Waiting

Waiting While you wait For those who are curious about envelope sizes: the defer letter and the deny letter each come in a standard #10 window envelope (4.125 x 9.5). As for the admit letter, it is unlikely to be mistaken for anything else. Jane asked, I always wondered.why is MITs early acceptance rate so low compared to other selective colleges? Well, there are two factors at work here. First, we are committed to admitting no more than 30% of our class during early action. We feel that the pressures to apply early are too high, and dont want to further contribute to that by leaving only a very small number of spaces for regular action, further pressuring people to apply early. Additionally, we dont want to penalize those students who apply regular action. Second, our last few classes, because of an increased yield (the percentage of admitted students who decide to enroll), have been quite large. So, given our 30% constraint, and our increased yield, there you have it 377 admitted students, a record-low 12.2% admit rate. 2002 2003 2004 2005 EA Admits 525 438 383 377 While this is a much smaller percentage of the class admitted early than many other places, remember that here, being deferred is not a polite rejection. Deferred students are given full consideration again during regular action, where most (~75%) of our admitting is done. Many students were deferred, and I expect those students to be competitive during the regular action process. More on that in the weeks to come. Out of fairness to applicants, we also turned down more students than we did last year during early action. Many of these students are really excellent, but given our applicant pool, it was clear that these students would not ultimately be admitted to MIT regular action. We wish these students our best in their applications to other great schools. Unfortunately, I suspect that the mail wont make it much farther than Eastern Massachusetts inside of Interstate 495 (based on last years mail patterns), with most students receiving decisions on Monday and Tuesday. For those of you not in Massachusetts, do yourself a favor and have a fun, relaxing weekend maybe check out some of the great movies that are out now (I saw Memoirs of a Geisha last night, with a talk beforehand by author Arthur Golden!) Waiting Waiting is hard. Waiting is incredibly hard. Well, I guess that depends on how patient of a person you are, but I don’t think I’ve ever really been patient. When a big event looms, I mark its approach in a big red box. When I was but a tiny fetus, I remember counting down those nine long months to birth with a lot of snarling and kicking around. On the day I finally arrived on Earth, my patience had fast vanished, which explains the “bawling, puking and hair-pulling” antic I mentioned in my profile. My parents and siblings know all too well that when waiting for food at home, I turn into this hyperactive raging rhino. I check the fridge, stare around, pick up a tomato, laugh hard, put the tomato back, sigh, and shut the fridge. Two minutes later, I return to the fridge. Repeat activity. This continues on a loop until food arrives. Nine months ago, I was counting down the hours to the release of the Regular Action decisions, 3/14, 6:28pm in Boston (Pi Day, Tau Time). 3/14, 11:28pm in Nigeria. Someone on College Confidential had posted a link to a countdown timer. Several others had made posts about their excitements and fear and raw nervousness. Slices of optimism. Slices of pessimism. It really only added to the anxiety, but beneath that, there was a layer of community. It’s interesting how you can bond over agonizing with people you’ve never seen before. It’s probably part of the application experience. When the countdown timer ticked its way to less than 30 hours, my palpable fretting grew a notch. Naturally, I got my laptop out and wrote about how I felt. Hours later, I went to my high school where Pi Day was being celebrated. I spoke with friends, gushed over a cake with a pi-shaped icing, and got back home with slightly over six hours left on the countdown timer. What next? I watched an episode of Fringe. Then I watched Lion King Parts 1 and 2. Prior to that, I’d watched both movies enough times to chant every line, but it still felt good watching them again, especially with my siblings. I still cringed at Mufasa’s death, and by the end of the second volume was a hair strand away from bawling about cruel fate and all such melancholy thoughts Lion King sometimes inspires. At the time, just about three hours were left. I went to the sitting room, where my parents and siblings were. They asked if I was alright. “Sure,” I said, managing a grin, taking a seat. We spoke about random things. Time really did speed up in those last three hours. My heart had settled, but it picked up again with five minutes to go. With a minute to go, I smiled at my mom. She smiled back. It was a warm, encouraging smile, and wordlessly, it told me I’d be fine regardless of the outcome. I went into my room. I was alone. I picked up my I-Pad. I watched the timer count down the final ten seconds. The AC hummed. My heart thudded. Those two sounds were all I could hear. I told myself I’d be fine. I went to decisions.mit.edu. There’s really nothing left to say that hasn’t already been said before. Decisions are tough. We all know that. Amazing applicants get rejected. We all know that as well. A great deal is involved in the admissions process, and while trying to figure out “behind-the-scenes” of the committee, while trying to imagine if they’d frown at that one improperly used comma or brush it aside, it’s easy to get bogged down in the details from which fright and anxiety emanate, and lose sight of an overarching picture. What you see this coming weekend on a certain webpage will mark an important day in your memory, at least for a while. The moment before you see it, you’re likely to reach a crescendo of anxiety. After that moment, the next instant shouldn’t matter anymore to the extent that it super-inflates or super-deflates your self-esteem. If there’s joy or disappointment, take it in and experience it for the time that you need to. Then go on. There’s a world of memories stil l waiting to be made. I know this is a tough time, but I promise you: you’ll be fine. Now, let’s talk about silly things. Or anything at all. I’ll start with tips for math and physics tests. Waiting Applying to things doesnt end after you come to MIT, and waiting doesnt either. Right now, you might be waiting to find out if you got into MIT, and that might suck, because waiting sucks. Everybody is waiting for a million things all the time, whether its for undergraduate admissions decisions, grad school admissions decisions, job application decisions, to get an email back about a potential UROP, waiting for something as simple as the bus or the end of a rainstorm. Right now, Im waiting to take an exam tonight at 7:30 pm, but Im also waiting to go home for Thanksgiving, and waiting for the weekend, and waiting for spring to come so that my team can get back on the water again, and waiting to see if my Unified teams bottle rocket will achieve stable flight of a minimum height of 46 meters, and yes, waiting to see if the rain will stop so I can walk home and stay dry. Sitting and waiting can be incredibly tedious, anxiety-inducing, and unproductive. If I sit for the next few hours worrying about my exam, I will certainly feel worse than if I do literally anything else. I could study, I could sleep, or I could do something else entirely. There are many things I can do, things I can make, and places I can go to pass the time this afternoon, and similarly, you can do these things while you pass the time between now and December, or between now and March, or between now and whatever youre waiting for. Things to Make While You Wait Eggs, especially fried in (lots of) butter. Unfortunately, I dont have any pictures of my breakfast this morning, but trust me, it was delicious. A bottle rocket, or more accurately, a three-bottle rocket. You can even launch it, provided you have enough empty space to safely do so. 01 me? oh, Im still w a i t i n g to launch mine A Spotify playlist to listen to while you wait. My music taste has been strongly influenced by my dad, so if you dont like this playlist, take it up with him. 02 he probably will like =50% of it, so maybe dont take it up with him. Challah. If youre an MIT student, you can come volunteer every other Thursday to make challah, sell it to other MIT students, and donate the proceeds. I usually come help make the dough and knead, but rest assured we actually bake the challah as well, even though I only have pictures of it pre-oven for some reason. Scones. They are excellent, and you can bake them from scratch if you really need a distraction or from store-bought mix pretty easily. My family usually keeps a couple of boxes of scone mix and Ill probably make some (from mix as I am unskilled) when I go home for Thanksgiving. 03 hello mom. you can consider this a promise 3 Memes. Please put them in the comments section. Things To Do While You Wait Learn how to make anything listed above. Attend a free concert or other outdoor festival. If you are in or around Seattle, I would recommend the Stranger events calendar. I would  highly  recommend Concerts at the Mural. I wish I had done this more in high school. Watch a sporting event. For the class of 2025 04 oh god so young applying next fall, I would recommend Head of the Charles if you are in or around Boston. I watched and cheered for MIT and some high school friends this year, and it was really fun. You can also watch the livestream (or now, I guess, recorded stream) from this year here if youre truly passionate. Here is a photo I took of a collision at Weeks. 05 as far as I know, everyone was fine, and none of my friends or teammates were involved Wind tunnel test the bottle rocket you made earlier. If the drag coefficient is too high, consider changing your design. 06 the truly observant will be able to decipher the order in which the bottle rocket images were taken, and what the results of wind tunnel testing showed Participate in a sporting event. When I was in high school waiting for decisions, I raced in three different regattas, and rowing provided a key distraction for me. This fall, I raced at (you guessed it) Head of the Charles. The best part of racing is winning, which happens only sometimes, but is very, very fun, and very, very worth the wait. Watch a movie. I watched Hearts Beat Loud last weekend and it was.fine? Alternatively, watch Finding Nemo, and just keep swimming. 07 all credit goes to Petey Places to Go While You Wait An expensive boutique. Definitely do not buy anything, but definitely do smell all the candles. One of my close friends from high school and I do this regularly when we hang out. I have yet to buy a single candle. To the mountains. Wake up before sunrise, make coffee, pack snacks, pick up a couple of friends, and go for a drive. Walk uphill until you get tired, then stop and look around. This yields great results in the Pacific Northwest, if nowhere else. Outside in the rain. Splash around, get really wet, get really cold, and then go inside and shower and change and make tea. I did this (somewhat involuntarily) often in high school, primarily due to my participation in an outdoor sport while living in Seattle, Washington. I am probably going to do this again in about 15 minutes. A bookstore or library. Can you guess which of these books I bought for my brother for his 14th birthday? 08 he is a nerd Waiting doesnt have to be horrible. If none of the above activities appeal to you, you can always, at the very least, simply play games on your phone from now until when whatever is going to happen finally happens. Remember, though, that in addition to any one big thing, you are waiting for many smaller things, good and bad alike, and in the meantime, revel in the minutiae of life. Go for a walk in the rain! Go to bed early! Read an entire shelf of books! Take up rowing so I can watch you race at Head of the Charles next year! Eat a scone! Build a rocket! Over these next few weeks, Ill be baking, and reading, and getting soaked, and hiking, and hopefully launching my rocket, and Ill be waiting too. Youll get through that, and Ill get through this, and the whole time, well be waiting together. me? oh, I'm still w a i t i n g to launch mine back to text ? he probably will like =50% of it, so maybe don't take it up with him. back to text ? hello mom. you can consider this a promise 3 back to text ? oh god so young back to text ? as far as I know, everyone was fine, and none of my friends or teammates were involved back to text ? the truly observant will be able to decipher the order in which the bottle rocket images were taken, and what the results of wind tunnel testing showed back to text ? all credit goes to Petey back to text ? he is a nerd back to text ?