Just wanted to let you know that I've created a spinoff site for the Orientation team. There are seven bloggers - three staff and four students - and they'll be happy to answer all of your orientation-related questions.

You'll find it here:

www.mitorientation.org

Enjoy!

-B

I think I'll just start with the facts and save the long, introspective part for a later entry, once I've had a chance to really process all of this.

In a nutshell: after four incredible years here, I'm going to be leaving MIT in July. I'll also be leaving Boston, which has been my home for more than a decade, and which will always be the city I love more than any other. It's a lot to digest, and it's going to take some time.

I guess you probably want to know the details. I'm heading back to Oberlin, my alma mater, where I've just been appointed Vice President for Communications - I'll be overseeing communications strategy for the whole college. Those of you with whom I've spoken about Oberlin know how deeply I love the place, and at this critical moment in its history, it needs me - in many of the same ways that MIT did four years ago - to help it tell its story to the world. It's a tremendous professional opportunity, but to me it feels more like a calling than a job.

Nothing can lighten the sadness of leaving MIT. I may not be an alum, but I did spend four very intense years here. I may not have taken 8.02, but I also didn't get summers off the way you slackers do... so let's just call it even. ;-) As Nance says, I may have been born into the Oberlin family and married into the MIT family, but one is no less significant than the other.

So while I may be leaving MIT physically, I'll never leave MIT - it's too much a part of me. I'll just be more like an alum than a current student.

One thing is certain: if I am invested in you - and you know who you are - no distance will ever change that. I'll still be checking up on you, keeping tabs, making sure you're getting the most out of your college experience, same as I've always done.

That's a promise.

I'll write a lot more over the next couple of months. I'll get all sorts of reflective and nostalgic, as soon as I'm ready. Stay tuned.

-B

P.S. This is the 2500th entry on mitadmissions.org. That speaks for itself, I suppose.

It was truly AWESOME to spend lots of time with all of you this past weekend. I hope you guys had as much fun as I did!

A quick update before I depart for a few days of vacation...

First, a big thanks to Chris Merrill '12 for sending me the group photo from our Meet The Bloggers party. If I shrink it down to fit here, you won't be able to identify anyone, so I'll just link to the big version:

MTB Party Group Photo

Second, another big thanks to Kris Brewer and Larry Gallagher from MIT TechTV, who worked tirelessly during CPW to capture our various events on video. You'll find the fruits of their labor here:

MIT TechTV CPW Channel

Have fun reliving the memories, and I'll talk to you all when I get back next week.

:-) B.

cpw2008.tumblr.com

Enjoy! :-)

-B

I've decided to add to the CPW coverage by creating a CPW tumblr account. For those of you who are unfamiliar with tumblr, it's a great site that basically allows you to upload photos and thoughts to the web in real time, using your cell phone. If just 10% of the prefrosh currently registered for CPW each upload 5 texts and/or photos over the course of the weekend, that'll be 500+ snapshots. Seems like a pretty cool way to live-blog CPW from a variety of perspectives.

If you're interested in being part of the project, please send me an email (benjones at mit dot edu). I'll need to confirm that you're really who you say you are, of course, so if we haven't met before, please write to me from whichever email account you used to register for your MyMIT account so I can verify it.

Disclaimer: if something goes horribly wrong with this experiment, I'll have to pull the site. But let's give it a shot and see what happens.

CPW begins one week from today!

Some quick messages from CPW HQ!

If you haven't yet registered for CPW: the deadline is TODAY! Please log into your MyMIT account and fill out the CPW registration form asap. If you don't have a MyMIT account, you can call the CPW hotline (617.258.6085) to register via telephone.

If you have already registered for CPW: please log into your MyMIT account and confirm that your registration was recorded by the system. Simply click on the "Registration" link in the CPW portlet - if you see your registration information, you're all set. If the form is blank, however, then your registration was not received by MIT. This has happened to a few students who didn't register using one of the recommended browsers (Safari or Explorer). If your form is blank, you'll need to register again.

Thanks, and see you all in less than 2 weeks! :-)

-B

We've been hearing reports that a few of you haven't received your packages yet. Please don't worry - they should arrive very soon!

In the meantime, please don't forget to register for Campus Preview Weekend via your MyMIT account by March 31st.

If your parents are coming, we have blocked off reduced-rate rooms at several nearby hotels, but the rates will expire soon, so please encourage them to call as soon as possible. There's more information for parents here.

Update for Waitlisted students:

If you would prefer to email us your plans to stay on the waitlist rather than return the postcard, simply send a message to mit2012waitlist@mit.edu and we'll be happy to take care of this for you.

Random fun:

In this post I mentioned that Shannon '12 had created a job-awesomeness formula for me. To understand it, you must first read the email conversation that we had on the day decisions were released:

Shannon: Times like this make me convinced you have the best job in the world. And then I [think about the admit rate], and I think your job sucks. Just fyi.

Ben: My job is 11.6% best-job-in-the-world (this year's admit rate) and 88.4% this-job-sucks. Except... while in the first few post-decision weeks the sadness for rejected students outweighs the joy for admitted ones, that ratio soon reverses and becomes a landslide win for the joy, which sticks with you through the years (because you see the students you admitted every day, and they remind you). So you have to adjust the 11.6% and 88.4% accordingly. I'll leave it to you to put all of this into some sort of algorithm or formula to determine whether the job nets joy or sadness as a function of time.

A few hours later...

Shannon: While I had to assume 100% happiness when not making decisions and make up a few arbitrary dates and vacation times and take away your weekends, a rough estimate says your job is ~65.27% awesome. Work is attached.

Yep, this pretty much made my day.

And now you can all use this thread to write new formulas and solve the puzzle from a variety of different ways and make me laugh all day. :-)

I am here in the office preparing the blogs for the post-decision-release onslaught of comments. It's eerily quiet, which is both nice and unsettling at the same time. In the last two months - days, nights, weekends, whenever - I can't remember a time in which I was alone here. I hope that all of my colleagues are still asleep - they deserve it!

I'm sitting here reflecting on the class we just admitted and feeling incredible about it. We've admitted some great classes over the years, but there's something about this one that just feels perfect. (Yes, I say that every year. Yes, it's true every year.)

Having said that, there are of course many of you to whom we were not able to offer admission, and I am feeling equally sad about that. Having you in the class would have made it no less perfect. But the numbers are the numbers, and there are only so many spots.

Shannon '12 did an amazing thing for me and calculated whether my job is net joy or net sorrow as a function of admitting, not admitting, and time. Maybe she'll let me blog her results sometime. ;-)

Anyway, I need to go get some things set up before we release decisions at noon. If you're looking for a way to pass the time, and you haven't read this already, check out this post from a couple of years ago. Hopefully it will help you understand what the last few weeks have been like for us.

Best of luck to you all! I'm thinking about you.

-B

Jess sent me an email a few days ago making fun of me for being completely awol from the blogs recently. She's right, and I apologize; we've been working 7-day weeks since January reading all of your applications and selecting the class in committee. This time next week I'll be enjoying my first day off in quite awhile, and my blogging should return shortly thereafter.

I'm pleased to let you know that we're on schedule to release decisions online at noon (Eastern Time) on Saturday March 15. They will be mailed via postal mail a few days later, most likely on Monday, March 17 or Tuesday, March 3/18.

Decisions will be available online to those who meet all of the following criteria:

• You have applied for freshman admission (not transfer or graduate).

• Your intended entry year (as designated in your MyMIT account) is 2008.

• You applied in Regular Action, or were deferred in Early Action (the system is unable to display decisions for those who applied in Early Action and received a "final" action in December - i.e. admitted or denied).

------------------------------

What is the process for receiving my admissions decision online?

In order to check your decision online, you will need to have registered for a MyMIT account and you will need to know your username and password. When decisions are released, simply visit https://decisions.mit.edu and log in using the same username and password that you use to log into your MyMIT account. There are no interim screens, so you should be sure you wish to receive your decision online before logging in to decisions.mit.edu.

Please note that you can visit https://decisions.mit.edu beginning tomorrow (Monday, March 10) to confirm your username and password. We will not be in the office on the weekend that decisions are released, so to prevent any delays, you should confirm your username and password well in advance.

What if I've forgotten my MyMIT username or password?

You may use our automated system to reset it. Simply visit my.mit.edu and click on the "lost username" or "lost password" link.

What if I don't have a MyMIT account?

If you do not currently have a MyMIT account and you wish to receive your decision online, you will need to register for one using your MIT ID, which was sent to you via postal mail soon after receiving your paper application (if you used the online application, you already have a MyMIT account). If you have misplaced your MIT ID, or if you never received it, you may call our office to get it (please note that you will be asked to give some personal information for verification).

If you register without your MIT ID, your username and password may not work on decisions.mit.edu.

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Hang in there - only a few more days of waiting!

390 --> 522
I've been noticing lots of speculation all over the web about the reasons behind our increasing the number of EA admits from last year's 390 to this year's 522. Fear not, we have no plans to increase the class size, nor are we abandoning the principle of enrolling a maximum of one third of our class in EA.

Recent changes in the early application policies of some of our peer institutions have increased the number of outstanding applications to MIT and to many other highly selective schools. Each university's yield (the percentage of students who accept their offer of admission) is predicted to decrease accordingly, and the increase in the number of students admitted to MIT in Early Action is simply a reflection of this.

Snively
I mentioned in this entry that we couldn't hire Snively as a blogger, despite a significant public outcry of support, because of the "Burton-Conner rule." After weeks of people picketing around the clock outside of 3-108, we've relented. Please go home now, you're scaring the prospective students.

(Real reason: the other Burton-Conner bloggers collectively publish about as much as two, not three - so there's room for Snively. At least that's how we justified it.)

Evan Broder's Holiday Card
...is perhaps the cutest thing on the planet (thanks Ms. Broder!). If he doesn't start blogging again soon, I will scan it in and publish it here.

Valentine's Day
...is coming! My wife wanted me to share this link with you, in case you have a wonderfully nerdy mom or girl that you need to impress. I think this one is particularly awesome, although I can't afford it. :-(

That's About It...
We start reading RA applications this weekend. Yay!