<p>First, the admissions’ process is 10 weeks or longer not 6 weeks. The candidate pool is also much smaller than your example. MIT has full time admissions officers reviewing the files plus additional reviewers (including faculty) screening the files and preparing them for further review by the admissions staff. All this triaging makes the process highly efficient. It is all computerized and analyzed across multiple dimensions.</p>
<p>You also don’t seem to appreciate that every applicant gets an essentially compulsory interview (you pretty much don’t get in without one) with an educational counselor (EC) like me whose role is precisely to evaluate the candidate holistically. I will spend anywhere between an hour and two hours meeting with a candidate. I even did some interviews with international candidates over Skype to make sure they would get a fair shot. ECs are required to write an extensive report on each candidate and answer specific questions. We are also supposed to rate each candidate along a number of attributes, mostly relating to fit between the candidate and MIT. There are thousands of dedicated ECs around the world who perform that critical function. Each of our own reports are then graded and the ECs who don’t perform adequately their functions are booted and replaced. </p>
<p>As part of our training, ECs go through a number of prior application files with the admissions office to fully understand the process. Between the EC reports, pre-sorted files, recommendation letters and short applicant answers, it does not take an hour to determine if a candidate has the right fit. Holistic admission does not mean that every activity is considered the same or randomly. MIT is an Institute of TECHNOLOGY so the motivation and affinity for math and science has to be clearly demonstrated. You just can’t fudge on that. Beyond transcript and test scores, there are a number of objective metrics to measure such affinity such as extra-curricular math and science activities, research, competitions and awards. Finally, MIT evaluates any unusual circumstances that would warrant special consideration: family, first generation college, access to quality courses etc…</p>
<p>What may appear from the outside as an impenetrable black-box is actually a fine-tuned machine constantly being adjusted. After all, MIT pioneered the field of quantitative sociology and some of these principles do find applications all the way into its admissions process. It starts with extensive outreach to target high school students, even internationally. ECs are also very active in that process. It continues with the application. MIT does not use the Common App very deliberately. Every single element of its own application is there for a reason and helps measure the fit between MIT and the candidate. No long essays, just short to the point questions. The interview then adds elements not captured by the application. Together with multiple internal reviews for all applicants, I believe only the military academies do a more thorough job at screening its applicants than MIT.</p>