It’s May 2nd. Have you replied to your colleges yet? by Mikey Yang '05

The college admissions process is often compared to dating. It’s a dance that happens between students and colleges where the power dynamic shifts back and forth several times; one courts the other, then the other courts the first, and so on.

We spend time and money trying to identify the right students who could be great candidates for our institutions, and do all kinds of outreach–traveling the country, visiting high schools, giving presentations, campus tours, sending brochures and emails…all in hopes that they’ll apply to our school. We wait in anticipation to see the applications roll in.

Students enter into the application process, picking and choosing which colleges they want to apply to. For those whom we are lucky enough to receive their applications, we read them, learn about their lives, fall in love with many, but can only choose a few. Applicants wait with bated breath to hear back, nervous and anxious, constantly hitting refresh to find out their decision.

The tables turn again–once we’ve admitted a class of students, we begin to court them once more. Shiny tubes, greeting cards, and a four-day extravaganza called Campus Preview Weekend. Now it’s our turn to wait, excited and eager, hoping the applicants we love so much will say “yes” in return.

And that brings us to today. Many have said yes; welcome to the family! Some have said no; we’ll eat a couple pints of ice cream, and all will be okay. But then there are others who haven’t said anything yet…

If you were admitted to a college, I’m sure you can remember what it was like, constantly hitting refresh, and waiting in anticipation to hear responses from the college(s) you applied to. For the last several weeks, we’ve now been doing the same. Every day, hitting refresh, waiting to hear back from the 1,419 students we extended admission offers to. (If you think waiting for a handful of college decisions is stressful, try waiting for 1,419 replies.)

The deadline has come and gone, and for those of you who haven’t responded yet (who haven’t been granted extensions for financial aid reasons), I’m guessing most of you have decided to go to another place. That’s perfectly fine–we completely understand. There are tons of amazing schools out there, and we know you’ve made a choice that is right for you.

The only thing we ask in return, is that you please let us know. Log in to your MyMIT account, and click on “How to accept or decline our offer of admission”, and complete the form. I know breaking up is hard to do, but not knowing is even worse. Plus, it doesn’t have to be goodbye forever–we can still be friends…and there’s always grad school. :)

Thanks for dancing with us, and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

P.S. This applies to pretty much every college out there, so if you have other schools you haven’t responded to yet, do that too!

P.P.S. For those on the waitlist, we haven’t forgotten about you either! As you can see above, we empathize with the pain of waiting and not knowing, and want to get back to you as quickly as possible. More news to come soon, I promise.