Admitted Students Update by Matt McGann '00
Some things to do now if you were admitted to the MIT Class of 2014.
Hello MIT Class of 2014! Here are some things that admitted students should do, now that the entire class has been admitted…
Check out your MyMIT Portal: Over at MyMIT, you’ll find a bunch of stuff only available to admitted students, including:
- Campus Preview Weekend Registration: Please register for CPW by March 25 or when your travel plans are solidified, whichever is sooner. Also, when you fill out your CPW registration form, give us as much specific information as you can; this will help us make your CPW experience as good as possible. Finally, please complete the Medical Release Form.
Notes to the wise: if you’re flying in, book your plane tickets early. If your parents are joining you, have them book their hotel early. I highly recommend hotels that are within walking distance of MIT — driving and parking in Boston is not a good experience.
- Local Admitted Students Meetings: During MIT Spring Break next week, MIT alumni across the globe will be hosting gathering for the Class of 2014, as nearby campus as Providence, Rhode Island, and as far away as Singapore. There will be meetings in dozens of locales, including New York City, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington (both the state — in Seattle — as well as the District of Columbia), Miami, Chicago, and many more. RSVP information is included.
- Class of 2014 Guestbook: Hundreds of your classmates have checked in to introduce themselves. Since only admitted students can enter themselves on the guestbook, it’s a good way to share your contact information securely with your future classmates, and to get emails and screennames to be in touch with fellow MIT 2014s!
- The MIT Reply Form: As soon as you’ve made up your mind for sure about whether or not to attend MIT — after you’ve received your financial aid package, come for CPW, or anything else that you need to make your decision — please let us know your decision through the online reply form. You have three choices: tell us you’re enrolling this fall (Yay! Welcome officially to the MIT Class of 2014!), that you’re declining our offer of admission (it’s okay, we know you’re making the best choice for yourself), or to request a deferral/gap year(s) before enrolling at MIT (for a gap year, military service, or other reason). Take as much time as you need to make your decision (and if we can help, please let us know), but be sure to let us know by May 1.
- Overnight Program Registration: If you can’t make it for CPW, don’t despair, you can still come visit through our Overnight Program. Please register at least two weeks in advance, and we’ll do our best to show you MIT.
Join the Facebook Group: Facebook is a great place to meet your future classmates and get questions answered by current students. Here it is: MIT Class of 2014.
Join in a Live Chat!: This Tuesday evening, and again the following Tuesday, we’ll have some very cool video chats, with special guests! Watch your email and MyMIT for more information…
Await Financial Aid Info: I know many of you are eagarly awaiting finanial aid information… don’t despair! Financiad Aid packages for Early Action students were mailed last week, and packages for Regular Action students were mailed yesterday.
Finally, Class of 2014, what would you like to see us do blog entries on over the coming month or so? How can we be best helpful for you as you make your college decision?
Hey. I came across this post:
‘My daughter’s uncle was at MIT, so before coming, we heard lots of stories about how difficult everything was. There’s a student culture at MIT that sometimes encourages the idea of signing up for the most difficult set of classes possible, but conversations with her uncle led her to avoid this during her freshman year. As a result, she had a great first year and gradually took on harder and harder loads as she realized she was capable of the work. Final result = very happy experience.’
and I’m really wondering how the whole policy (the one in which you choose your classes) works.
For example, if I take a class and later notice it’s too hard for me, can I swap to an easier class? How about all the contect I will have missed?
Is it also possible to take on a harder class in the middle of a school term?
anybody knows why the class of 2014 guestbook wont open on my myMIT account????
Congratulations to admitted students! My son was not so fortunate. This question is for Matt McGann,
Now that MIT is not an option, my son is seriously considering a mathematics or physics major at a good academic liberal arts college that offers a 3/2 engineering program with several well respected universities. Can you please post your thoughts about these programs? We would greatly appreciate your opinion.
I know MIT is a math/science/technology school. What about humanities? I’m particularly interested in business/management. How is it possible to also get a liberal arts education. I feel like I wont be able to fit in because I’ve never been to INTEL or built a robot. I really like MIT so i’m just very confused right now. Thanks for any sort of response!
@ RD admit ’14
I believe you will fit in just fine at MIT. Of course, the number of students pursuing liberal arts courses is much smaller…but I know someone who graduated a few years ago with a degree in financial something. Wish you the best of luck.
BTW, I think a good number of us (admits) have never built or even thought of building a robot. At least that makes two of us.
I’m pretty humanities-ish too (prospective major=linguistics, which is admittedly a science, but a soft one). MIT is quite serious about humanities as well as sciences. I mean, almost half of the GIRs are HASS. Also, since MIT has the Sloan school of business, I assume management/finance would be serious at the undergrad level.
COME TO CPW COME TO CPW COME TO CPW
@ RD admit ’14 and EA admit ’14
You should both check out Chris’s blog on the subject of humanities:
http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/learning/coursework/on_mit_and_humanities.shtml
There are also other blog entries about humanities that you could probably search the blog site for.
This should give a whole lot of idea to people with what next.. ??
@ confused –
So there’s the concept of the “Add Date” and the “Drop Date.”
Before the Add Date happens (5th week of term), you can add any new class to your current registration, and drop any class before the Drop Date (11th week of term).
So basically if you’re taking classes that are too difficult, you really can just drop your classes anytime (the Drop Date is literally right before Finals, so if you think you’re not going to get the grade you want going into the final you can just quit without penalty on your transcript). Also, as long as it’s before the 5th week of term, you can just add an easier class in place of the harder one. HOWEVER, you are responsible for all the content that you have missed up to that point (includes problem sets and exams). This is generally the reason why people stop adding classes around the 3rd week or so even though the effective add date is the 5th week because you cannot realistically make up five weeks of missed work in a few days.
What I found to be the most optimal strategy (which many other students practice) is to attend 6-8 classes that you may be interested in taking for the first two weeks or so, and slowly whittle it down from there to a comfortable 4-5. You really have to be attending all of your classes if you’re thinking of keeping them, so if you’re conflicted between a hard class and an easy class I would advise attending both at least until you can make a decision, and drop one of them. If you don’t attend both at the same time in the beginning, you probably can’t catch up even if you want to switch to the easier class because you haven’t been turning in the assignments.
@ humanities –
IMO, I don’t think of Management (course 15), Economics (course 14), and Linguistics (course 24) as “humanities” per se. I think they’re more akin to social science.
If you’re interested in more of the course 21 side of humanities, a few blog posts featuring students majoring in the pure humanities here will be forthcoming.
But long story short – we have an excellent program in the humanities and I’m very proud have taken more humanities classes than science classes here.
@RD admit ’14
you can always take classes at harvard! it’s really easy to sign up for cross-registering
I read Chris’s blog. it was very helpful to say the least. Thanks!
Also..i was wondering if studying abroad is popular at MIT. I searched it on the blog site. Most of the blogs were about studying abroad for IAP. What about going to somewhere for a whole semester?? Does MIT provide funds for that kind of stuff?
@ Anonymous –
We have the CME program, where we can spend all of junior year at the “other Cambridge” – in Cambridge Univ in the UK.
There’s also various other programs that you can do to study abroad for one semester. I know MIT Spain is one where you can spend one semester in Madrid.
Thanks for the reminder of what to do! After getting the MIT admission letter, I just wanted to sit back and relax for a bit.
When do we usually get our student email account? I’m really looking forward to joining the MIT Network on fb
^ You’ll get it with the “Next Big Mailing” that comes around in ~May, after all the students decide whether to enroll or not.
Am I right to assume you would have to reapply for financial aid after your gap year?
I heard that there is an MIT dorm designated as Alcohol-free, smoking-free. What is the name of this dorm?
Am I right to assume you would have to reapply for financial aid after your gap year?
there’s plenty of dorms that are smoke-free, although I think you would be hard pressed to find one that’s alcohol free
Dear sir,
How are u. I am omit Bangladesh. I want to know about your institution . i want to study in Aerospace Engineering. if their have any way to admitted your institution please send me. if possible inform me those information.
1. admission system for Bangladeshi student.
2. cost.
3. Hostel system.
4. and also important papers if necessary.
I hope you response my mail. Take care, and wish your best for your family and institution.
omit.
from Bangladesh.
+8801722337954 (mobile)
@gapyear
It would be better if you gave up smoking and drinking…
Life full of more interesting things than smoking and drinking as well.
@ Oasis:
Thanks a lot.
@ Omit:
You’re on the right website if you would like to apply to MIT. You should check out the ‘apply’ link above (at hte top of the page) for more info.
^ I was admitted to Caltech too in ’07.
Cons for me about Caltech:
-A very small humanities department
-Heavy focus on math and physics
-Student body size too small
-The lack of a coherent campus (there seems to be no unifying campus feel)
-I took the tour but everything was meh, including the dorms
I would say if you’re considering anything other than physics or math at caltech, you should think twice. I know for certain if you want to do bio, you should choose MIT. I can’t comment on the relative strengths of the engineering departments
Matt,
My toughest choice right now is Caltech vs. MIT. I didn’t think I’d get accepted to both, and therefore never thought I’d have to make the choice. If you know any MIT students that made that choice, I’d be glad to hear from them. I’ve heard from Caltech students that chose between both, but I haven’t heard the MIT argument. Any information would be great. Thanks!
^ Not forgetting Caltech’s weird boy:girl ratio.
Hi Matt,
Now that freshman admissions are all done with (aside from waitlists of course) I have a question about Transfer Applications.
In reading the blogs I’ve seen that freshmen applicants are welcome to submit extra materials after their applications have already been received, if they feel that these extra materials will tell the admissions committee something new and important about them that will help in the admissions process, and that these materials will be reviewed if received before decisions are made. Does the same policy hold for transfer applicants as well? It seems like transfer decisions are made on a shorter timeline (~6 weeks) so I thought maybe that you only have time to consider whatever came in with the application.
If it’s acceptable to do so I’d like to send in a page or two that I think will shed some light on important details about me I couldn’t fit into my application that I think might help you. Should I mail them in (I’m working in Japan at the moment so I’d EMS it so that it got there within the next 2 weeks) or better yet, can I just use the fax number for sending in outstanding materials that I got from MIT admissions by e-mail?
And finally, will there be any coverage of the transfer admissions process at all in this years blogs? From a quick search it seems that it’s not mentioned every year, but I think any updates on how evaluation of transfer applications is going would be great (and I hope I’m not the only transfer applicant that thinks so!)
Cheers!
-Thom