similar response. It was “Fill this page”.</p>

<p>So my question would be “What is your response?”.</p>

9

<p>Slightly along the lines of Kajon’s suggestion - who is an influential character or thinker whom you admire, <em>somewhat identify with</em> and would like to emulate?</p>

10

<p>What I liked about the MIT application was that it was open-ended BUT the questions were straight to the point. I think it will be great if this property can be preserved.</p>

<p>Anyway, let me give this 3 shots at it…</p>

<p>===========</p>

<p>It’s very easy to convince yourself that you fit perfectly into a school’s culture, but a little harder to convince yourself of the contrapositive, even if it should be equivalent…</p>

<p>“(Optional) The application may not give a complete picture of yourself. You may use this space to tell us why you think you might not fit into the MIT community.”</p>

<p>===========</p>

<p>Being a little conventional, perhaps give a quote as a prompt… <em>shrugs</em> say, this is one of my favorites among memoirs published by the National Academy of Sciences…</p>

<p>"I owe a lot to R. B. Woodward. He showed me that one could attack difficult problems without a clear idea of their outcome, but with confidence that intelligence and effort would solve them.
– memoir on R. B. Woodward, S.B.,1936 MIT; Ph.D., 1937 MIT</p>

<p>Talk about a difficult problem that you had approached."</p>

<p>============</p>

<p>Lastly, even now, MIT’s application had the most ambiguous word limit to me. It will be nice if the word limits were some seemingly arbitrary numbers, say… 251 and 257… because they’re prime or something - I don’t know.</p>

11

<p>The MIT application this year was really cool. Easy and friendly. MIT prides itself to be a collaborative environment. I think a question that would show how collaborative and less competitive the applicant is, would be a plus. To survive at MIT, the students need to know how to work in groups, to share their knowledge and to collaborate with others. I think this is the only part that is lacking on the MIT application. The rest of the application is really amazing and touches all the important points I think you guys from admissions care about a candidate.</p>

12

<p>

I agree.</p>

<p>When people interview to join my lab for postdoctoral positions or technician positions, we always ask them to tell us about a time they worked collaboratively, just like that, very open-endedly. We get a lot of information out of this question on how likely it is that the candidate is going to work well as a member of our lab.</p>

13

<p>“Fill in this page” is a question on the Caltech application. At least, it was in '04. It does stick out in my mind as one of the more interesting ones I had to answer. (I think there was a tiny bit of explanation, something like “fill this page with anything you find interesting. It can be anything- text, images, maps, etc- as long as you find it interesting.”</p>

<p>Maybe this thread should be a question. “What question should we ask next year’s applicants?” =)</p>

<p>Or turn the quote thing on its head: “What is your favorite quotation and why?”</p>

<p>I happened to write about collaboration, but I think it just happened to have a lot to do with my response to the “tell us about something you’ve created” question. I wonder if you could make it into a more creative question, rather than the boring, standard, “Tell us about a time you worked on a team.” Hmm…</p>

14

<p>In 200 words or less, explain to us Why you want to go to college.</p>

15

<p>@ several - </p>

<p>We used to have an optional “fill in this page” question, but discontinued it some time ago. </p>

<p>Thanks for the other suggestions! Keep 'em coming!</p>

16

<p>I read last year’s application and I must say, as soon as I read the “tell us about a time you’ve been creative” prompt, my face lit up like a Christmas tree on - well - Christmas.
I just have so many of those (and no, I haven’t built a universal destruction robot in my basement) that this had to be the most amazing essay prompt I’ve seen, not to mention that it tells you who really possesses enough creativity to let it shine someday. I actually smiled when I read it. And, as someone who’s planning on applying this year (already have my myMIT account :D) I hope to God it stays on next year’s application.</p>

<p>As for an essay prompt I would like to see…
Well, I’ll think of some and report back in a day or two. For now, though, perhaps: “What quality do you think differentiates you from others, and what quality allows you to collaborate with others?” I read the part where you absolutely have to be a team player to survive at MIT, so that’s the 2nd part of the question, and well, you need the people to be distinctive, not just plain old going through life because it’s there or something. Might be a bit of a bragging spree from many applicants, but hey, that might actually help you opt some people out :slight_smile:
It’s my opinion that people need to know how to work with others but also need to have some one-ups on others (everyone has them in one form or another) - and need to be able to recognize these qualities and be able to state them. Taking credit where credit is due. Leaving out the bragging, though.
I’ll try and come up with a few more :)</p>

<p>P.S.: This is an awesome thread on behalf of MIT. Seriously.</p>

17

<p>

</p>

<p>I approve :)</p>

18

<p>“What question would you like to see asked?”</p>

19

<p>LOL at the above suggestion.</p>

<p>Honestly, these are ALL the kind of things I would like.</p>

<p>You should also have something crazy-wacko on there…That would REALLY be fun:</p>

<p>If you shrunk to the size of a peanut and were placed in a blender with no-one around, and you had exactly 30 seconds until the blender started, what would you do?</p>

20

<p>I’m a junior so I don’t know what old apps look like but I was going to suggest. “What is something creative you have done that you are proud of?” but apparently “tell us about a time you’ve been creative” has already been a question :P</p>

<p>how about…
If you could be ANY living species (other than a human… includes bacteria, plants, whatever) which one would you pick and why?</p>