MIT admissions include an EA round, which is unrestrictive. I don’t understand why your student didn’t cover all contingencies and apply to the other schools during the early admissions cycle… MIT is Div III (except for crew, I think) so your student should have known that the coaches don’t have much pull with admissions… That said, my DS applied EA (he was encouraged to do so by the coach), was admitted at MIT, and is now on the traveling squad of his team. His coach wrote a letter in support of his application, which may have helped, or maybe not… There is evidence that athletics as an EC can help; I’ve read that the acceptance rate for recruited athletes at MIT is around 30%, which is far better than 7-8% for the general applicant pool. But there is no “thumb on the scale.” The MIT admission committee expects strong grades, test scores, etc. even for recruited athletes.