hit submit and go frolic in the leaves by Leanne F. '30

MIT’s EA deadline is tomorrow, Nov 1. Many of you have probably already submitted, but I know there are a large subset of you who have not (already getting into the MIT procrastination mindset i see).

I applied through regular decision, but I went through the same cycles of panic that many of yall probably are going through. I over-edited my essays, ended up hating the new versions, gave up and just submitted the old versions, then completely missed the deadline to submit my research and art portfolio. I had a crashout (but tbh it was pretty minor because I didn’t expect to like MIT anyways), then simply moved on. Which was probably the best thing I could have done. 

For my friends who are finishing up their applications, you most probably fall into two categories. Here’s my unsolicited advice:

If … you’ve finished long ago and are scrutinizing every word you’ve written, thinking crap, these suck, maybe I should rewrite everything. Then you submit and realize you forgot a period and your grammar was wrong and the order of your activities could have been better…

• Do a last thorough check of everything. Make sure you aren’t missing the important things, and just hit submit. There are probably an infinite amount of small changes you can make that might make your essays marginally better or worse, but also they probably won’t affect much. I agonized over every word and sentence structure, worrying about what it might say about my character. Ima be honest, I doubt a singular adjective change is what got me into MIT!
• Consider setting a 1-hr timer for yourself to finalize everything, and make yourself submit instead of obsessing over every small detail. Then get yourself a treat, stretch your back, and do some jumping jacks because you deserve it and your neck probably hurts from all that sitting  :)

If… you’ve just gotten started on your essays and realized you have a ton of work to get done today…

• bestie… lock in and take a breather! Sit, grab a fun drink, and grind those essays out. I wouldn’t miss your last Halloween just because you need to write essays, though. PLEASE take at least an hour out of your day to go out with your friends and traverse the streets of your neighborhood or city for the last time, because it’ll never be the same again. On my last Halloween at home, I walked through all the same streets I’d walked through for the past decade of my life, seeing the same familiar decorations families had taken out every year. My costume was super lame, scrapped together with a disposable lab coat and goggles from my lab. But I still caught the halloween vibes, frolicked with my friends, and ate a ton of candy. An extra hour of essay writing won’t make or break your application, but that extra hour of halloween festivities with your friends will be something you really treasure in the coming years. 
• …AND I SEE THAT CLAUDE/GEMINI/GPT TAB ON YOUR COMPUTER. CLOSE IT RIGHT NOWWW. NOWWW. NO MATTER how tempting it is to use AI to help write your essays, I promise you. You are not improving your chances by using AI. I can’t speak for admissions but I would bet all my fingers and toes that they would much rather read “bad” human writing than the formulaic word salad slop from AI.

If you’ve submitted, congratulations! These essays are not an easy feat. NOW STOP THINKING ABOUT YOUR MIT APPLICATION AND GO FROLIC IN THE FALL LEAVES (if you have them, in San Diego we just had rocks) AND GO PUT ON A COSTUME AND HANG OUT WITH YOUR FRIENDS AND HAVE A JOLLY TIME.

A year from now, you will be somewhere. You might be at MIT, or at another college, or working a job, or you’re taking a gap year to explore the world. Maybe you’ll be sitting on a log eating burritos with bearded dragons in Queensland. No one knows, and I think that uncertainty is a beautiful thing. That uncertainty also not something to worry over right now! 

A year ago, I remember that I imagined myself across the bridge at Harvard, laying in the fall leaves. Turns out I liked MIT a lil better. And, yesterday, I found myself laying in the fall leaves on Kresge lawn! I’ve unexpectedly found home elsewhere. My point is, things change, you change, but in the end, you’ll figure it out no matter where you go.

SO! What did my Friday of halloweekend at MIT actually look like?

my bestie who visited from dartmouth!

a cat I saw while trick or treating down the infinite

Will and his k-hat

our baristas at latte lab making drinks!

us after watching nightmare on elm street

tasting coffee beans in a pourover at latte lab

Work in progress of my staph face mask. I added flagella later and cleaned it up cus its a lil messy lol

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1. I finished my PSETS early for once
2. I skipped recitation (oops) to carve pumpkins and trick or treat around the infinite
3. I had a jolly time struggling with a singular Friday Problem Solving question with my lovely physics group in 8.02 (electricity and magnetism)
4. I made cookie butter and maple hojicha drinks with Latte Lab (MIT’s coffee club) during Fall Fest, our annual fall festival on Kresge lawn
5. I sat in the grass in the leaves under the sun with my friends, listening to a busker sing Hey There Delilah from Plain White T’s (one of my fav songs!!!) while eating chicken noodle soup and apple cider donuts
6. I made a staphylococcus halloween mask in the Simmons craft room with blogger Ellie and some other friends
7. I ate three insomnia cookies and went to Spooky Skate at Johnson Ice rink
8. I frat hopped with my friends as they all got shut down in like 15 minutes lol
9. I laughed at my friend Will’s k-hat costume because everyone thought i looked like a… green phallic object rather than a k-hat
10. I was reunited with my bestie from San Diego who came down from Dartmouth!
11. We traversed the freezing harvard bridge back to MIT and watched Nightmare on Elm’s street.
12. today(on halloween!) I tried some specialty pour overs with some cool Latte Lab people 

Happy halloween!