Mikalye

The purpose of the MIT admissions process, and indeed that of Harvard, is to try to figure out who the people are that are applying. It has long been recognised that there is a disconnect between the application folder and the individual. I have met some very, very bright applicants who I knew were going to be rejected because of the image that they were trying to project to MIT. The fact of the matter is that MIT is highly competitive, and that you cannot really afford to blow any section of the application.

I have interviewed candidates who clearly were just having a bad day. Clearly it is unfair that a lifetime of attentive study and application can be blown in one bad day when you throw up on the interviewer's rug, but hey, it can happen, and life isn't fair.

I have met many, many people who are great on paper and useless in real life and vice versa. MIT goes a long way towards trying to get past the paper, sometimes mistakes may be made, but over all, very few of them.