Well, a lot of you may be wondering "now what?". I have answers...

In case you thought your summer before you start MIT would be calm and relaxing, there are a lot of things coming "down the pike" (and I don't mean the MassPike) that you need to be aware of: some academic, some financial, some just plain old fun...

So without furtther ado, here is my (absolutely not complete, but everything I could think of) list of items you need to be planning for:

1. If you are a financial aid recipient and you haven't already done this, you need to return your Self Help and Outside Award Reply Form and your Student Information Review Form. We use these forms in the following way: the Self Help form is used to help us match the right loan and work options to your financial aid package (particularly the amount known as "Self Help"), and the Student Information Review form helps us match your MIT scholarship with a donor who may fund part of all of it. The forms are available online; make sure you choose the versions for freshmen for academic year 2007-08.

2. If your parents plan to apply for a loan to help cover your expenses, it's time to start working on their loan applications. Many families use private or Federal financing to help cover the cost of the MIT tuition and fees. Now is the time to get these applications in to your prospective lenders so that they have time to review your applications, prepare loan notes, and get things settled prior to your arrival on campus. There is an innumerable number (is that unnecessarily redundent?) of private loan options available. We have listed the most commonly used loans at MIT here.

3. If you have been awarded a Federal Perkins loan, Federal Stafford Loan or MIT Subsidized Technology Loan, keep looking here for more information on where and when to sign your loan notes. This will be coming by July 1!

Now let's turn to the more academic / computing side of the house. You will soon be receiving a large mailing packet from MIT (which RockStar Ben Jones refers to as the NBM - the Next Big Mailing -- note that Ben's post is from 2005, but much of the information is still valid). This mailing will contain your Kerberos certificate information so that you can set up to access all of the password protected stuff (technical term) you will need to enable your MIT email, your WEBSIS record, your student account bill... all of that jazz! Much of the information in the mailing can be found here and here, so if you want to get an early jump, read away.

While you are browsing these sites, look for information on housing, Freshmen advising, orientation, and just some general preparation. May I be so bold as to suggest, when you are looking at Freshmen advising possibilities, you consider a brand new Freshman Advising Seminar which features two folks you know well as your Advisor and Associate Advisor?