Everyday Is Like Sunday by Matt McGann '00

While there’s no delivery of post today, I can assure you that the good men & women of the United States Postal Service are even as I write moving your mail closer and closer to your mailbox. We have mailed all of the letters first class, and I hope nearly everyone will have received a decision by Wednesday. On Friday, we’ll begin giving decisions over the phone to the applicant only.

People have asked about the breakdown of the numbers — beyond the 383 we admitted, how many applications did we defer, and how many did we deny? Last year, we denied 226 students during early action. While I don’t have final numbers for this year, I can tell you that this year, we denied les than half that number. The early pool this year was very strong.

On the topic of the strength of the early pool, I must say just how difficult it was to narrow it down from more than 2800 applications to the 383 we could admit. There were some applications I couldn’t believe we had to defer. I fully expect that this year’s deferred applications will look quite strong during regular action. It would be completely impossible to predict how many deferred applications we’ll admit during regular action, though, and we don’t set any target for that number. We won’t have a final count of regular action applications for another month or so, and I don’t know what the ultimate target for admits is this year.

A few notes, for the record: Your comments on this or any other blog did not have any bearing on admissions decisions. Also, any one admissions officer sees well less than a majority of the applications, so the odds are that myself or Ben or any other individual admissions officer did not see and decide on your application. It’s a committee decision, and we do the best that we can to treat the entire applicant pool fairly.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with the words of Ben, who said it just right. “Please, please, don’t take the MIT admissions decision as any indication of your potential. You are all superstars, truly. And each of you is going to make the world a better place, whether or not you go to MIT. It’s the truth.”