<p>My son would like to talk about a computer program he created for one of the optional questions on the application. He’d like to know how technical he should get. He can keep it pretty short if the person reading it knows something about Scheme, but it’s going to get a lot longer if it needs to be understood by a layperson. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>I think I would talk about it in a general way that is short, but which anyone can understand, even if they don’t know anything about programming at all. He can always include a disk or addendum with the code. It’s really the project itself that is interesting - why he wanted to do it, how much time he spent, what he did with it, etc. How elegant the code is really is secondary.</p>
<p>Your son should be able to keep it short AND have it be understood by an almost-layperson, where almost-layperson == a tech-saavy person who is not a Computer Science major. This is an undergrad application, not a grad school application, so your son should be communicating to a general but somewhat tech-saavy audience (since it is MIT, after all). Too much technical jargon will detract from the ‘big picture’; your son needs to concisely and effectively communicate what this program is, why it is cool, why it is impressive for someone of his age to do, and why anyone should care about it.</p>
<p>Don’t assume that the reader knows anything about Scheme — actually, he should just simply mention that the IMPLEMENTATION of the project happens to be in Scheme (after all, it could’ve been written in any other programming language), but the IDEA behind the project is really language-independent, and the IDEA is what matters. Unless, of course, he did some advanced thing with Scheme that would’ve been very difficult to do with another language … </p>
<p>If you are not a Scheme expert and you don’t even understand what he’s talking about in his essay, then he should seriously revise it; don’t think that “oh wow, this sounds complicated, it must be impressive!” The best technical writing is directed towards the correct audience.</p>
<p>Um. no guarantees that anyone in the admissions office will know scheme. 6.001 is not a requirement for graduation in all but one major.</p>
<p>LOL. That’s pretty much what I’ve been telling him. He’s told me numerous times in lay language and not so lay language what he’s done and it’s pretty much mysterious to me! Made a compiler using Scheme? Maybe? I think he might be better off talking about the mods he’s done for Civ. 4. They are apparently going to be packaged with the next release of the game - so it sounds impressive to me, but he says he’s prouder of the Scheme thing.</p>
<p>Well, here’s the deal: He shouldn’t <em>have</em> to get technical at all, really. I think it would be far more valuable for him to talk about what he learned and the experience he gained rather than talk about the actual structure of his creation. That’s really the point of that essay, I believe. Not to talk about problem-solving (you’ll solve many more complex ones once you get here), but rather to talk about the actual wisdom garnered from solving said problem.</p>
<p>I would really shave the technical description down to a paragraph or so and spend the rest of the time talking about the creating, not the creation.</p>
<p>Oh I agree. But he has a hard time saying more than “It was fun.” He’s just not too introspective.</p>
<p>That may indeed be a problem.</p>
<p>Straight from Matt’s recent blog entry, Mikey Yang replied:</p>
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<p>I tried in vain to locate the blog/CC discussion from last year on this topic, so I’ll have to paraphrase. The short answer is as you’ve heard above: Admissions isn’t keen to read your 20-page paper or the intricate details of your Scheme programming project. They want to know why you did the thing you did, generally speaking what it’s about (e.g. “layman’s abstract”), and what you learned from it or accomplished by doing it. They are interested in the person behind the creative item, not so much the item itself (although they may also appreciate that, of course). The questions on the application are designed to help Admission get to know the real applicants, how they’ve used and grown their own talents, and how they would benefit from and contribute to the class Admissions is shaping. Talking about the impetus for and the growth from the creation will likely be much more effective than merely describing the creation itself. Think narrative, not expository.</p>
<p>Narrative? Ha!</p>
<p>I think he could do it for the Civ. 4 project though.</p>
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<p>The essays are intended in part to paint a portrait of the applicant for the admissions committee. Why did he create the Scheme programming project? What was his motivation? What is the benefit of it? How did he get interested in the project? Your son should be able to answer those questions and that should help him while composing the essay.</p>
<p>A question about this section:</p>
<p>If I want to put in my work on the school website, and various related websites, should i just provide links to the content, or should I print off pages to mail in along with the application? Will the admissions person who reads my app be near a computer and able to go view those links?</p>
<p>When they can, they do visit web links, but there’s not a guarantee. I know several successful applicants who have included links to their websites or deviantArt sites; it might be sufficient to write about your work, and include links for further exploration, unless there’s something completely unique that you want to be sure to get in front of their eyes without question. I’d be judicious about it, though: print <em>a</em> page to mail if you can, rather than <em>pages</em>. (By the way, it’s also possible to include an image as part of the “something you created” section, if you’re mailing it in…)</p>
<p>“The essays are intended in part to paint a portrait of the applicant for the admissions committee. Why did he create the Scheme programming project? What was his motivation? What is the benefit of it? How did he get interested in the project? Your son should be able to answer those questions and that should help him while composing the essay.”</p>
<p>When I’ve asked him similar questions the answers go something like this: I thought it would be fun. I read the Scheme manual online at the MIT website because I was curious what they did for computer programming and wanted to see what I could do. The only benefit was that I learned how to use Scheme.</p>
<p>He likes learning new things and seeing what he can do with them, but he doesn’t like talking about it!</p>
<p>From what you’ve said here, it might be better for him to talk about something other than the Scheme project in his “something you created” essay, if there is something that he would be more enthusiastic and open writing about. As I suggested earlier, an expository piece about the details of a Scheme project probably isn’t going to highlight <em>him</em> and who he is, in the way he’d like.</p>
<p>I tend to agree. Well, we’ll see if we can light a fire under him tonight!</p>