MIT Admissions Office sets up forum for rejected applicants | Hacker News Reader

MIT Admissions Office sets up forum for rejected applicants

mitadmissions.org

23 pointsechair14 comments

There is some comedy gold there:

"I can't believe this. this is so incredibly ridiculous!!!!!! i'm leader of the debate team, the robotics team, the medical team, the card team, the literary magazine team, the church team, the basketball team, the football team, the science team, the math team, the environmental team, the foot lover's team, the stripper team, the alcoholics anonymous team, the science Olympiad team, the cross country team(i run a 13:30 5k and have placed first in states for the past 3 years),

i speak 13 different languages fluently including Klingon, python, c++, d--, oracle, I knit enough blankets for all the homeless people in quebec, in one night last winter, my stomach can digest grass, i've played multiple concerts in carnegie hall, i found the square of the circle, i have lots of friends(im incredibly popular), my painting of mother teresa's exhumed body is on display in MOMA, i communicate telepathically with my dog, my aunt the queen of england keeps my photo-realistic paintings on her refrigerator,

i've actually attended classes at MIT for the past 5 years even though i live in milwaukee, i tame unicorns on weekends, i worked for NASA for the past 13 summers, i've gone into outer-space, i got a 2600 on my SAT's, 5's on all the AP tests, i have 6.0 grade point average, and i'm black, hawaiian, hispanic, inuit, and native-american!

AND I RIDE A UNICYCLE!!!

i spent three years writing and perfecting my essays for mit: my interview went well, my resume is perfect, i am perfect, i just don't get it!

how didn't i get since i'm obviously so wonderful????? why doesn't mit want robots like me????"

Good and if you haven't read Hugh Gallagher's college admission essay:

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/joke/essay.htm

probably because he thinks that "how didn't i get since i'm obviously so wonderful????? " has no mistakes

My favorite, from an MIT administrator:

"Other imperatives might be the need for, say, a good bassoon player for MIT's prized symphony orchestra, or people more likely to be interested in, say, energy studies, as opposed to yet more computer science majors."

So you founded your own startup at age 15 and sold it to Google? Impressive, but we're more interested in your bassoon skills.

There's a difference between "yet more" and "the most impressive"....

As far as I know, MIT has always been good about admitting people who have done things that, by definition, not a lot of people can do (such as place highly in a competition).

But, would a bassoonist or energy-studies focused person be better for the institution than compsci major #201? Probably.

MIT perceives an ongoing need for basic biological science researchers and would definitely take biology major #30 over computer science major #200. What it's really happy about is the would-be biology researcher who wants to be in an interdisciplinary environment and is willing to learn math and computer science, the better to understand biology.

This has been done before. Yes, it's a blog post, not a whole online forum. The blogs by the admission officers have become an integral part of MIT's outreach to prospective students.

One of the most useful blog posts by a (now former) MIT admission officer is

http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/before/recommended_high_...

One example of important breaking news breaking on the MIT admissions blog was

http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/misc/miscellaneous/messa...

which must have been a very painful entry to write.

I applied to MIT for undergrad, and I was thoroughly impressed by the openness of their admissions office. They are miles ahead of most schools I know of in terms of how reachable, responsive & transparent their admissions officers are.

They should accept advertisements from CMU, UIUC, and UMich.

better yet, they should setup an affiliate link with them. 4% of $40,000/yr for a referral, is not that bad

How about a direct link to After Credentials?

I'm surprised how soon they get a reply (for admission next fall, right)? I applied for grad school there recently, does anyone know if the chances are better or worse? :)

Grad school admissions is basically just done by the profs in your department. Also, these folks applied for Early Admission and get either a yes/no/deferred to normal admissions reply before the end of the year.

It's not a forum in a traditional sense, but a blog post.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com