Read This!

Read This! That title is just a lazy excuse for not being able to come up with a good title. Oh well, thats life. Ill start off by saying that Im writing this from the train on the way to work. Please heed my advice: When settling in for an hour long T ride DO NOT eat a McGriddle right before, the grease does weird things. Anywho, on to the stuff that actually lets me keep my job as an admissions blogger. There are a lot of things that come along with the roll of admissions blogger. We blog (duh), are asked to admitted student meetings, help dole out prefrosh for CPW, sign Valentines and Christmas cards for admitted prefrosh, scrub spam off of our entries, and sometimes go to fancy hotels and talk about blogging. Another very large part of our job is knowing all the ins and outs of admissions so that we can field all of the questions we get. Every time somebody comments on an entry the comment is e-mailed to us, this way we get to see every comment, even ones that appear on older posts that we otherwise may have missed. Ive been reading these comments for a year and half now and have divided the types of comments into several distinct groups: 1) Numbers (First! Second! . . . Twentieth!) 2) Entry Response Short, one or two words (Nice job, good entry) Thought out 3) Comparison of entry to the readers life (Something like this happened to me once . . . ) 4) Response to another comment. (@_ _ _ _ _ _ _ , lorem ipsum dolar sit . . . ) 5) Question about previous entry (Whatever happened with . . . ) 6) Completely unrelated question about admissions (Hey, quick question, . . . .) 7) Annoying and spammed to all the front page entries question about admissions (I have a _ _ _ math and _ _ _ verbal, what are my chances . . . .) Number one isnt so much of an issue with a bunch of bloggers *cough*Keri*cough* because we have this awesome button that says “Mark as Junk” that ends up being used in these circumstances. Number two, entry responses, are fine because thats what the commenting feature exists for. Number three is ok too. Number four can be dangerous because thats how bad information can get out there and can also cause huge tangents in the comments. Number five is totally legitimate because it keeps us on our toes and makes us follow through with things weve written. We can be scatter-brained and sometimes forget that weve started a story but never finished. Number six happens quite frequently and is also fairly legitimate. When the questions are unrelated to the post it can be hard to answer them. We dont know everything and usually blog the stuff we do know. Well do our best, but sometimes it takes a while and a bunch of Google searches. Number seven is just dumb. No offense to anybody whos done this, but dont do it ever again. The blogs and the bloggers would love to help you through admissions, but we expect a little work on your end too. Actually, it barely even counts as work, we just want you to have at least read an entry or two, maybe explored the website a little. When I go to the blogs and see that the most recent comment on every front page entry is “Hello. My name is ___________. I am a high school student and want to go to MIT. Tell me how to get in.” I just write it off and never think about it again. Sorry, “How do I get in” is a question whose answer doesnt really exist, at least not in the form youre more than likely looking for. In addition to all of the comments, youll notice that each blogger has an e-mail address listed on the top left of their entries. This enables one-on-one interaction with bloggers for help answering questions or to say things that are a little too private for the blog comments. Youd be surprised at how many people take advantage of those e-mail addresses. Now for the real reason this post exists: E-mail FAQ. I get a lot of very similar questions via e-mail that never really pop up here. Some of them are things that could be very helpful so Ill put them here. Ready? Ok here we go “I am an international student and dont know what tests to take, please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” No disrespect (I mean that) but why do e-mails from India always have a ridiculous amount of extraneous punctuation? Is it a cultural thing? In any case, the application for international students is exactly the same as for domestic students but with the following exceptions: 1) SAT I can be replaced with TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) 2) Mid-Year grade report isnt necessary 3) Teacher and Counselor recommendations need to have a translation with them if they arent in English. 4) You cant apply Early Action (this means your application is due by January 1st) I took all of that information from this website and its always what I send to people who ask that question. Look around a little bit, this site is FULL of information, bloggers use it all the time to get information to answer questions. “Are there sports at MIT?” Again, answered on this site, but yes, MIT has more NCAA sports than any college in the country. “Will I have free time to do anything but study at MIT?” Very much so. If all you did was study then you would go insane. Insanity in moderation is fine, the type of insanity constant work would cause is bad. There are hints that youll be doing things other than work in the application. “What do you do purely for fun?” is a subtle check to make sure that youll be able to let off steam once you get here and wont have a mental breakdown. Answer that question truthfully, its very important. MITs motto, after “Mens et Manus” and “IHTFP, is “Work hard play hard.” We play very hard, theres no better way to relax, youll have plenty of time to not work. “Is MIT stressful?” Depends on who you ask. If you ask Maddie 11 then no, MIT isnt stressful. Im pretty convinced that Maddie was born with rose tinted eyeballs though. At times I find MIT quite stressful, but those times are infrequent. Its stressful because the amount of things that pile up. You could be coasting along, doing great, when all of a sudden you realize that everything is due in 4 days and you dont actually have time to do any of it. This is stressful no matter how you slice it (unless youre Maddie) but it goes away and you get on with your life. MIT scares you into getting your work done sometimes, but it works and makes you better for it. You learn to appreciate free time and the amount of work youre capable of. “What SAT score do I need to get in?” This is SO easy to answer. If you get something that looks like (where the spaces are any number you want) MATH: 7_ _ READING: 7 _ _ WRITING: 7_ _ then your SAT scores get a check and will no longer factor into your decision. Seriously, if you get above 700s then youre good. A 700 looks exactly like an 800, I swear (Im not lying, as much as you may think itll help to score higher than a 700, it wont!) If you have scores lower than 700 its not the end of the world. Balance it with an amazing application, but its much easier to sit tight at 700+ for your SATs. “What are the people like?” or, from the comments of my last post, “What is a quick and concise definition of MIT culture?” Im not sure why people are so against stereotypes. Maybe they feel unjustly accused of something if stereotyped with others? In my opinion, stereotypes are extremely useful tools that allow a quick and dirty explanation of things. Stereotypes wouldnt exist if there werent some kind of shared trait amongst a group of people. This is why, despite the bajillion “You are SO wrong”s Im going to get in the comments, Im going to use stereotypes to describe the types of students at MIT and how I interpret the culture here. While everybody is different, there are certain things that almost all MIT students have in common. They are: 1) Friendliness 2) Desire to help 3) Curiosity 4) Humility 5) Thinking without bounds 6) Accepting 7) Smart Try this. Come visit the campus and ask an MIT student for help with something. I give you my word that they will do their best to help you and with a smile on their face. Thats the way people here are, no matter how hosed or miserable, we love helping people. MIT students are very accepting of each other as well. This is not a local community school, there are people from countless states, countries, and religions all in one big melting pot. If we werent accepting then thered be a coup and MIT would rip itself apart. MIT students never stop at whats required, theyre always thinking of new things to do with an old idea or trying things that have never been done. Their curiosity, while sometimes dangerous, leads to more exciting discoveries and excellent stories than I can possibly imagine. An MIT student isnt limited. In no way do we feel like theres such thing as taking something “too far.” You want to invent something? Invent it. You want people to know about it? Get it on TV. How? Be creative! You want it in National Geographic!? Take it to Africa! MIT students are smart. Spend a day on campus and youll figure that out, but theyre also very humble. They know that as smart as they are, they are much less smart than hundreds of others here. Everybody is on the same playing field, nobody is super special because of their intelligence, no matter what they may think. MIT students can be goofballs and complete bozos around each other, all in the name of good fun. Smart, humble, and silly are three things balanced by all MIT students and, if I do say so myself, balanced expertly. “Will you show me around campus during my visit?” Absolutely. Just let me know when youre here and well meet up. I love showing people around. Thats all for now. I hope that helped. I know its a lot of writing but sometimes these blogs need writing to balance out the YouTube ; )