Fall Travel Recap; New Bloggers Announced by Ben Jones
Philly, Jersey, Wilmington. Jess, Keri, Lulu.
Howdy folks,
I’m back! It feels like forever since I last posted, although it’s only been a couple of weeks. Lots to tell you about.
Fall Travel
About an hour after I launched the new site (talk about cutting it close), I left for the first leg of my fall recruitment travel.
As to not completely bore you with the details of my trip I will compose them in haiku.
Drove down Saturday,
hung out with my family at
Mom’s house in Philly
On Sunday I held
the Philly central meeting
in Fort Washington
On Monday morning
I went to Philly schools, then
drove to Delaware…
Went to one school there.
Wilmington central meeting
took place Monday night.
Back in Philly on
Tuesday for more school visits.
Then Northern Jersey.
School visit Tuesday
afternoon in Hackensack.
They gave me cake. Heart.
Big meeting Tues night;
afterwards, sent rude texts to
Nance from hotel bar.
Wednesday – school visits
on Staten Island and then
in East Brunswick, then
Chili’s (love Chili’s!)
and then later, the meeting
for Central Jersey.
Drove to Baltimore
on Thursday, but that was fun,
not work (more family)
Then back to Mom’s house
on Thursday night, where I got
some sleep finally
On friday I drove
back to Massachusetts and
slept until Sunday.
The end.
P.S. XPN in Philly and Jack in NY/NJ both ROCK MY SOCKS. I’ve lived here so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in love with a radio station. Not that radio in Boston is particularly awful, but I could swear at times that XPN and Jack were reading my mind. I want radio like that.
Except Keri just got a radio show, so there may be hope for this city after all.
The New Bloggers
First: I am so, so sorry that it took us so long to finalize decisions. This is the first year in which the program was big enough that it required an official application/selection process, and clearly we were not prepared for the overlap of our recruitment travel season with the blogger selection window.
With most of the committee members out of the office (out of the state, for that matter), we realized quickly how difficult it would be to come to a consensus via sporadic emails and text messages. We’ve learned a lot of lessons which we’ll implement next year. But to those of you who have been so patient this year, thanks for bearing with us. And again, big apologies for the delay.
We received many, many blog applications, and all of them were fantastic. You are all incredibly talented; one of the joys of the blogger selection process is that it reinforces the work we do in that “other” admissions process. Quite simply, your blogs – and the energy, creativity, and enthusiasm therein – confirm the great decisions we made in admitting you to MIT.
We have hired three bloggers at this juncture. A fourth will likely be added in the future, pending some logistical issues. If I haven’t contacted you personally, we were unfortunately not able to offer you a blogging spot for this admissions cycle.
Without further delay, the new admissions bloggers are Jess Kim ’10, Keri Garel ’10, and Lulu Liu ’09. You’ve already met Jess; Keri and Lulu will be making their introductions soon.
Thanks again for your patience throughout this long process, and for applying to be bloggers.
NACAC
Matt and I are off to NACAC tomorrow, where we’ve been asked to present the MIT admissions blogging program for a second year in a row. This year we’ll be joined by admissions officers from two other schools, a sign that this thing just keeps growing and growing, spreading from one campus to the next.
The success of these blogs is all about you. From all of us who work on these projects, on behalf of both MIT and our peer institutions – thank you for helping us to make this community what it is.
See you when I get back from Pittsburgh!
Ben Jones. Benjo. Ban
Jans. This entry was so grat.
You write haikus. Heart.
Does this mean that I can give official advice now, instead of pretending to have actual credibility?
If so, then great.
Oh, yeah, and squeeeeeeeee.
girls, congrats, i’m looking forward to reading your blogs.
Ben, have fun in pittsburgh
What are the admission requirementss?
What is the GPA that I have to have to apply?
What have to be my score in the SAT and ACT?
What is the admission reality or possibility, How many students apply and how many enter?
omigod, like, rock.
seriously, rock.
Congratulations Keri and Lulu!
Sorry about this double post, but I must know. What exactly does your shirt say on your banner? After compensating for glare, and performing character density analysis (haha…) I’ve concluded that it says “I’m blogging this” but character density analysis is an inexact science, and thus I can’t be sure.
I have a terrible sense of humor, don’t I?
I think you’re right, Adam. It definitely says ___ blogging this, so I’m assuming that “I’m” goes in the blank.
All tshirt speculation should be solved by viewing this:
http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/misc/miscellaneous/varsity_blogging.shtml
Congratulations Kim!!!
Rock. Three people I like are three new bloggers. Rock on. Ben, how’d you get to be so good at making good decisions?
After I read this article, I was wondering if a Google search on an applicant’s name would ever be performed …
some of the search results are harmless… but others are not so intelligent..
Silvia Torres – Please look at
http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/index.shtml
It has all of the answers to the questions you have asked.
Ben-
I wrote a haiku…
Big meeting Tues night;
You are really pushing it.
not work (more family)
Family with two
syllables? Tues? Come on Ben!
You can do better.
I’m just picking on
you. Anyway, sounds like a
fairly int’resting
Trip! You sure get to
see a lot of int’resting
people and places!
Well, anyway, I
must continue to work on
a program for my
computer science
teacher. I get to work on
whatever I want,
so I learn a lot
in that class. Well, I hope you
enjoyed my haiku.
Yours was obviously much better. I’m not entirely sure if mine can be considered a Haiku. I followed the syllable pattern, but it certainly wasn’t poetic, and I ran sentences through verses.. haha.
I hope I don’t start a haiku-war… Anyway, I enjoyed the post; you always seem to do something creative.
Congratulations bloggers! Can’t wait to hear what you have to say.
Hi Ben, I have a question about the application. We can submit Parts 1 and 2 completely online, correct? This means that they don’t have to be sent by mail, just submitted by November 1st? (not including the other papers which still must be postmarked by Nov 1st and then sent in the mail).
Thanks!
I was wondering, how much would a so-so interview hurt chances of admission in the long run? Bleghh just got back from that and I really don’t feel like we clicked. Oh well.
P.S. love the haikus
congrats keri and lulu!!
Congratulations Kim!!!
i remember thekeri!
congrats girls!
Michael – both parts I and II of the application can be submitted online. I know because that’s what I did last year.
However, don’t wait until 11:59 PM on October 31st to mail your application in. Too many people try to do that, and as a result, the servers get completely hosed. Submit the application a few days ahead for safety.
Congratulations Keri and Lulu. Did I read somewhere that Keri was going to be working at the radio station too? I read a few of her blogs and I think she’ll be a great addition to the official MIT bloggers. Good luck to all!
I’m retaking the SATs this saturday and I had pretty decent scores last time, I’m just trying to bump the math a bit because i feel i knew all the answers and just made some dumb mistakes. But, I really detest the writing portion. Would admissions care if I say, forgot to write the essay this time and wound up with a 300 on this section the 2nd time around, or is taht just a really bad plan? (My last score was a 730)
Oh, Alyssa. That sounds like such an awesome plan. I thought of doing the same exact thing (after getting my 760) but chickened out in the end and somehow my score went down! I so wish I hadn’t tried. Go for it!
So you were in Philly how many nights?? It was fun to get together- thanks for calling.
(And of course XPN is amazing- they have me as a member!)