When you apply early to MIT, if you are a competitive applicant you have a pretty decent chance of having two bites at the apple instead of one. If MIT is truly your top choice than this is a really good thing. You can also apply to other schools that are EA and an ED school. OP’s logic with respect to HYPS is full of holes.
OP here.
I appreciate the numerous, well-reasoned responses to my venting. The points raised in the responses are mostly useful in allowing me a different view of what MIT has done in deferring 70% of the Early Decision pool. I recognize that it is not unique (HYP all defer a supermajority of their EA applicants), and perhaps deciding on which school an applicant likes best is part of the intent of SCEA/REA admissions programs.
I like the idea of treating a deferral as a rejection. In doing that, if it turns out that the student is wrong about that and is admitted in the RD round, it will be a hugely pleasant surprise.
I wonder how it is, though, that Stanford can make a decision to admit or reject in 91% of their early applicant pool, and MIT has nearly eight times that percentage of applicants about whom they can’t make up their minds. Truly, this strikes me as “kicking the can down the road.”
My son has already received acceptances to the state flagship and a couple other private schools, so it’s not like he is suddenly learning that he has no options. He had considered the statistics and knew from the outset that he would most likely not be attending MIT due to the giant pool of amazing applicants. That’s why he submitted his other applications, as well as “buying a lottery ticket” for the Grand Prize that MIT represented to him.
Although I readily admit that I’m venting here, it seems to me that my son held up his end of the bargain, and MIT did not hold up theirs. Thumbs up, or thumbs down, I feel that they owed him a decision. The fact that “other schools do it” or “we’ve always done it that way” don’t mean that the practice is just, fair, correct, or ultimately beneficial to the applicant, or to MIT (or HYP, for that matter). MIT Admissions should be much more like Stanford in this regard and work strongly to cut the percentages of early applicants who are still in limbo after the ED round decisions are announced.
Negative decisions are unpleasant no matter when they are delivered, but imagine the following scenario: you have a biopsy, and your surgeon tells you that the diagnosis will be available in a week. But after a week, they tell you it’ll actually be three more months till you have your life-changing news. And what if the pathologist said that to the surgeon, 70% of the time. Would the surgeon still continue to use that pathology lab? You know the answer to that question. The analogy may be a bit strained, but that’s how it feels to a teenager. And no, he’s not secretly relieved that “at least it’s not a rejection”.
MIT doesn’t require you to “forsake all others”, as @msdarcy has noted. But aside from that, what do you call “minimal”? Thousands of applicants apply SCEA/REA every year to HYPS, knowing full well how “minimal” the chance is - particularly for an unhooked applicant. After athletic recruits, legacies, donors, URMs and other hooked applicants are sorted out, the odds of an unhooked applicant getting admitted are probably not much better than in the RD round.
What’s needed is a dose of realism among applicants. Being qualified + applying early does not equal a substantially increased chance of being admitted.
@Eidetic, Stanford receives by far the most applications of the top schools - around 42,000. They don’t have the resources to re-review a large number of deferred applicants along with RD applicants. Because of this, their policy is to review each applicant only once if at all possible, with only a small number deferred.
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/01/24/early-programs-not-created-equal/
Also, if your son is truly so miserable being deferred, he can withdraw his application, effectively turning his deferral into a rejection.
I was deferred, and I’m glad it was so. MIT is not a restrictive early action school, either. Everyone was free to apply elsewhere; good schools besides the top 15. MIT defers applicants they believe are capable of surviving MIT, but need to be compared to the rest of the applicant pool in order to make a decision. They can’t just accept everyone. ~61% were deferred this year. Lots were rejected. MIT makes decisions with a reason.
I’m a teenager, and I am relieved that at least it wasn’t a rejection. I’m relieved they haven’t ended my pursuit. I’m relieved they’re giving me another chance; it shows just how much they care about the individual–looking at my stats, you would’ve thought it would’ve been an automatic rejection. It’s giving us a chance to take that January SAT and then realize our life shouldn’t revolve around college admissions. Our life wasn’t dedicated to getting into college. It shouldn’t be. We should do things we are passionate about and change the world around us with that passion.
Lastly, MIT is not the goal; it is a tool to get to the end goal. There are many wonderful schools out there, and they’re out there waiting for equally wonderful applicants. MIT has way less seats than wonderful applicants.
Agree, he can end his misery by withdrawing his app. Why is it okay to “buy a lottery ticket” for EA admission, but not hang onto that ticket for another shot in the RD pool?
^ A very mature response. Well said.
I think families will react to a deferral in very different ways and should probably try to anticipate and discuss that reaction before making an early application decision. Many students might well prefer a deferral - both because it keeps the dream alive and because it tempers what might be the student’s first real rejection. Other students might hate the agonizing wait and prefer an answer, even a negative one, to the agony of enduring an additional time of insecurity. If one is in the latter category, that student should be careful not to apply early to a school that defers a large number of early candidates.
Parent of an MIT freshman here. Totally understand how you feel. Just wanted to share our experience. My son was deferred early, then accepted in the RD round. I can’t even put in to words how exciting that was. Totally unexpected. Very low acceptance rate for deferred students. He didn’t even check the portal right away. He almost didn’t submit February updates. We liked that MIT EA allowed him to apply to some smaller engineering schools and Case Western, Georgia Tech, he even did Carnegie Mellon regular. He was able to secure early academic scholarships at others. Not HYPS, but good schools, solid for engineering. He worked hard on all of his applications and many of his friends were set with where they were going months before him. He had discounted MIT, but it worked out in the end. The deferred students make up 13% of his admitted class. We met a lot of them at orientation. All very excited to have the opportunity. He just got home last night, did very well academically his first semester and made great friends. We couldn’t be happier for him and we are very proud of him.
I would point out that those accepted early at HYPS include legacies and athletes. MIT does not give special consideration to those groups. I do think coaches support applications of those with stats in the expected range, but they don’t have early reads or likely letters at MIT.
Anyway, I was where you are a year ago, so I do understand. They hurt and you hurt with them when things don’t work out. Just wanted to share a story with a positive outcome after being deferred. And my son had decent, in range stats, but wasn’t a national academic competition winner or anything. Just drumline and strong music interests (composing, audio engineering).
Best of luck to everyone!
One other point, I think something like 12 people in Admissions read your students app, I believe Stanford is single or two at the most. Not sure about the others. It may not seem like it, but a lot of effort goes in to these decisions at MIT.
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We all know whenever decision making by human being, there is deviation in judgement under different circumstances. It applies to admission mechanism because it is a holistic review. Deferral means a good chance again for a student if luck is on her/his side. Isn’t it beautiful to have more students got the chance?
My son got deferral. He accepts it because he knows the odds of an international student. Although he is disappointed, he is pleased to have one more chance. Never give up!
Yesterday, i found that somebody we know got admission to the engineering school via EA Turned out he was not a very academically sound student, and was not even a national merit finalist. Not sure what to make out of it, except that some abstract quality of this person worked out!!
That is the point of holistic admissions.
I don’t know why someone would have to be National Merit to be admitted to MIT. That is quite a strange belief.
One of mine was deferred then admitted. I think the odds of those applying early are considerably higher than those who apply RA but many are admitted in the regular round. There are a lot of students at MIT who were deferred and then admitted. I think they are over represented (more of them then the acceptance stats would suggest) also because they are probably more likely to take the offer-so there are simply more of them at the school.
It is a amazing school but it is a very tough school. No easy anything.
My son wasn’t NM finalist, just commended. That is based on one test, his full SAT was actually higher. You don’t apply to specific schools at MIT, you are accepted in to the university as a whole. Be careful this time of year too, you never know if everyone is being truthful. One of my son’s classmates said he had gotten in everywhere, the truth came out before they graduated.
Deferral isn’t a loss. They liked your app enough to keep it, for comparison with RD kids. It can be as simple as geographical diversity or the number of early kids leaning toward the same majors. Sorry, but this is the big leagues and some resilience and perspective- and willingness to stick it out- matters very much. Not just for the admit decision, but for the four years.
Take it or leave it.
And what MIT makes crystal clear is they like interesting, rounded kids, with various experiences and challenges they pursued, (with superlative academics, sure.) Mr Garage Nuclear Guy likely didn’t present this, no matter how impressive it seems to build a reactor. It’s not that some other kids necessarily built two or discovered a new galaxy or cured cancer.
@sarangooL, it was meant to be informational
New and better opportunities could open up for your kid. I wouldnt worry too much about it
I believe Stanford makes a big mistake and rejects many good early candidates that then go to MIT! So its not in Stanford’s best interests to reject so many before they see who is applying regular decision. So they make mistakes. MIT is much more careful in their admissions process is my conclusion compared to Stanford U. Yes, I did attend MIT.
Try thinking about this from a different perspective.
Let’s say MIT accepted ONLY under RD. There would be the question of “WHY?” Other schools have SCEA, ED, or EA.
Then MIT says, well, OK, if you apply by a certain date, we will give your application a read. If you are on either end of the spectrum (i.e. there is no way they would admit you, or there is no way they would NOT admit you), they will go ahead and act on your application.
Otherwise, as they said, they will decide on March 14, under RD.
They give no restriction on applying to other schools, and will read applications submitted early as a courtesy (and to balance out their own workload).
It seems to me that the OP should be railing against the ED and REA/SCEA schools that DO restrict additional applications to other schools; not against an open EA school.