On Part 1 of the application, is the cultural background and identity response required/recommended for everyone or only for those who feel that they have more information to give?
Also, what address should I have my additional recommendation sent? Are there different addresses for MIT and MIT's Undergraduate Admissions Office?
I've been trying to create a MyMIT account for a few weeks now and the system seems to not be working.
I'm told that the application has been updated this year, and that it won't officially be live until it's announced on the blogs -- at the moment, they're working out some kinks. More info to come over the next few days, I assume.
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Originally Posted by Lanayru
for the music supplement, do you prefer teacher recommendations on the MIT teacher evaluation format or just a letter?
It's always acceptable to have your teachers send a letter, but it's useful for them to address the points in the form within the body of the letter. For a music letter specifically, you could have them use the evaluation form for a humanities teacher, if you'd like. But if your teacher prefers to write his or her own letter, that's fine, too.
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Originally Posted by Shroud
For the "Degree:" portion of parents' education, are we supposed to put like MS, PhD, etc or specify what the degree was in?
Just the degree type (MS/PhD/MD/etc.), though you can include the subject if you can fit it into the response field.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cherryblossom71
On Part 1 of the application, is the cultural background and identity response required/recommended for everyone or only for those who feel that they have more information to give?
I haven't seen this year's application, so I don't know about this specific question, but generally questions are for all applicants to answer unless they're specifically marked as being optional.
EDIT, to update: I see from reading the blogs that the question is optional.
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Originally Posted by cherryblossom71
Also, what address should I have my additional recommendation sent? Are there different addresses for MIT and MIT's Undergraduate Admissions Office?
The address for the undergraduate admissions office is at the bottom of the admissions office webpage -- it's 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 10-100, Cambridge, MA 02139.
Last edited by molliebatmit; 09-08-2012 at 10:02 AM.
How much of an emphasis does MIT place on having math / science related extracurriculars? Not on academics or courses taken, but EC's specifically. For my case, I have very non-STEMy EC's, such as a serious involvement in the visual arts. My academic prep / test scores are definitely within the range MIT looks for, however.
Should I consider my chances reduced because I haven't done research / placed in prestigious math/science competitions? Or will something like self-publishing a book help with my application just as much?
This isn't really a question that can be quantitatively answered ("how much..."), but it's certainly true that math/science ECs, and reasearch/competitions in particular, are not expected or required, and it doesn't hurt you not to have them. I would argue that research and prestigious competitions are valuable ECs not because MIT thinks they're important, but because the kinds of people who are successful at those ECs tend to be excellent applicants to MIT overall.
Speaking for myself, almost all of my ECs were in the performing arts.
There's a question on the application that ask for sexual orientation and gender identity. Is this a relatively new question? The MIT application is the only one on my college list that ask for such info.
@xyxsxm & dangitdang, an official on the comments section of the MIT blogs said that the cultural essay thing is optional. (In fact, on the PDF preview and final PDF it says the entire ethnicity section is optional.)
Is there anyway I can get my November SAT scores in time to MIT to be considered and if so how? CollegeBoard only lets us send score reports ~3 weeks after the test. That'ts around November 19th! Then it has to reach you guys...
MIT accepts November test scores for EA, with no need to rush the scores. Just designate MIT to receive the scores when you take the test, and they will arrive in plenty of time for application review.
How strict is the word limit for essays? Will it cut off the response on the final form if we're a bit over the word limit or is it somewhat lenient if we have like 105 words?
Sorry for the pedantic question :P
