The Undecideds by Matt McGann '00
It's crunch time for college decisions.
With 10 days to go until the May 1st postmark deadline for your college decision, I figure now is as good a time as any to the students who are still undecided:
How can we help you make your decision? What more would you like to know about MIT? What are your lingering concerns? Etc.
Cool. No one’s commented yet. I feel special.
Not that I actually have anything of importance to say…
well you could help by giving me a whole bunch of money (financial aid) ha ha just kidding. I’m kind of worried about the food situation at MIT but honestly I’m only undecided becuase of my parents.
Hello Matt! I think at this point people pretty much made up their minds already.
As for me, I sent my Intent to Register Statement or whatever you call it to MIT three days ago =D
I will see you in the fall, or over the summer if I do Interphase.
I suppose since I’ve already got my decisions, I can talk about my questions. I’m headed for course 6-3 – Computer Science. The only other serious contender besides MIT is Carnegie Mellon. Many people I’ve talked to have said that Carnegie Mellon is the best school for CS in the country, so I’m trying to weigh the (supposedly better) quality of education with the amazing culture of MIT. So I guess the thing you guys can help with is to show us more of MIT’s culture, and make sure we know it’s an awesome place to study. I’ve been concerned that MIT’s classes will be so detailed and exhausting that I won’t have time to partake in all the clubs and student activities at MIT. I saw many students, even during CPW, spending a lot of their time in front of a laptop or books studying. While that’s not a bad thing, I worry that it will be hard to balance work and play.
–Quentin
P.S. I’m 90% for MIT at the moment… I’m just waiting to see if another college has something outrageously amazing that could change my mind.
I can’t really answer with any specificity, but I do believe you’ll work just as hard and just as much at CM in CS.
Um, well…getting my financial info would be nice. The financial aid office says they’ll get it to me next week. Are they really that busy though? I mean…I know I got my CSS done a little late but it’s still been done for a couple weeks now :(
Basically though it’ll come down to financial aid for me. If I get next to nothing I don’t see myself coming to MIT. But if I get something decent I’ll most likely come. I’m still not sure what “next to nothing” and “decent” translate to in dollar terms…
Sorry for rambling on your blog. Your blog has been a great help to me though. Thanks and keep it up.
Why have some of us not recieved our financial aid packages yet? I know I got all of my information in on time. Why did we not recieve our financial aid package on the April 1st date we were told?
decision sent:
MIT >> Caltech
^ woot!
Yeah, I’m waiting on the financial aid papers too. They told me by phone, because I needed to tell National Merit Scholarship Corp. if I was going to a different school on April 14, and from what they said, I’ll definitely be going to MIT. But I still need a paper copy of the financial aid statement before I can accept.
Decision sent as well:
MIT >> Princeton
The only thing holding me back from MIT is the music. Classical guitar has been a part of my life for almost ten years and I’ve participated in national competitions and festivals. I’m having a hard time finding an adequate teacher so far in the Boston area, but I’ll keep looking. The other alternative is Yale, which has a great guitar teacher but a mediocre engineering program :].
Hello, Matt, I would like to share a different decision story, perhaps this isn’t the forum, you don’t have to post it if it isn’t applicable to undecideds. “Undecideds” was just the first “contact” that I found when I was looking to write to you. My son was deferred from MIT, it was his second choice, anyway. He got into his first choice Ivy college in early decision and he is very happy. In the course of his first year, we discovered that students from certain groups at three different colleges (one was MIT), who were brilliant in science really could not put together an essay good enough for even a regular (not honors) high school course. We love MIT and my son’s college, no disrespect at all, in fact, we wrote to the college and to you knowing that you are the types to make changes when needed. How do these students pass the admissions’essay requirement in order to gain entrance? Is it fair for an A+ science/D+ English
student to get in over an A science/A or B+ English student? How can the essay be “cheat proofed” (supervision while writing it?) Thank you for your time and effort, and with all due respect, as I do believe you make a sincere effort to be fair. Maur Ponte