Decisions Are Beginning To Arrive by Ben Jones
Some thoughts for everyone.
A few of you are starting to receive your decisions. To those of you who were admitted, CONGRATS. You completely deserve it and you should be very, very proud of your accomplishment.
To those of you who didn’t get in, please continue to hold your heads up high. We didn’t have room for the vast majority of applicants, most of whom were qualified to be here. To even be in the applicant pool means that you are among the best of the best. Don’t let this stop you from doing all of the great things in this world that you are meant to do.
For those of you on the waitlist – keep the faith. One never knows what can happen. :-)
ahhh the wait is excruciating! I live in CA so it should come today? *fingers crossed*
Wow – I can actually feel the tension!
I haven’t had the chance to apply to MIT all the way through, cause I got in ED elsewhere, but my (maybe under-documented) opinion is that it would have been a great experience. MIT, and especially BEN, you totally rock!!
I do have many friends who applied, so i’ve got many fingers crossed… a few minutes ago I
> “Don’t let this stop you from doing all of the great things in this world that you are meant to do.”
Ben it’s not so easy for all of us. I won’t stop myself, but obligations will. Parents will. Teachers will. Friends will. Those who get rejected at MIT will probably end up at Stanford or Caltech or Berkeley or some other great school.
So why am I banking on MIT? Why not some other great school I can get in to? Like Carnegie Mellon? Because MIT gels with me, but CMU does not. Because I have great faith in MIT’s admission policies. But that’s not a problem. I could still go to Berkeley or CMU and be happy, right? Yeah, if I could go there… and the reason I won’t spell out here (but it’s not a weakness in my app).
Of course if I have gotten in at MIT, disregard ALL that I said above…
Time for me to go window-hunting. *sigh* Best wishes to those who made it!
yeah, good luck to anyone who made it in
I can’t waitttt!!!! I’m at the school library waiting for my ride and I’m so anxious to go home and check my mailbox!
Apparently, someone has been using my name to post mean comments..since I started the DHL mess. I am sorry to Ben and other admissions people.. because I have caused you much trouble.. but certain people who pretend to be me.. please stop it..
Hey. I got rejected. Nevertheless, thanks Ben for your help – you are so nice
Hopefully we’ll meet after four years when I’ll apply for grad school 
Congratulations everyone
Thanks for your posts everyone. I am truly sad for those of you who didn’t get the big envelopes. There were so many of you that I really, really wanted to see here in the fall. Saying that doesn’t make it easier for any of us so I’ll just stop talking about it.
I do hope that you’ll stay in touch and keep me posted on all of the stuff you accomplish in the coming years.
Ben, you *shouldn’t* be sad. I believe that this is something you feel you have to say.
What’s most upsetting about getting rejected or waitlisted is that no one knows the reason. I mean I have a friend who is a US citizens and got admitted, while I probably got rejected (or waitlisted), despite the public opinion that my application was stronger! There are all these nice things to say, such as “MIT has a maximum percentage of international students to admit”, which make you feel even more wronged…
To every single person out there that got or will get a negative answer from such a great (dream-)place, including me
:
Every other person reading our applications is *experienced*. If they say that you are not supposed to be at MIT, intercept it as ퟙMIT doesn
Theo – I don’t expect you to believe me, but I’m pretty sad, and please trust me when I say that it’s not something I feel I *have* to say. But this blog is as much for me as it is for you guys, and I haven’t kept my feelings from you before, so why start now…
EDIT –
I’ve moved the rest of this post to its own entry…
http://www.3-107.com/archives/2005/03/two_sides_of_th.html
Ben, that was a fabulous post. Thanks again.
I must admit, I’m a little confused by the waitlist letter. It says that “we [the admissions committee] can never be sure before mid-May” and that “we will let you know how things look by late May.”
The thing is, the national common reply date is May 1st. What, exactly, does MIT want us to do? If we follow the instructions on the letter, we forfeit our acceptances into all the other colleges. If we sign the admissions contact to another college by May 1st, there doesn’t seem to be much point to staying on the waitlist…
Ben, thanks for maintaining this blog. I have been and continute to be impressed by your patience, even when some people misuse this place. I haven’t recieved my decision yet, but whatever the outcome, thank you.
Someone – front-page post on waitlist stuff coming in a few mins.
Theo – I’m not allowed to discuss specific decisions, but I can almost promise you that there was nothing “unflattering” about your application. You applied as an international student (right?) which put you in the most competitive subset of the most competitive applicant pool ever (except for transfer applicants). You did nothing wrong – we can only take 100 or so from over 2000 int’l applicants. The vast majority of int’l applicants were amazing, amazing people, I can’t emphasize that enough. But a 5% admit rate – those are incredibly tough odds. Please don’t take it personally… I know it’s hard not to though, and I respect that. But truly, it’s not personal.
Ben – Since you say you are totally honest with us I don’t have a reason to believe you. It’s just that my egoism is more hurt than anything else – because I’ve been dreaming of the wrong place as it seems.
Thanks for this blog, it has been terribly ퟙentertainingퟘ to feel connected – as friends – with people overseas (for some of us at least) who – like it or not – influence your life utterly.
Thanks for a great admission process.
This is not supposed to be ironic: Thanks for the rejection.
Though I have to emphasize that I