It's been quite a ride for the last four years. I came in as a premed, somewhat intimidated by the idea of an engineering school, and unsure what I wanted to major in meanwhile, but leaning toward course 9 with a focus on molecular/cellular neurobiology - something premed-ish, but with an element that was not just straight up bio, and in which I had some preexisting interest. I didn't intend to take any computer-related classes, any engineering classes (hands-on stuff, outside of a lab, was scary), or any math beyond the General Institute Requirements. I'm leaving as a course 9 major with a lot of side classes in 6 and 18, who went for systems, computational, and mathematical neuroscience and neural engineering, who took a 30 hour/week software engineering lab that I didn't need to graduate, who TAed a robotics class/competition, who learned how to use power tools.

This place will change you, reroute your life in interesting ways, if you let it, but you have to let it. I was a good target for being changed because, in truth, I was only on the track that I was on when I came in, by default, and it wasn't a lifestyle that I actually enjoyed or a goal that I actually cared about. Of course, if I'd gone to pretty much any other school - certainly any non-tech school - I would still be on that track. I'd probably have gone through college roughly the same way that I went through grade school - top grades, untried, well-liked but with almost no close friends or social life, feeling vaguely unsatisfied and not sure why, secretly fearing that I hadn't had enough challenges in life or in academics and would cave the first time I hit a wall.

I'm no longer afraid that I haven't been challenged enough. You don't get something for nothing. In addition to rerouting your life, making you rethink your values, and so on, MIT can do interesting things to you psychologically, and you should realize that before you go in (though it's unlikely that you can really realize it until you're there). It can hurt you sometimes. I could have had a much easier life the last four years if I'd been just about anywhere else. As a top high school student you've probably spent the last four years (or twelve years?) working toward the goal of getting into a top school, and it's been portrayed to you that if you just get into that top school, you've done what you needed to do, you have it made. That's not true - it's once you get here that the fun really starts.

So what am I doing now? Well, I'm living in Somerville (a town that borders Cambridge) in a house with a bunch of other people, mostly MIT people. I'll be working in Cambridge, as a software engineer of cognitive systems at Charles River Analytics, an applied artificial intelligence contract R&D company. As an R&D company that does a lot of government work, it's got a quasi-academic feel to it, publishing research papers, attending and presenting at conferences, and collaborating with academic labs. I think it'll be a lot of fun, and if I decide to try for grad school again at some point in the future it'll be good preparation. It's a (well-paying) job that uses my major, even! I really want to come back and be on one of those Life After Course 9 panels that the Brain & Cognitive Sciences Society puts on, because there were definitely times when I'd liked to have gone to one of those panels and seen someone like me there.

On that note, a tip that I've been wanting to bring up for a while: Course 9 (along with many other science majors) is not considered a particularly "employable" major according to popular stereotype. Every year at MIT, there's some large number of students who get into huge fights with their parents because their parents don't think their major is employable (I've known people whose parents pulled their tuition over this). Usually, these parents believe that some subset of the engineering majors and course 15 are employable, and anything else is a waste of time and money. Usually the students are resentful and rebellious and fire back that they want to do something that makes them happy.

Back when I actually went on College Confidential, I'd see parents argue about this - happiness with major vs employability - in the parent forums.

Here's my tip: Happiness with your major and employability are both important concerns, but they aren't mutually exclusive. You can major in what you want and be fine, but have a job/field in mind, that you would enjoy, where you are gaining the skills to be hired in that job at the bachelor's level. If you're in a major that doesn't suggest bachelor's-level employability, take employability booster classes to supplement it. I know a couple of humanities majors who are getting business minors for this reason. I know physics kids who take a couple of EE labs for this reason. I did this. I didn't like computer science as a whole field for its own sake enough to major in it, but I liked it as a tool to solve interesting problems, and I liked certain aspects of it for their own sakes, and now I have a job where I'll be using it, and particularly some parts of it that really interest me, as tools to solve problems related to what I studied in my major. It's the best of both worlds.

A few more final tips for incoming students: Take your living group selection seriously. I cannot stress this enough. Try to pick a place that fits you in the summer in case you get stuck there, but consider Dorm Rush (REX), not the summer, to be the time when you're truly making your living group decision. Don't settle for a satisfactory living group when you could have a great one. Find some activities that you like, but don't try to do all the activities, ever, right away - give yourself a chance to get used to MIT. Be open to change. Speak up about issues that concern you. Find a community that grows naturally (people you chose to live with, people with whom you share interests, people in your field, something like that), instead of accepting an artificial community that somebody imposes on you (e.g. class identity). Don't be cocky. Ask for help if you need it. Stand up for yourself as a student. Stand up for MIT culture as a student.

Keep MIT special.

Caption: Former UA Vice President Jessica H. Lowell '07 wrestles current UA Vice President (and Tech Campus Life columnist) Ruth F. Miller '07 in the mud pit at Senior Haus' Steer Roast. The match ended in a narrow victory for Lowell. (Photo credit to Eric Schmiedl '09)

Yes, that's me, in case you somehow didn't figure it out. I still have mud residue in my hair, five showers later.

Steer Roast, the context for this amusing photo, is an annual party, held the first weekend in May every year by Senior Haus. It gets its name because it involves roasting a steer, which people later eat. It has other food, and bands, and two nights of partying. It also has mudwrestling.

In addition to my mudwrestling, I worked a three-hour security shift - party security is student volunteers, backed up by Campus Police. My good friend Erik '09 was the head of security.

What did YOU do this weekend?

From Amelia: What fields does course 9 include? Primarily biology? Chemistry? Mathematics? A little bit of everything?

It includes a little bit of everything, and because it's such a flexible major, you get a lot of choice in what you want it to be. Former blogger Mollie, for instance, took a lot of cellular and molecular neurobiology classes. I've taken, among other things, a functional and evolutionary neuroanatomy class (9.14), a developmental neurobiology class (9.18), a systems and computational neuroscience lab (9.02), a bioelectrical engineering elective on sensation and perception (9.35), and a class on what functional neuroimaging tells us about high-level vision (9.71). You have to take 9.00 (Intro to Psychology), 9.01 (Intro to Neuroscience), and a probability/statistics class.

From Anna: Do you know anyone at MIT who came from a rural area or a small, noncompetitive high school? I'm a little worried about how difficult it might be to catch up academically!

Oh goodness, yes. Contrary to a common misconception that I remember coming up pretty often on the "not admitted" thread on Ben's blog, this school is not a bastion of socioeconomic elitism. I've known people from rich prep schools, people from parochial schools, people from magnets, people from vocational schools, people from run-of-the-mill public schools, people from the middle of nowhere, people from urban slums, people from ranch communities, people from Appalachia, people who were essentially homeless when they were accepted, people from mining or factory towns...you'll see all sorts of people with all levels of preparation. I've known people whose schools didn't offer calculus, people whose schools didn't offer physics...obviously the people with worse preparation start out behind, but there's nothing wrong with taking 18.01 (Calculus 1) and, say, 8.01L (Physics 1 at a slow pace, for people who have never seen it before or struggle with it) during your first term if you feel like you are not up to speed. After a few terms you will have learned the basic required material and will be in upper-level classes with material that almost none of your classmates already knew.

From Jinjin: I don't know how much you know about this, but can you please tell me about the music program? Especially for pianists.

I know very little about the music program. I will point you at the relevant website, and say that if you send me your contact info I can put you in touch with a friend who's a real live music major.

From Abhishek: Hi. I feel sad to say but its reality that i am a loser who failed to got in. But i have decided that now my only aim is to get in MIT so i need your little bit help.
I am an international applicant from India and i will be taking admission in IIT Bombay this year. I dropped my one year after school to get admission in 1 of the best college like MIT. Do you think that besides high end academics in college MIT give preferance to college reputation for transfer students?

First of all, you're not a loser. Plenty of great applicants got turned down, and getting in as an international student is particularly difficult. And based on what I've heard about IIT, that's a pretty good school too. I don't know how much college reputation helps in the transfer admissions process. If you are intending to go for transfer admission, I'd say do well in your classes, do some research - stuff that will indicate that you are a fit for MIT.

From Anonymous: Did you want to go to those 3 schools you got rejected from?

Some more than others, but I didn't have my heart set on any particular school. I thought and think that the admissions process is way too fickle for that to be wise.

From Kate: Sorry to be a pain, but would taking Music instead of Chemistry hurt my application at all? I enjoy music (I'm a violist) an infinite amount more than Chem. But then, other universities might look down on it for an engineering applicant. Not everyone can be so lucky as to be admitted to MIT.

On one hand, you should be taking academically challenging classes, and if your school offers the basic sciences, you should be taking them. On the other hand, a consistent passion for and dedication to music is helpful on an applicant. I can't give you a definite answer, and don't know your specific situation.

From Devil's Advocator: I wasn't one of the applicants this year nor do I know any rejected applicants so please do not take my comment as an attack of any sort (because I really do think it's extremely difficult to decide who takes spots in MIT's classes). But I really don't think it makes rejected applicants feel any better when you say you got rejected by 3 schools out of 10, that's only a 30% rejection rate. Also, you got accepted to MIT! Something these students will most likely never experience. I'm not sure if your way was the best way to go to sympathize with rejectees.

I would not be surprised if some of the applicants who didn't get into MIT have a lower rejection rate than I did. And being accepted to MIT is not the be-all, end-all of life.

For the record, the three schools that rejected me were Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Apparently my application did not appeal much to the Ivies (I didn't apply for any other Ivies besides those).

Everyone is going to experience rejection during their lives. Some of you have never experienced it before, and it hurts. There's nothing that I could possibly say that would make it not hurt, but please don't presume that because I got into MIT, I don't know what real rejection is like. Right now you're being rejected from undergrad programs, and later it will be grad programs, professional schools, and jobs (I'm job-hunting, remember?). Somewhere in the interim you'll probably ask someone out and get rejected, too. ;) It happens to most people, I think.

From Kasienia: Why is MIT better than CIT?

That depends pretty much entirely on the person considering the two choices. You are not going to draw me into making some sort of "MIT rocks, Caltech sucks!" statement on here. :)

I hope those of you who came to CPW enjoyed yourselves (despite the crappy weather). I saw quite a lot of you, one way or another.

For those who didn't get in - we'll all be there at some point, whether it's other college applications, grad/professional school applications, job applications...there are many opportunities in life to not get in to someplace where you wanted to be. I was turned down by three of the ten schools to which I applied for undergrad. You'll have the chance to succeed wherever you end up. It hurts, but you'll be fine.

I'm going through the job-seeking process...I can empathize with the applicant pool. At least you guys get to see statistics on numbers of applicants, percentage accepted, and stuff like that. :)

I haven't done a Q&A in a while. I'm sure that the new admittees, and possibly others, have questions. Feel free to post your questions as comments on this entry, and I'll answer them. It saves me having to be inspired in order to blog. ;)

I'll have more real updates soon - I actually have some planned - but I figured that I'd let you know what I'm taking this term, since some of you might be interested.

9.07 (Statistical Methods) - It's the probability and statistics class for course 9 (Brain & Cognitive Sciences). It's, well, a statistics class, with a focus on neuroscience-related applications. All course 9 students have to take a probability and statistics class (either 9.07 or one of the others) for the major. Honestly, I hate the textbook more than just about any other textbook I've had to use, but I like the material. It's relevant to what I want to do.

6.033 (Computer Systems Engineering) - Most people who take this do so because they're in a major for which it's required. Also, because they're computer geeks, and this is a class that plays to the strengths of computer geeks. I'm in it for two major reasons. The first is that I'm a systems geek. Not computer systems in particular, but systems in general. I study the brain, remember? That's an interesting system, there. I like thinking about systems, and patterns. The second reason is that I don't have as much computer clue as I'd like, and I'd like to get more. The technical papers that we read are interesting, though I struggle with the jargon. They've covered, among other things, the design of X Windows, the structure of the UNIX time-sharing system, and the design of the Ethernet.

6.170 (Laboratory in Software Engineering) - Death by Java. The computer language, not the coffee, though I guess if you're a coffee drinker and don't manage your time well it could be death by that form of Java too. It lives up to its reputation as a time sink. I like that so much of it is hands-on, and that the software we're writing actually seems like a useful application rather than an exercise (problem sets 2-6 involve different aspects of building a software system that finds the shortest routes between points in Cambridge and Boston, kind of like Google Maps but local and with some different features).

SP.776 (Design for Demining) - This one is getting an entry of its own soon. Throughout the world, there are land mines left over from military conflicts, causing injury, death, and economic loss to civilians. Throughout the world, deminers are working to clear the land of mines so that people can inhabit it safely. We design products to make their job safer, more efficient, and more effective. Some products from past years are now in use throughout the humanitarian demining community.

Good luck to those waiting for their college decisions!

I hear from a friend who knows that team very well that they proudly sent out some photos of their robot without giving any context for the photos, and that she asked them, "Er, what's with the smoke?" or something to that effect.

Some students in the lab have fallen asleep at their laptops or on chairs. I'm guessing those were the ones who pulled all-nighters or close to it. I remember what that sort of thing was like last year!

It has been very cold recently, and there has been some snow, leading to a lot of frosh from warm climates making exclamations like "OMG the snow is COLD!" and amusing everyone else. I remember my first winter at MIT, which was pretty cold. It was December, and I was going out with a friend and her roommate to celebrate her birthday. It was cold and windy, but she, being from Chicago, thought nothing of it. We walked all over Boston because she couldn't decide where she wanted to eat. I had only limited experience with that sort of cold and almost none with that much snow...and the roommate was from India and having her first snow experience! Finally, we explained that at this point we were willing to eat just about anywhere as long as it had a heater and an intact roof.

We did gun defense in Jiu Jitsu last night (in the self-defense PE class). The idea is not to play hero and to attack a mugger with a gun who would otherwise have just run off, but to be able to defend yourself in a situation where it looks like the person might actually shoot you. We used rubber guns, and worked in pairs, with one person yelling "BANG!" The advanced class finally shut the door between the two rooms because they were sick of our noise. :)

I played in the Assassins' Guild tenday game. My character even survived game, which was no small feat in this particular game, as the same could not be said of 28 (out of 52 total) other characters. The publicly accessible game info lives here, and you can even get an idea of what was going on and what the plots were if you read the scenario and wrapup documents. There's even a photo gallery from the first few days of game (I know I don't give you guys a lot of photos in my entries these days, so I figured you might enjoy knowing where some photos were). I'm pretty sure that one of the award-winning players from the game is someone who used to occasionally comment on this blog a long time ago.

I have other friends spending their IAP learning glassblowing, metalworking, archery, new programming languages, and so on. If you come to MIT, what do you want to do during IAP? This year's offerings are viewable here.

Mystery Hunt:

I hunt with Project Electric Mayhem (can you figure out the pop culture references in the name?), a large conglomerate of students and alums of the East Campus hall 5th East (my home), the fraternity tEp, the independent living group (ILG) pika, and assorted other folks. We have strong support for "remote hunters" - people participating from distant cities and such, so we get a lot of random alums in far-flung locales who want to play. These remote hunters aren't always alums...one of our hunters this (and last) year was hallmate Greg '09's mom, who frequently comments on these blogs!

Anyway, Hunt, which began early Friday afternoon, ended at about 2:30am this morning. Congratulations to Dr. Awkward, the winning team.

6.186 Mobile Autonomous Laboratory (Maslab) (as a TA):

This is an advanced vision-based autonomous robotics class/competition that is in its seventh year and occurs every IAP. Last year I was a student on a team with hallmates Brian '08, Ilan '08, and Matt '08. This year, I'm a TA. I'm in the lab for three 4.5-hour shifts each week, and got to plan, prepare, and deliver the vision lecture. You can check out the progress of the different teams in their team journals on the wiki forums.

American Jiu Jitsu/Self Defense:

I get Self Defense PE credit, and I finally start with an activity that many friends already do and that I've been interested in doing for a year but never started. I'm going to the basic PE classes on Monday and Wednesday evenings, and also the Saturday ground fighting/grappling classes (I went to one yesterday, and it was fun!). MIT has many, many martial arts clubs (others popular among my friends include Isshinryu Karate and Tae Kwon Do), and many club sports in general (here's a list). American Jiu Jitsu stresses...well, I'll let the website do that, since it does a better job than I would.

"American Jiu-Jitsu Club has been at MIT since 1994. We learn and practice self-defense. Jiu-Jitsu, or the Gentle Art, consists of a wide variety of techniques: joint locks, submission holds, pressure-points, throws and strikes. Jiu-Jitsu does not rely on brute strength, but rather on flexible response and the use of an attacker's own energy. Jiu-Jitsu prepares a person for any situation, including stand-up and ground fighting, knife attacks, and multiple attacks."

Boot Camp PE:

As you can probably tell, I'm trying to finish up my PE requirement. Boot Camp "combines intense cardio work with strength training circuits and quick bouts of rest time," leaving you with "no other choice than to improve your level of health and fitness!" I was very, very sore the day after the first class.

Assassins' Guild Ten-Day:

Most years, the Guild has a ten-day game during IAP. It hasn't started yet; I just got the email telling me that I was being cast yesterday. This IAP's game is "Alpha Centauri". The GMs (the people who write and run the game) for this game are Erik '09, Xiao '09, Dennis '08, Ash '08, Peter '01, and Charles. The description of the game on our website is...

"After tens of thousands of years, the post-nova cloud over the mysterious planet Elrushyn has been blown away by solar winds. With great natural resources and a highly strategic location, many governments and corporations quickly colonized the planet and now fight for dominance under the rules of the Benjii-Savaar Treaty of Conduct. According to the treaty, Elrushyn only has amnesty for ten more days, and must quickly hash out a constitution and government to establish itself... before the empires go to war to claim it.

The once-bustling planet is now hushed in apprehension as the First Elrushyn Congress at Centauri begins. "

The idea is that you have a character, and information on your character's background, motivations, goals, believed allies and enemies, abilities, group memberships...in short, all the stuff that your character would know in real life. From there, you and the other characters play your roles. There's no script, but most characters will have goals that they're trying to accomplish during the game, and a well-written game will result in lots of action, intrigue, and drama.

So that's my IAP thus far. We will see what else the month brings.

I'm in Louisville, Kentucky, at my mom's house. I'll be staying here through the end of the APO national convention, which is conveniently also in Louisville this year, then taking the bus down even further south to visit my dad in Woodstock, Georgia.

It's very strange. The first few times I went back to a parental home from my college home, I felt like I was sliding into a different role, a different persona. There was who I was at MIT, and there was who I was at home. It wasn't so much that they were different people, as they were the same person with different aspects played up or down. They dressed differently, spoke a little differently, and interacted a little differently with people. Such is the nature of being in very different envionments and having a very different status within them.

As I've gone further and further through MIT, the person I am at MIT, that person who shaped and was shaped by her environment, has developed more and more. You go to a place like MIT, and I promise you, you not only change but you find out a lot about yourself.

But paradoxically, the more I develop from what I was when I left home and entered school as a frosh, the more my school and home personas converge.

To those who celebrate Christmas among you, Merry Christmas, and to others, Happy Holidays - or if you celebrate no holidays during this time, Happy Winter Season! The shortest day of the year has passed, and now the days begin finally to lengthen again!

Eventually, those of you who get in will get to come to CPW. And some of you might have already visited overnight. You'll get to stay with a student, or a house (during CPW, if you stay in a fraternity, sorority, or independent living group, your host is the house, rather than a particular person). You'll get to experience a small slice of life at MIT to help make your decision about where to go to school.

But will the slice be what you're looking for?

I remember reading a comment last year on one of the blogs (Matt's? Ben's?) that took me aback. It was shortly after CPW, and one of the prefrosh who read the blog was complaining that the social atmosphere of MIT had been a letdown. He had expected, he explained, weirder, nerdier kids, like himself, and the kids he met were mostly disappointingly normal.

And then every year there are the prefrosh who come from the opposite perspective - they're worried about going to a tech school because they want a more social life, and they are drawn to MIT's academics but wish the students weren't so weird and nerdy.

Both ends of this spectrum are running into the same problem. They're missing a crucial point - MIT might have some central values, and even some common cultural aspects ("having lots of work to do", "sympathy for peers who can't go to some fun thing because they have a pset or project due tomorrow", and "willingness to help out your friends" are pretty universal, for instance), but there isn't really any such thing as a campus-wide social culture. As an undergrad, your social culture, in my observation, depends largely on two factors:

1. Your living group
2. Your extracurricular activities

Conveniently, these are both your choice.

A recent session of 9.75 (Psychology of Gender and Race) illustrated this point pretty well for me. The professor put up a transparency with a "script" for a college-age heterosexual first date - a list of things that the male is supposed to do, and a list of things that the female is supposed to do - that was written by researchers who surveyed college students and were trying to figure out what sort of behavior was typical.

Now, I'm a little sheltered in this regard, because before college, I had no idea what was going on around me in terms of dating and relationships, nor did I care. If you'd asked me what a typical date between students at my high school or middle school was like, I would have been clueless. And I don't generally trust pop culture representations of teen life. So my concept of what a first date between two young, heterosexual, monogamous people is like was framed mostly by my observations of such people in my social group at MIT.

So my first reaction, when I read what was on the transparency, was "Is this study from the '50s?" I wasn't joking either. When I was told that no, it was from a few years ago, I was amazed. So were a few others. Quite a few of my classmates, however, were amazed that I was amazed. They said that, yes, this was pretty much what they'd expect from a first date. It was an interesting reminder that we take classes together and are bound together by intelligence and intensity and dedication, but socially we might as well be on different planets. Kind of cool, really. You can go to a different living group and find both a completely different culture and a powerful common bond.

Anyway, back to the prefrosh that I talked about at the beginning. Admissions tries to match prefrosh and hosts well, but there's only so much you can do with limited information, especially during CPW when there's tons of prefrosh needing hosts and the hosts aren't evenly distributed around campus. I remember when I was a prefrosh at CPW. I was temped at a sorority, Alpha Phi. The women of Alpha Phi are very nice people. They are not, however, the sort of living group I would tend to click with in terms of personality (I told Matt about this a couple of years later, and he couldn't imagine what they were thinking when they put me there).

But there was a very nice sophomore there who helped me carry my bag to the house, a cheery Alpha Phi sister who lived in Baker House. We talked quite a bit during the walk, and she suggested that I go visit Senior Haus. I did, and I related much more to the culture there than I did to Alpha Phi, though I was still intimidated by the in-your-face quality of the urban punk atmosphere. When I got there, three or four residents were sitting around eating the food that was marked for prefrosh because no prefrosh were in the lobby, and they were so excited when I showed up and said that I'd heard that they were the "cool" dorm, that they gave me a private tour. They also suggested that I check out East Campus, Random Hall, and Bexley Hall. As you might be aware, I now live in one of those dorms (East Campus). And I love it, and my wonderful hall 5th East, to death.

My point is that there's probably something for you here no matter what kind of social climate you want. If you want outgoing people, wild parties, and varsity athletes, you can have that. If you want quiet, mild, studious people who are conservative in their behavior, you can have that. If you want hackers, or builders, or classic D&D playing nerds, or arty indie kids and punks, or hippie engineers, or many other things, you can have that too.

If you're on campus, and you're not finding the people you're looking for...well, you probably just need to ask around. I'd be rather surprised if they aren't there somewhere.

Over the summer, when I was living in Switzerland, I didn't really have a social life outside of work and the Internet. One of the things I was doing to fill the time was posting on the College Confidential forums. Some of you have probably discovered these, for better or for worse, but I'm sure that most have not, which is why I'm going to reprint my first-ever College Confidential post here. The powers that be over there liked this post so much that it's still one of the featured discussions on the MIT board.

I wrote this both to give advice and out of frustration with prefrosh who posted a bunch of numbers and then demanded to know exactly what their chances of getting in were, or who posted their very high SAT scores and then asked if they should retake to raise them by 30 points. I hope that it gives you both useful advice and some insight into the values of MIT's academic culture. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I'm just a student blogger, not an admissions officer. Nothing I say here is official policy. It's my interpretation of how MIT Admissions works based on hanging around Admissions a lot talking to the people who work there, and my observations of the students who get in vs. the ones who don't.

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As you can see by my post count, I'm new here. One of the things I notice from looking around, and from reading the comments on some of the blogs, is the popularity of the "stats post". Some eager applicant posts a list of their stats - GPA, class rank, SAT scores, AP scores, maybe extracurriculars or major awards, and asks what their chances are of getting into MIT. Or, around the time when applicants are notified of their acceptances or rejections, furious rejected applicants (or their parents) post a list of their stats, and demand to know how they could possibly have been rejected. Frequently, if they are male, they then assert that they were rejected because of "affirmative action" in favor of less-qualified female applicants.

I can't speak for other schools, but if you are making a pure stats post, you are approaching MIT Admissions in the wrong way.

When I was a middle-school cross country and road runner, I used to get recruited by high school coaches. I didn't understand why they all seemed so interested in me. I was a very good young runner, but I wasn't one of the best, and I had poor form and was clumsy and didn't pace myself very well. Why were they talking to me instead of the girls who were a little faster and had better form to boot? I think it was my mom who explained it to me. She pointed out that a top middle school runner with perfect form and pacing wasn't very coachable, but that the coaches figured that with proper coaching, I could become a much better runner.

Admissions is a little like that. MIT wants the people who will benefit from the MIT culture and education the most, and will bring the most benefit to the MIT community. Stats ARE important, but that's because MIT is a difficult place and they need to make sure that the people they admit are able to do the work. Stats don't get you acceptance into MIT, they get you consideration. Once you demonstrate, with your application in full, that you probably have enough mathematical capability to handle 18.01 and 18.02, they don't care whether you got a 740 or an 800 on the math portion of the SAT, or whether your GPA was 4.0 or 3.92.

I saw that there was a thread before asking for MIT "hooks" and that there have been other threads asking "Is it possible for me to get into MIT without foo?" The answers to these questions are "There are no activities or combinations of activities which by definition will get you into MIT" and "Yes".

MIT doesn't have a checklist of activities and qualifications against which it runs your application to see if you match up. There are certain traits and values that are at the core of MIT culture, and those are what you should be demonstrating, but there are infinite ways to demonstrate them. Obviously, there's not some official list of these, but I would say that some of them are:

(Responsible and Informed) Risk-taking: Going to MIT is risky in itself, considering that you could go to a less challenging school and have an easier time earning a good GPA. Academic risk-taking, whether in research or choice of classes, is a basic part of MIT life (and frequently, so is non-academic risk-taking). You can demonstrate risk-taking with a difficult high school class schedule, with research, with various extracurriculars - something where you put yourself on the line and went through with it in spite of the chance of failure.

Creativity: Good scientists and engineers have to be creative. There are a lot of ways to show your creativity in an application. Maybe you did some great research. Maybe you invented something. Maybe you're an artist or a writer or an actor or a composer or design lighting and sound for high school plays - there are an astounding number of artistically talented people at MIT. Maybe you're a quarterback who showed great ingenuity in planning or calling plays.

Work ethic: As you might imagine, this is important at MIT. If you played the same varsity sport for four years and won the team "hardest worker" award when you were a junior, that shows work ethic. If you delivered pizzas or worked as a video store clerk for 15 hours a week while maintaining top grades, that shows work ethic, especially if you have a letter from your employer saying what a hardworking person you are, that shows work ethic. You could demonstrate your work ethic through theater, quiz bowl, your job in a research lab at your local university...anything, really, as long as you're actually showing it and not just assuming admissions staff will get it because you listed the activity.

There are a lot of other qualities I could go into - appreciation of hands-on work and learning, outstanding intellectual aptitude, a desire to use your knowledge in the world...but this post is getting long, and I bet you get my point, which is that it's not what activities you do (or how many activities you do), but what qualities you show with them, and whether those qualities are a match for MIT, that matters.

There's a myth that MIT only wants well-rounded people. Well, some MIT students are quite well-rounded, others not so much. The less well-rounded ones just managed to show their appealing qualities with fewer or a narrower range of activities. And believe me, you can be "well-rounded" in the sense that many people mean - have at least one each of sports, service clubs, academic clubs, and "leadership" positions - and come off looking like a boring and superficial resume-padder, not a desirable applicant.

So if you're going to post your stats, at least tell us something about yourself to go with it.

You can read the full report, which is 42 pages (42! Ha! I just noticed that!) here.

If you don't have time for that, you can read the summary report, which is only 13 pages, here.

Your student government in high school probably plans the prom and the homecoming dance (that's about what mine did). Once you get to college, student government (sort of a misnomer in the UA's case, as it's more advocacy and representation than actual government) does things like writing policy documents, which I think is more fun. :)

A lot of what is in the report is based on the data we collected through surveys of the freshmen and the upperclassmen. We went to different living groups with donuts and handed out surveys, an old information-gathering tactic. MIT students have trouble resisting free food.

I think that all the students who helped write this deserve a shoutout. Their names are at the end of the report, but I'll mention them, at least by first name, here as well. Note that some of the committee members are freshmen. Unfortunately I don't know the sections of the dorm for the New House and Next House people, though I know that they actually do have sections of their dorms with distinct cultures.

Contributors to writing the report and surveys:

Lanthe '08 (Random Hall) (Random Hall President, Chair of the Dormitory Council Special Committee on Housing & Orientation)
Erik '09 (4th WAR, Senior Haus/Phi Delta Theta) (UA Senator from the Fraternities)
Grace '07 (Towers, Senior Haus)
Phyo '10 (Next House)
YiHsin '09 (Random Hall)
Fan '10 (New House)
myself - Jessie '07 (5th East, East Campus) (UA Senator from East Campus)
Anna '07 (Sorority resident disaffiliated for recruitment) (Panhel VP for Recruitment)
David N. '07 (Simmons Hall) (Dormitory Council President)
Preeya '09 (Random Hall)
Vinayak '09 (2nd East, East Campus)
Andrew S. '07 (Random Hall) (Chair of UA Committee on Orientation)
Nahathai '10 (Next House)

Contributors to writing or tabulating surveys:

Maria '09 (Women's Independent Living Group) (Speaker of the Living Group Council)
Amanda '09 (Simmons Hall)
Nur '10 (McCormick Hall)
Isaac '07 (Delta Tau Delta) (Interfraternity Council President)

Monday: 18.310 test corrections were due. 18.310 is Principles of Applied Mathematics, the discrete version (18.311 is the continuous version). In this class, the tests are deliberately made very difficult, but we can earn back up to half the points we lost if by correcting our mistakes. It's a nice feature.

Tuesday: I had a 7-10 page (it ended up being 8 pages) paper due in 17.405, which is Politics and Conflict in the Middle East. My paper was on the relationship between religion and politics in Lebanon and Iraq. It was an interesting topic. Lebanese politics are really confusing, in case anyone was wondering.

Wednesday: The weekly 18.310 problem set was due. It had a lot of implementing Euclid's algorithm, which at first glance seems more like number theory than applied math. Well, it is number theory. But it's useful in creating codes, which is why we're learning about it. A lot of 18.310 has something to do with codes.

Thursday: 9.71 midterm. I was pretty happy about it. 9.71 is fMRI and High-Level Vision. When I say this, unless I'm talking to another course 9 major, the usual response is "What?", so I'll explain that fMRI is functional magnetic resonance imaging. It's kind of like an MRI, except that it takes lots of pictures instead of just one, and instead of just showing the anatomy of your brain, it shows which parts are being activated. So the class is about the use of fMRI to study vision.

Friday: The weekly 18.440 problem set was due. 18.440 is Probability and Random Variables. This problem set was on chapter 5, which is Continuous Random Variables.

For all that, though...I felt a little bogged down, but not overwhelmed with work. Having been in both situations, I can say that I'd rather have my due dates for my classes be spread throughout the week than have all of them due on the same day.

One of my major extracurricular activities was my part of the UA Committee on Orientation's report on Orientation 2006 and the state of Orientation. More on that in a soon-to-be-written entry.

What did you do last week?

Any changes made on the basis of the recommendations will probably start being implemented a few years from now, so some of you might have a vested interest in knowing what they are.

The full report (158 pages) can be read here.

The summary of the report (only 11 pages) can be read here.

I anticipate that there's going to be a lot of talk about this over the next few months, especially among the undergraduates. Already a couple of the talk lists that I'm on have exploded with commentary, and there will be a survey and a forum and meetings and a student report.

This process, and the student reaction to it, illustrates something about MIT that I think is very important. At many schools, students only care about policy as relates to the present. If it doesn't affect them while they're at the school, they don't care about it. And new students don't ever learn that there was a change to begin with, if they arrive after it was implemented. They have no basis to support or condemn it because they don't know that there was anything before it. None of this is the case at MIT.

The students at MIT care very deeply about policy changes, even if those changes won't take effect until they're gone. They take pride in, and memories out of, what they've experienced, and want future students to be able to have experiences that are as satisfying as theirs were, and there are values that are part of MIT culture, that they believe in, that they wish to uphold for future generations of students.

Do you like or live in Simmons? Students were part of the group that decided how to structure the Simmons community, students who never had the chance to live in the dorm that they helped design. You can read their story, as written by Jeff Roberts '01, here. There's currently a new undergraduate dorm being designed for the old Ashdown building, and current sophomores and juniors are applying to join the new committee - my friend and hallmate Mandie '08 made it on.

When the residence system was being redesigned, a group of all students wrote the report that saved Dorm Rush (the ability of incoming freshmen to choose their residence after arriving on campus). Matt, who was a senior at the time, was one of the students who wrote it. The changed residence system certainly wasn't going to be implemented in these students' time as undergrads, but that didn't stop them from caring that MIT preserve the values of its residence system, that future students be able to have the enriching experiences that they had.

By the same token, MIT students care about the past. Through the past, you learn what to expect for and how to shape the future. You learn about the patterns of thought that shape MIT. You learn about the causes that those a few years older than yourself thought were worth fighting for. Most of the young alums enjoy telling the stories of their battles, whether they won or lost them - in the former case, they get to relive their triumph to an interested audience, in the latter case, they get to vent their bitterness. I care about the past because I'm kind of a history geek, and also because I care about the future.

That's MIT. It's not a complete turnover of opinion every four years, and students having no sense of where the lives that they're living came from and where they're going. It's a long and colorful story. Those of us here right now are writing our chapters.

What will your chapters be like?

3rd East decided, for some reason, to leave a bunch of boxes stacked in our bathroom. We were actually really happy about this, after the initial double take and head-scratching, because we were able to put them to good use. Also, Sarah '08 had a lot of fun climbing them.

Getting up was one thing, but getting back down was another. Hilarity ensued.

5th East has the distinction of having its own dark god, Krotus. He's like a mascot, only cooler. :) He made an appearance on the side of the Green Building during Hall Rush. You have to look kind of closely to see him in this picture though. His image was clearer in real life.

(In case you're curious, that image is several stories tall.)

He also chose to reveal himself in the courtyard for a brief time. It was pretty.

In fact, his image just turns up everywhere.

Kathleen '10 ended up living on 5th East! I can tell that she likes us from this picture.

Luke '07 talks to Kathleen '10 and another frosh in the Goodale lounge.

Our hall may look a little crazy, but one of our favorite pasttimes is the simple act of sitting around in Black Bemis, the middle section of the hall, and talking. Mitch '03, Steve '08, Matt '08, Brian '08, and a couple of people I can't make out in the dim light demonstrate this activity for us.

I hope you enjoyed these pictures, and I'll have more Switzerland pictures and some real writing entries soon.

Most of these are actually from right after Dorm Rush ended. We had a picnic in the courtyard, and rode the rides that people built.

Most of what we build is made of wood. This year, some of our wooden structures were connected by bridges.

We had a roller coaster, in the style where one hangs below the track rather than sitting in a car on top of the track. We had the car-on-top-of-the-track style in 2004. It was called "8.01: The Ride". This year's roller coaster was called "Danger Zone", which makes me think of the movie Top Gun. You know, "Ride into the danger zone..."

Despite its name, we took a lot of safety precautions with Danger Zone. Riders were strapped in with harnesses and had to wear helmets. I didn't manage to get a good picture of a rider in motion, but I did get a picture of this rider who was about to start his/her ride.

Not every attraction has to be a ride. We also had this...thing. I guess it's a mountain of wood and furniture. Top: Rachel '09. Bottom left to right: Ross '09, Christina (Harvard) '09, someone I probably know but don't recognize from behind in this picture, Greg '09, and Matt '09.

We had another big ride that I actually enjoyed riding more. It was really, really fun, and surprisingly comfortable. No, that's not me in the photo.

Here's another picture of it. As you can see, the rider is very safely strapped in. All our Rush rides are approved by the Safety Office.

Here, my hallmate Clayton '08 prepares to ride. In the background, Nick '09, Tao Ben '09, and others help the previous rider off the cross.

All in all, I thought we had pretty fun Rush attractions this year.

I spent the summer working as a research intern in Lausanne, Switzerland, supported by a research fellowship from the Center for Neuroscience & Technology. I consider this MIT-relevant because, even though I found and applied for the internship myself, the fact that I was an MIT student definitely helped me get hired.

I arrived in mid-June. I flew to Geneva and then took the train to Lausanne.

I lived in a boarding house in downtown Lausanne. There was a lot of construction outside my window.

On one of my first days in Lausanne, I visited their Ancient Roman ruins, down by the lakefront. I think this was the remnants of a temple, or maybe a marketplace - there was a sign that said, but I don't remember.

In modern times, the ruins were kind of swampy in places. I wonder if they were back then as well?

Oh right, this was the temple. So I guess the first ruins photo was the marketplace.

And this, as you might be able to guess, was burial grounds.

After I visited the ruins, I went to the nearby lakefront beach. That's France across the lake - specifically, right near Evian.

Another feature in that area is the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee. Lausanne is a very Olympics-oriented city. The IOC is headquartered there, Baron Pierre de Coubertin (who founded the modern Olympic games) is buried there, and the Olympic Museum is there.

In case you can't tell, that inscription says "MIT Fire Department".

The CPs appreciate good hacks too. I got this far-view shot that includes these two good officers staring at the Great Dome from their bikes:

As a measure of my dedication to bringing you interesting campus news and rants, I was out there attempting to take pictures at 5AM, while most of you, I hope, were asleep. But the batteries on my camera had died. Sadness. But daylight shots have their own merits. The fire truck looks all red and shiny and pretty.

18.310 (Principles of Applied Mathematics)

Study of illustrative topics in discrete applied mathematics including sorting algorithms, information theory, coding theory, secret codes, generating functions, linear programming, game theory.

My comments: The description sounded fun. I want to beef up my math background. Prof. Kleitman is a zany, charismatic mad scientist type.

18.440 (Probability and Random Variables)

Probability spaces, random variables, distribution functions. Binomial, geometric, hypergeometric, Poisson distributions. Uniform, exponential, normal, gamma and beta distributions. Conditional probability, Bayes theorem, joint distributions. Chebyshev inequality, law of large numbers, and central limit theorem.

My comments: My last unfulfilled Course 9 requirement is a probability/statistics class.

9.71 (Functional MRI of High-Level Vision)

Basics of fMRI, the strengths and limitations of fMRI compared to other techniques, and the design and analysis of fMRI experiments, focusing primarily on experiments on high-level vision. Upon completion, students should be able to understand and critique published fMRI papers, have a good grasp of what is known about high-level vision from fMRI, and design their own fMRI experiments. Enrollment limited to 15.

My comments: I don't even need this class. I already have enough Course 9 classes. But this class is going to be so cool. And it gives me free pizza once a week.

9.75 (Psychology of Gender and Race)

Examines evidence (and lack thereof) regarding when and how an individual's thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by gender and race. Topics include gender and racial factors in identity development, cognition and emotion, stereotypes, physical and mental health, sexuality, close relationships, and work. Fall 2006 topic: U.S. focus on race and gender. Spring 2007 topic: international focus on gender, ethnicity and trauma. Enrollment limited to 25.

My comments: It fulfills one of my two remaining unfulfilled HASS (Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences) requirements.

17.405 (Seminar on Politics and Conflicts in the Middle East)

Focuses on evolution of contemporary politics and economics. Subject divided into five parts: historical context of conflicts; domestic and regional politics; civil and cross-border conflicts; geostrategic challenges; conflict resolution and peace processes. Interactions and spillover effects explored, and alternative models of conflict(s) designed.

My comments: It will finish my HASS requirement and my HASS concentration. It hasn't met yet.

Hey freshmen, how are your classes so far? I got to see lots and lots of you during Orientation. :)

What's the picture in your banner?

As the observant have no doubt noticed, it's a picture of MIT at night, looking out over West Campus. You can see the West Campus dorms from MacGregor eastward, the domes, the Green Building, the tennis bubble, Kresge, the Student Center, and more. Not to mention, a large chunk of Cambridge, and part of the Charles River, with the Museum of Science off in the distance. When I first got this blog, and was told that I needed a banner image, this picture, which I acquired as a freshman, immediately came to mind. I think it's a gorgeous shot. And people say that MIT's campus isn't beautiful!

Where did you get it?

Well, I didn't take it. :) What, you've been reading this for months and you actually thought I was a good enough photographer to take that? It was taken by a friend.

How did you come up with the name for your blog?

This is the one I've answered before. It's a quote from Neil Gaiman's wonderful novel, American Gods (and last time, to my pleased astonishment, somebody actually recognized it). Here's the passage:

"This is not a land for gods," said the buffalo man. But it was not the buffalo man talking anymore, Shadow knew, in his dream: it was the fire speaking, the crackling and burning of the flame itself that spoke to Shadow in the dark place under the earth.

"This land was brought up from the depths of the ocean by a diver," said the fire. "It was spun from its own substance by a spider. It was shat by a raven. It is the body of a fallen father, whose bones are mountains, whose eyes are lakes."

"This is a land of dreams and fire," said the flame.

One of the main ideas of American Gods is that America is not a good place for gods because it is too dynamic, too wild and untamed, moving too quickly. Gods struggle to survive in such conditions...but dreams burn bright. To me, this is a decent description of how I see MIT. It moves, it's alive, strangely wild and fierce and raw, unstable...even the truly enduring traditions and values (like living group cultures) are not frozen in time, they're a foundation upon which new members of the community build, ongoing dreams.

That's why I chose the title "A Land of Dreams and Fire". It's kind of serious and intense, and painfully earnest, but then, so am I, so it's fitting. *grin*

Did you consider any other titles?

Yes. The other title that I seriously considered was "City of Blinding Lights", the title of a U2 song that I love. The opening lines of the song work pretty well for a student's journey through MIT, or for that matter, for anyone's coming-of-age. "The more you see, the less you know / Listen, find out as you go / I knew much more then, than I do now." And it would have gone well with the banner image, which was what made me think of the song in the first place when I was brainstorming titles. But I decided that the title I picked was better and more meaningful, and that most of the blinding lights in the banner image were from the greater Cambridge area anyway.

How did you become a blogger?

Not the way JKim '10 did, that's for sure. I can't believe that it's progressed to the point where people send in applications, and dozens of students are competing for a single spot. Wow.

I was already friends with Matt McGann. I was introduced to him in January 2005 by a mutual friend, Lex '00 (along with our friend Sondy (Wellesley) '07). I'd been dropping into his office to say hello at least once every week or two, frequently to get advice on UA stuff (I still do this - Ben teases me and says that I like Matt better than him, because I'm usually looking for Matt when I pop into the office). That summer, I needed money, and I asked Matt if there were any jobs in Admissions. He sent my name to Ben. Ben read some of my livejournal, I think, and asked me if I'd like to be a blogger. I was a regular reader of Matt's blog by this time, and the idea of having official space to ramble to prefrosh about my vision of the Institvte was very appealing, so I said yes.

That's all for now. If there's anything else you wanted to know, just ask.

I worry that the quality of my blogging has gone downhill as time has passed. When I first started blogging for Admissions, I wrote a number of what were basically essays on subjects that I had been thinking about for a long time, and had more entries that provided a snapshot of what I was actually doing, but that had a philosophical twist. The problem was that once these entries were written, I couldn't keep writing about the same topics over and over. So I started floundering when looking for inspiration. Or at least, I feel like I did - it is quite possible that this blog is about the same now as it was at the beginning, and my perception is the result of insecurities on my part.

On the opposite side of the coin, when I write too many philisophical essays about MIT, I start wondering if maybe my readers would rather just see some pictures of events after all. Though I think that I would have trouble writing this blog if those sorts of entries were the only ones I posted.

Also, I got hosed. Junior year turned out to be ridiculously grueling for me.

It's not even that I lack all sorts of stuff to ramble on about, but there are things that I can't/won't put into a public forum, even if they relate to topics that I could write well about, because of their sensitive nature. People's day to day angst. My feelings about various MIT policies and policy changes - I put some of this in, but if I'm actually going to be effective at dealing with the issues involved, I cannot blurt out exactly what I think about everything and everyone relevant. My feelings about internal politics and struggles within the UA, and other groups - did you notice that I didn't actually write any entries about the UA elections while I was running for president (though that wasn't all for sensitivity reasons...frankly I was exhausted during that time)? And much more.

After three years of MIT life, I've decided that a lot of the most interesting and inspiring aspects of many students' lives are lived "underground".

So I search for a middle ground, try to keep this blog respectful of sensitivities without going too far into self-censorship, try to hint without spelling out. It's kind of like the hacking books MIT puts out, like Nightwork, which I referenced in my last entry - they are interesting, inspiring, and provoke dreams among high school students about putting their own creations on top of the Great Dome someday. And they even go a little bit into the psychology, include some very insightful essays, drop some juicy details here and there. But it's not like they're really giving you the lowdown, the inside view on what it would be like to be a hacker at MIT, the actual accounts of people involved. They can't. Similarly, I can't give you the true lowdown on being an MIT student - and neither can any other blogger, for whatever "being an MIT student" is to them - just a modified version.

Anthony and I have much in common - we've discussed our blogging philosophies together several times - but we have different perspectives on the "vacuum" nature of MIT that he alluded to in his entry. Interestingly, I think one of my best entries, written nearly a year ago, illustrates my perspective pretty well. I would like to think that students embracing MIT culture, and identifying strongly with the school, is less about them changing themselves to fit an MIT "mold" (not like there's really a "typical" MIT "mold" anyway), and more about the different characteristics of the subcultures that they choose helping them grow, and bringing out something from deep within them that they may not have known was there.

A few other essay-style entries that I really like are here, here, here, and here. There are a few good photo-based, event-based entries as well...I'm fond of this one.

So I don't have any specific questions for you to answer, really, but responses to this entry would be helpful. I like to know what you think. "I like what you're doing, keep it up" is a valid answer, as are more critical views. As long as you're nice about it. :)

For the curious, there are other sources of information about hacks at MIT, including Nightwork and other books and articles.

Poll of my readers: What's your favorite MIT hack? I know it's awesome, but please don't everybody say the taking of Caltech's Fleming Cannon. I have a fondness for, among others, the Wright Flyer, which happened during my freshman year.

Other hack-related entries on my blog include:

I feel the need, the need for speed! (mostly about Six Flags New England, but also has pictures of the Harry Potter-esque lightning bolt scar on the Great Dome)

Hacks and meta-hacks (an MIT map gets modified to include the locations of famous hacks)

MIT wins the gold (when the Great Dome won an Olympic gold medal)

MIT hacks Caltech (the cannon)

This was meant to be written a week and a half ago (about when Caltech's Fleming House came for the cannon)

Drew asked: "Could you tell us more about what happens during Orientation? I think I pretty much understand the housing lottery now, but what else happens during Orientation?"

You know, to refresh my memory, I created a thread on College Confidential asking people what happens during Orientation that's useful and not Dorm Rush, and the only answer I got was from Mollie, jokingly saying "You mean there's something other than Dorm Rush?" Or something to that effect.

Anyway, stuff that I remember...

- The Academic Resource Center holds an event that tells freshmen about different options for their Science Core classes. It's a pretty good event.

- There's CityDays, which you should already know about if you're an incoming frosh. You get to spend half a day working on community service projects around Cambridge and Boston.

- There's the Presidents' Convocation, where you get to hear MIT's President Hockfield and the MIT Undergraduate Association's President Andrew Lukmann '07 speak.

- There are Orientation groups, which are little groups of freshmen led by an upperclassman (all incoming frosh are assigned to one), which often go to non-student-run Orientation activities together, and go out to eat together at least once.

- There's the activities midway and the athletics midway, where you can visit booths of different student groups and sports, pick up information, and get your email address put on their mailing lists.

Other upperclassmen should add to my list.

Anonymous asked: "Advice about HASS and HASS-D classes?"

This is going to vary, because different people have different HASS interests. If possible, I'd say take something that's both a HASS-D and a CI-H first term, and kill two birds with one stone.

Anonymous asked: "A lot of my friends got into great universities, but ended up attending local community colleges because they simply couldn't afford a four-year college (apparently the universities thought otherwise and calculated unrealistically high expected contributions for their families). How can a student of extremely limited resources procure the funds to attend MIT? Could you please discuss the type of jobs available for freshmen (and other students)on campus and other things MIT students do to afford college. Does MIT offer sholarships to students who have demonstrated exceptional academic merit?
Thank you."

MIT gives only need-based aid, no merit aid. It meets 100% of demonstrated need. However, there are numerous outside organizations that give scholarships for everything from exceptional academic merit to female computer science majors to left-handed people. Try Googling for "scholarships", and reading Daniel's blog for more info about MIT financial aid. Also, look into the ROTC program - for many students, this is a great way to make MIT affordable.

Sriram asked:

i think u remember me,i sent u comment a month back but i have no replies iam wondering why i think u feel very much harder to accept persons like me outside ur community as a member or as friend
or there may be other reasons for u to not even sending a reply ok doesn't matter atleast now can u identify me. please atleast now send me reply
from miles away
sriram a student from India

Sriram, I'm not quite sure what you want. If there's something MIT-related that you want to ask or chat about, feel free to contact me. I'm certainly not averse to talking with my readers or even making friends with them, though in my opinion it is generally easier to make friends with someone you know in person.

Christine asked:

Hey Jessie, I have a question for you.

I guess that's more than one question, but they're all related. I'll be a freshman next year and am currently on the fence about whether or not I want to do a varsity sport come fall (and yes, crew is one of the options I'm pondering).

I did like being on crew, but there were other activities I liked more, or was interested in, and I quit because I wanted the extra 15 or so hours a week to pursue those other pursuits. Crew is a great sport to do if you really, really enjoy it and make it a top priority, but if not, it's kind of a time sink. In my opinion, of course. I think most of the other varsity sports require a little less of "this needs to be your top priority", but they are substantial committments.

Erer asked:

I noticed in the admissions stats that because of the high number of men who apply (and the low number of women) and the roughly equal numbers of men and women who are admitted that its much easier to go to MIT applying as a female. So I have to as, as a female, are women as well prepared as the boys, to they do as well, do they sign up for science courses or are they thought to be there to fill seats in the humanities courses, are they taken as seriously as the boys, do they graduate in the sciences at the same rate as the boys? Have to ask.

While I can understand wondering about the admissions rates, I'm kind of astounded that anyone would doubt even for a second that women at MIT sign up for science courses, or think that they are just there to fill seats in humanities courses. Last year, at the undergraduate level, 36% of engineering majors and 51% of science majors at MIT were women (as were 51% of humanities, arts, and social sciences majors, 50% of management majors, and 64% of urban studies and planning majors).

I can't find actual numbers, but I think the graduation rates for men and women at MIT are very similar. And female students are very much taken seriously - honestly, I see a lot more sexism in the outside world (including among prospective MIT applicants) than I do within the MIT undergraduate community.

I think you're overlooking the fact that female applicants to MIT are an extremely self-selected group, which contributes to their higher admissions rate. I believe that Ben has some stats on this.

In short, don't worry, people will take you seriously here if you get in. :)

Anonymous asks:

I love to work. I'm a hard worker. But I'm not so smart when it comes to these tests. I saw the average scores on Matt's Blog. What if you're not in that range? Is it hopeless for you? MIT is my dream, but I'm afraid that I won't be considered as a worthy applicant because of my scores. Thank you for taking the time to read this."

The funny thing about "average" scores of a class is that by definition, some percentage of the class is below that average, and most likely, close to half is below that average (I'm assuming that average means arithmetic mean here - if it's the median, than by definition half the class is below the average). If you're really far out of range, you might consider retaking the tests, but for the most part, if your application is strong, weaker test scores than the average accepted MIT student won't hurt you.

And, not really a question, but, from Little Miss Demosthenes...

i noticed you have one comment, but your blog still lists that as 'comments'. i've always been upset with blogs that don't bother adding a few lines of code to separate between 1 and the rest of the postive integers. just trying to rectify a grammar error.

actually, i just wanted to make a new friend.

Well, hello. Nice to meet you. :) I enjoy seeing that people are actually reading this thing.

Me at Clayton '08's "Gentlemen's Club" 19th birthday party, which is why I'm dressed up. July '05.

Me in fierce boffer combat with Dan '08 on the Random Hall roofdeck. Summer '05.

Me at the Undergraduate Assocation President/Vice-President candidates' debate. I've been through two UAP/VP elections (with a 50% success rate), and the debate is one of the few parts of the process that I actually enjoy. This pic looks much better than the closeup one. March '06.

This is actually a good pic, though I bet my mom would disagree (she was not fond of my green hair). ;) It's from the previous year's UAP/VP debate, the one where my ticket actually won. Maybe it was the hair? March '05.

I dressed up as Indiana Jones for a friend's post-Halloween costume party. Beth '05 and Yelena '06 helped me put together the costume in under an hour. November '05.

I don't remember if I was about to start rappelling down this East Campus stairwell, or if I had just finished. I also don't remember which IAP this was. Either January '05 or January '06.

My attempt at an avatar me, complete with my trenchcoat and the lucky necklace that I'm wearing in the UAP/VP '06 debate.

A more wishful thinking version of me. "Me in fearless crusader mode."

I hope that this has now satisfied my readers' stalker curiosities. :)

Question: "What about Are Four years enough to get advantage of all the resources MIT has to offer for a student?"

In a word, no. No matter how much you take advantage of what MIT has to offer, there are going to be classes that you wish you'd taken, programs that you wish you'd done, activities that you wish you'd tried, people that you wish you'd gotten to know better or would have liked but never got a chance to meet, and more. The key is to try to maximize what you do get out of MIT.

For example, I think that I've done an okay, if not great, job taking advantage of IAP. IAP provides a huge number of experiences to take advantage of. Here is what I have done during IAP as an MIT student.

Freshman year (IAP '04): Took 18.02A for 12 units. Re-learned to ice skate. Practiced intensively for crew (I was on lightweight crew as a freshman). Not really the most exciting IAP...I didn't fully understand how much there was out there.

Sophomore year (IAP '05): Took a PE class in foil fencing. Attended a few classes with MIT's American Jiu-Jitsu Club, including a "knife defense" one that I went to because it sounded exciting. :) Participated in Mystery Hunt as a member of the team Project Electric Mayhem. Worked on building cat shelters and fixing bikes for poor kids with Alpha Phi Omega. Took a guided tour of the MIT Cogeneration Plant.

Junior year (IAP '06): Did Mystery Hunt again. Competed in MASLab, an advanced robotics class/competition. Played in the Assassins' Guild 10-day game.

Sounds fun, right? But there are a bunch of things I have not done during IAP that would have been fun or useful to do, including the glassblowing class that I felt like half the freshmen on 5th East did last year, an IAP UROP or internship, various SIPB classes, and 2.670.

I've been at MIT for three years. Some things that I have and haven't done, broken down by category...

Housing

Yes: Found a wonderful living group that has been so much more than merely adequate to me. Participated fully in Dorm Rush and Hall Rush as a frosh. Fought in the annual water war during Dorm Rush. Helped build stuff for Dorm Rush. Helped out with parties on my hall. Helped choose new housemasters for my dorm. Painted my room. Helped repaint the black section of the hall black.

No: Never been a hall chair, a hall rush chair, a dorm rush chair, or a member of my dorm's exec. Never designed and painted a hall mural (at least not yet - I still have another year). Never built anything really nifty for my room. Didn't really do FSILG Rush.

Classes (that I wanted to take)

Yes: Took 6.001, 6.004, and MASLab. Took upper-level poli sci classes. Took a lot of cool course 9 classes.

No: Never took 6.002. Never took any MechE classes (which I wanted to). Never took 4.301 or Concert Choir. Never took 6.805.

Research

Yes: Did a UROP, and in fact did multiple UROPs. Did an engineering-related UROP (in a joint Brain & Cognitive Sciences/Nuclear Engineering lab). Did autism-related research, which I have always wanted to do because my brother is autistic. Did research in a foreign country.

No: Never published a paper (at least not yet). Never got a patent. Never worked at the Media Lab. Never did iGEM.

Activities

Yes: Did lots of student government work...and accomplished tangible results. Was Undergraduate Association Vice President. Played a varsity sport (if only for a year). Been in APO and the Assassins' Guild. Was a chapter editor for How to GAMIT. Wrote an article for Voodoo. Am on the MASLab teaching/lab/development staff. Was published in the Tech.

No: Never got around to joining American Jiu Jitsu (maybe some day I'll fix that). Wasn't in any of those special learning communities like ESG or Terrascope. Haven't written a Guild game yet. Never played an intramural sport. Didn't get to be Undergraduate Association President.

Professors

Yes: Met and/or took classes from lots of interesting and famous professors, including Nobel Laureate Philip Sharp (I didn't take a class from him, he was my freshman advisor).

No: Lots more interesting and famous professors that I haven't met or taken classes from.

So don't worry about whether you'll be able to take advantage of everything MIT has to offer for you. You won't. Even if you stay at MIT for grad school, you won't. Just do what you can. Build memories. There is always more to do. You will never have to feel like there's not enough out there for you. :)

Question: "How about how you made your close friends?"

I'm sure that some of the incoming frosh reading this have the same question. It can be intimidating to go alone to a new place where you don't know anybody.

There are some obvious answers to this. One is "I make friends with the people in my living group." Since you get to pick your own living group, you should be pretty compatible with the other people in it, and the combination of compatibility and proximity is useful for developing friendships (and angsty hall-cestuous romances). Another is "I make friends with people who do the same activities that I do." Plenty of my friends were met in APO, the Assassins' Guild, the UA, and other activities I've done.

However, I thought it might be fun to share a few particular stories, of cases where I remember more specifically how I met or befriended the friend (in many other cases, I either don't remember or it was fairly mundane...or I don't want to share it with the public :)).

Dennis '08: I think we actually became friends because we knew a lot of the same alums and kept turning up and the same alums' parties and talking. But I remember the first time I saw him. It was mid -fall of his freshman year. I was in the front lobby of Senior Haus talking with a friend who was using the quickstation there. Suddenly, a tall, excitable, black-clad, blue-haired kid burst through the front door wielding a huge-ass Nerf gun like he thought he was about to storm Iwo Jima with it. "Oh, hi Phaeton!" called out my friend with a wave ("Phaeton" was Dennis' frosh-year nickname). He turned around, smiled, and greeted us before running down the hall.

Riv '07: She was my Big Brother in APO (a coed service fraternity) when I pledged as a first-term sophomore. In APO, the tradition is that Bigs are supposed to let their Littles know that they're their Bigs in some creative way. But Riv was having trouble thinking of anything. We were at a Conclave (sectional meeting) at Maine Maritime Academy, and as part of the festivities, there was a formal banquet with strict mess-hall rules, and "punishments" if you broke them. Pretty soon, people were turing each other in all over the place to see what kind of entertainment would result! Riv and I did something (I forget what) that got us both called to the front for "punishment" at the same time. We were sentenced to drink "grog". Suddenly, she turned around and announced to the entire sectional that I shouldn't be punished because I was a pledge and she had led me astray, and that as my Big she would make sure it didn't happen again. I was totally shocked because I'd had no idea that she was my Big...she had still been thinking of a good way to reveal it, and had decided to make her speech on an impulse. The "sentence" was changed so that I held the cup while she drank the grog. :) She was a good Big and we gradually became good friends.

Sarah '08: Before I even had a livejournal, I went to check out the MIT community because I'd heard of some interesting post there. While browsing through, I discovered a post by an incoming frosh who was temped on my hall and wanted to know what it was like. I looked up her AIM screenname and IMed her, and pretty soon we were chatting a lot. I remember that she asked me if all upperclassmen at MIT were as helpful as I was. *grin* It was nice to finally meet her in person when she showed up with her stuff. She ended up living on my hall, and we've been good friends ever since.

Ken '00: Near the beginning of my sophomore year I went to a Central Square goth club with a group of people, including Laura '0? (I don't know what year to call you, Laura!) and Peter '01. After the club closed for the night, Laura and Peter and I went back to Peter's place, where he lives with a few other alums, and which I hadn't been to before. When we walked in, a guy I had never met with a strawberry-blond ponytail was sittng at the computer in the living room, typing. He was introduced to me as Ken. The group of us sat and talked. I was having some social angst issues at the time. Ken, as it turned out, knew a whole bunch of stories about vaguely related social angst issues from years before, and is a wonderful storyteller, and spent the next two hours humorously telling many of the stories.

Katie '09: She moved to my hall from Simmons very early in her first term. My first memory of her is going out into the hall from my room and finding people having wrestling matches in the hallway. I thought it looked like fun, and wanted to wrestle, but there wasn't anybody who was really my size. However, the new frosh who had just moved from West Campus, shorter and stockier than I, also wanted to wrestle somebody. So we wrestled. After several minutes of nobody getting a pin, we gave up called it a draw.

Matt '00: Back in the day, Matt was Undergraduate Association (UA) President. As a sophomore, I was a UA Senator from East Campus, and I was really into it. I would frequently ask for advice from a friend, Lex '00 (and I don't remember how I met him - probably just "around the hall"), who was an alum of my hall and who had also been Matt's vice-president. He kept saying that he should introduce me to Matt. Then, another friend, Sondy (Wellesley) '07, met Matt in some non-UA context that I don't remember. She knew that Lex had been saying I should meet Matt. The next day, all three of us turned up in Matt's office to say hello. He looked pretty surprised. :) And I've paid many, many visits to his office since then...

Anyway, by now you get my point, and hopefully enjoyed those stories. The way you make your friends is to meet and interact with people! Take your choice of housing and activities seriously, put yourself in situations where you will meet people and keep an open mind. The rest will follow.

So tell me. What topics would you like to see entries about? If you make reasonable suggestions I might comply with your requests.

I joined College Confidential.

I finally decided that, no matter how much a lot of the stuff written in the MIT forum (and elsewhere, for that matter) makes me want to throw up or strangle the writers, it doesn't do any good to pretend like it's not there and allow misinformation to run rampant. The clincher was when a friend sent me a link to a post about gaming the housing lottery.

YOU DON'T NEED TO GAME THE GODDAMMED LOTTERY! YOU DON'T ACTUALLY CHOOSE YOUR PERMANENT LIVING GROUP UNTIL ORIENTATION! YOUR SUMMER ASSIGMENT IS SO THAT YOU HAVE A PLACE TO STAY UNTIL YOU'VE PICKED A PERMANENT LIVING GROUP!*

"I feel better having screamed, don't you?" - R.E.M, "Ignoreland"

Heh. Now that I've said that, hello from Lausanne, Switzerland, where I've been living for the past 10 days. I'm writing this from a computer in EPFL's Brain Mind Institute, where I work. I'm staying in Ada-Logements, a downtown boarding house about two and a half miles from here. I'm also taking pictures. At some point, I'll put these on the Internet, but I need to have time to acquire a power adaptor for my laptop so that I can actually use it in Europe.

Work is challenging and interesting. Mostly I've been writing code in MATLAB and C. The code reads neural traces stored as binary files, does some magic and digital-to-analog conversion, and eventually produces an ASCII file of spike peak times. I've also been tooling some in my free time, working my way through the books I started during term on C and UNIX systems (I'm self-taught in both of these), and through a textbook on theoretical neuroscience (i.e. computational/mathematical modelling of neurons and neural systems). Good stuff to know.

When I'm not working, I can explore the city and go to places like the Cathedral of Lausanne, which was built in the 13th century and was the site of the Dispute of Lausanne during the Reformation. Or, right next to it, the Lausanne Historical Museum. Or the city's Ancient Roman ruins, or the International Olympic Committee headquarters.

Somebody asked in the last post how I got this job. Actually, I Googled "neuroscience internships" several months ago, and found the relevant website, and sent the famed Henry Markram, the co-director of the Brain Mind Institute and the leader of what is now my lab, my resume. He forwarded it on, asking if anyone was interested in working with an MIT student. From there, things gradually fell into place, and now I'm here, working with the financial support of a nice fellowship.

What are you doing this summer?

*This statement is not true if your summer assignment is to a living group with RBA (Residence-Based Advising). These would be Next House, McCormick, and two of the Cultural Houses. If you are put in one of those, you're there for your whole freshman year, so you should consider the matter carefully if you're thinking about RBA.

Tomorrow, I get on a plane and fly to Newark, New Jersey. At Newark, I switch planes and fly to Geneva, Switzerland. From Geneva, I take the train to Lausanne, and find the boarding house that I'll be living in for the next two months, for my summer internship at EPFL (the Swiss Institute of Technology).

I'm working at the Brain Mind Institute, in the Laboratory for Neural Microcircuitry. I'll be helping with the Blue Brain Project, a joint venture between EPFL and IBM to computationally model the mammalian neocortex. Such a model could have huge implications for the field. I've even heard it compared to the Human Genome Project in its scope and usefulness, and I feel honored to be working on it.

I'll be blogging from there, of course, and taking pictures of Switzerland to show you. Don't expect anything too soon, though - I'll need a chance to get settled in. :)

By the way, I've discovered that if you read this blog through the Livejournal feed that Riv '07 created, it doesn't automatically show if there's an extended entry. Now, I've only had two extended entries, ever, but they've both been recent, so I figured this was worth mentioning.

"So, how important is it, then, for us to know what dorm we want to be our temp?"

Omar '10 answered:

"Drew, it is important for you to know which dorm do you want to be in now because it's not easy to get into some dorm in the re-adjustment lottery (examples might include EC, Baker among others). If you really know since now which dorm do you want to be in, it's better and easier for you to be able to stay there.
And well, it's easier to move your stuff within the same dorm!"

Omar, you have a good point, but you are overstating it. Drew, you should make every effort to get into the optimal place (to the extent that you can figure it out) now, because Omar is correct, some dorms (which ones they are change from time to time) are in high demand and not easy to get into. However, you should NOT go in with the mentality of "This is absolutely the dorm that I want to be in," certainly not for a flimsy reason of short-term convenience like it being easier to move your stuff within a dorm than between dorms. Thanks to a lot of people's efforts, you still have the ability to choose your housing after getting to experience to dorms for yourself - use it! Go in with the mentality of "This is the dorm that, based on what I know now, I want to live in, but my information is not even close to adequate, and I should take advantage of Dorm Rush to either confirm my initial impressions or discover that, with more information, somewhere else would be better after all."

Even if you love your temp dorm, you should participate in Dorm Rush (and if you don't, the upperclassmen in your temp dorm, especially if it's a politically aware dorm, may shoo you out into the Rush events anyway). Before you make your finally decision, you should at least know about the places you're rejecting.

Karen asks:

"This is a bit random and irrelevant to your entry, but I was wondering.

What's the policy on non-MIT-students being in/visiting the dorms?"

I found the official policy here.

Students are allowed to have guests, not to exceed three nights in any given week. Overnight guests are permitted in Institute Housing with the advance permission of all students of the room/suite in which the guest is staying. The host student(s) is (are) responsible for the conduct of her/his guests including damages caused by them. Students within Institute Housing are collectively responsible for their own conduct as well as the conduct of their guests. Sleeping overnight in the public areas of a House (e.g., lounges) is prohibited. Consideration should be given to the rights of roommates at all times.

Personally, I can't recall having heard of anyone being hassled over a guest. Just use common sense.

Viksit asks:

"resp. mam,
i am an international student from INDIA.i have always been academically brilliant. i did my 10th in ICSE with 90.4%.but my 12th was not upto the mark.(i have applied for improvement for my 12th this year).i am an NTSE scholar.since i completed my senior secondary in 2004 i have been helping my dad in our family business.
now i want to apply to some top us universities for my bachelors in mechanical eng.,MIT being my foremost preference followed by CALTECH and PRINCETON.i am expecting a SAT score of above 2300.
what are my chances of admission to MIT.how can i improve them.?
any help would be highly appreciated."

Viksit, I can't tell you what your chances are of admission to MIT, because there's no formula that I can just plug someone's stats into, much as College Confidential and the like might lead you to believe otherwise. Your stats sound like you are smart enough to do the work, so you should think whether you are a fit with MIT's culture. MIT's culture, in my observation, encourages risk-taking, passion, perseverance, resilience, and using one's knowledge and skills in a hands-on way. Stress something more unique than your stats on your application - good stats speak for themselves, use your space to tell Admissions something they wouldn't know otherwise.

And now, on to the point. By now, I suspect that a lot of my readers are incoming freshmen and their parents. One of the aspects of MIT life that tends to confuse these groups of people is the housing system, and how it works. The question that is the title of this entry is asked by dozens of parents every year, bewildered that their child doesn't know where he or she is going to be living next year when their neighbors' child who is attending the local state school already knows his or her building, room number, and roommate.

Read on, and I'll give you an answer...

At MIT, your living group is more than where you live. It's a way of life, a community, different from the multitude of other communities available. The admin-speak buzzword, which has become a joke amongst the student body, is "microcommunity", as opposed to the campus-wide community, which is the "macrocommunity". I've written a number of entries on the importance of microcommunities at MIT, that together will paint a better picture than I would do in a paragraph or two in this entry:

Beyond the Iron Cur...I mean, Mass Ave (The East Campus/West Campus divide)

Classy Celebration, 5E-style (A hallmate's birthday, with lots of pics of my hall and hallmates)

Temp assignments and cautionary tales (Mistakes to avoid as a freshman choosing your living group)

Venturing to far living groups (My adventures at two living groups that aren't my own - one dorm and one FSILG)

Dorm Rush and Hall Rush (Last year's Dorm Rush and my dorm's Hall Rush, in words and pics)

Finding heritage at MIT (If you don't read any of the others, read this one)

The reason that this amazing system is able to exist is that students are largely allowed to choose where they live (there are some exceptions, like the still-controversial decision of a few years ago that prohibited freshmen from living in fraternities, sororities, or independent living groups, but that's a can of worms I'll stay out of for now). Something you chose yourself, with a preexisting culture whose direction you helped shape, and with people you can relate to, inspires more loyalty, passion, and participation than something that was chosen for you, and with the different options available, it would be ridiculous to not allow students to choose - a student could end up in an environment that she found unlivable.

The first step in the process of choice occurs during the summer. Incoming freshmen read descriptions of the different dorms and watch the i3 (Interactive Introduction to the Institute) videos prepared by the residents of each dorm. Many also got to see some of the dorms during CPW. Based on these impressions, they rank the different dorms - or, in the case of the Cultural Houses, parts of dorms - in order of preference. Each freshman is assigned a "temp" room based on these preferences and the availabillity of rooms in different dorms. Last year, everyone got one of their top three choices, and the large majority got one of their top two.

But don't get settled in yet, the fun is just beginning...

The first few days of Orientation are largely dedicated to REX, popularly known as Dorm Rush. This is the time when you are actually choosing where to live - after all, why would you choose a place without having explored your options in person, first? This is when you really get to learn about your options. The dorms have tours, events, and residents available to tell you about what life is like in that particular living group. As Dorm Rush comes to a close, you fill out a form online, where you can either choose to stay in your temp dorm or rank up to three others that you'd rather be in (the Orientation Adjustment Lottery). Even if you stay in your temp dorm, you'll have to switch rooms, so laziness isn't a good reason not to move. Don't worry, on Move-In Day, there'll be plenty of people around to help you with your stuff. A quarter of last year's freshmen at my dorm, East Campus, were temped somewhere other than East Campus. Don't worry about hurting anyone's feelings by moving out - upperclassmen want to see lots of moving around, so that people will be happy with where they chose to live!

After the results of the Orientation Adjustment Lottery come out, and you know what your permanent dorm is, most dorms have an in-house rush where you choose between the different sections of the dorm. These sections lead to an even greater variety of cultures, and also promote a tight-knit feeling, because a hall of 40 will likely be closer-knit than a dorm of 350.

Finally, for many people, the selection process doesn't end with moving in. They rush fraternities, sororities, and/or independent living groups (FSILGs) during scheduled rush periods, or during informal recruitment. Even though you can't live in these as a freshman, you can join them, and if you wish you can move into them as an upperclassman. Greek life isn't just for jocks and "popular" kids here. Some 40% or more of freshmen men join one of the two dozen or so fraternities, a healthy percentage of women join one of the five sororities, and a handful of students of all genders join one of the five ILGs.