Help With MIT Application (in general)- What to do?

CalAlum
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:24:26 +0000

@PatCS – You’re stressing over misplaced assumptions about what MIT is looking for. You say, “I know MIT looks for depth not breadth…” This isn’t necessarily the case. I heard a MIT admissions officer say once that “some of our admits are well rounded, and some of our admits are very pointy.” You can be well rounded, pursuing a wide range of real interests, and gain admission to any top school, including MIT.

Writing the essay is not meant to be easy. Thinking about who you are and finding a way to express your ideas is always a challenge. No one on this board can help you do this. This you should do on your own. Turn to others for some feedback on essay drafts, or for some proofreading, but make this YOUR project. If you truly are of MIT caliber, then there will be a teacher or two at your high school who will welcome the opportunity to read over your essay drafts in the fall and give you some feedback. Don’t seek feedback on your writing from strangers on a message board: They do not know who you are.

Writing will take time. It’s a great idea to start early in the summer. At my daughter’s high school, the senior English teachers assign an essay “describing your interests and passions” over the summer, and when students arrive in the fall, these essays are stapled up on the wall for everyone to read. The first drafts are always rather disappointing, because many students simply use the essay to describe a long list of activities and achievements. In a way, you also did that in your initial posts, when you listed your “stats”. It’s the ultimate fallback when the writer is not yet clear about what he wants to say.

Start thinking about your own experience, and start writing. Do not repeat anything in your essay that someone can find elsewhere in your application. The essay is a great place to tell a story, a story that illustrates something about who you have become during the last few years.