A follow-up

A follow-up Youve now had a chance to post lots of questions. Now its my turn to answer them. From Amelia: What fields does course 9 include? Primarily biology? Chemistry? Mathematics? A little bit of everything? It includes a little bit of everything, and because its such a flexible major, you get a lot of choice in what you want it to be. Former blogger Mollie, for instance, took a lot of cellular and molecular neurobiology classes. Ive taken, among other things, a functional and evolutionary neuroanatomy class (9.14), a developmental neurobiology class (9.18), a systems and computational neuroscience lab (9.02), a bioelectrical engineering elective on sensation and perception (9.35), and a class on what functional neuroimaging tells us about high-level vision (9.71). You have to take 9.00 (Intro to Psychology), 9.01 (Intro to Neuroscience), and a probability/statistics class. From Anna: Do you know anyone at MIT who came from a rural area or a small, noncompetitive high school? Im a little worried about how difficult it might be to catch up academically! Oh goodness, yes. Contrary to a common misconception that I remember coming up pretty often on the not admitted thread on Bens blog, this school is not a bastion of socioeconomic elitism. Ive known people from rich prep schools, people from parochial schools, people from magnets, people from vocational schools, people from run-of-the-mill public schools, people from the middle of nowhere, people from urban slums, people from ranch communities, people from Appalachia, people who were essentially homeless when they were accepted, people from mining or factory townsyoull see all sorts of people with all levels of preparation. Ive known people whose schools didnt offer calculus, people whose schools didnt offer physicsobviously the people with worse preparation start out behind, but theres nothing wrong with taking 18.01 (Calculus 1) and, say, 8.01L (Physics 1 at a slow pace, for people who have never seen it before or struggle with it) during your first term if you feel like you are not up to speed. After a few terms you will have learned the basic required material and will be in upper-level classes with material that almost none of your classmates already knew. From Jinjin: I dont know how much you know about this, but can you please tell me about the music program? Especially for pianists. I know very little about the music program. I will point you at the relevant website, and say that if you send me your contact info I can put you in touch with a friend whos a real live music major. From Abhishek: Hi. I feel sad to say but its reality that i am a loser who failed to got in. But i have decided that now my only aim is to get in MIT so i need your little bit help. I am an international applicant from India and i will be taking admission in IIT Bombay this year. I dropped my one year after school to get admission in 1 of the best college like MIT. Do you think that besides high end academics in college MIT give preferance to college reputation for transfer students? First of all, youre not a loser. Plenty of great applicants got turned down, and getting in as an international student is particularly difficult. And based on what Ive heard about IIT, thats a pretty good school too. I dont know how much college reputation helps in the transfer admissions process. If you are intending to go for transfer admission, Id say do well in your classes, do some research stuff that will indicate that you are a fit for MIT. From Anonymous: Did you want to go to those 3 schools you got rejected from? Some more than others, but I didnt have my heart set on any particular school. I thought and think that the admissions process is way too fickle for that to be wise. From Kate: Sorry to be a pain, but would taking Music instead of Chemistry hurt my application at all? I enjoy music (Im a violist) an infinite amount more than Chem. But then, other universities might look down on it for an engineering applicant. Not everyone can be so lucky as to be admitted to MIT. On one hand, you should be taking academically challenging classes, and if your school offers the basic sciences, you should be taking them. On the other hand, a consistent passion for and dedication to music is helpful on an applicant. I cant give you a definite answer, and dont know your specific situation. From Devils Advocator: I wasnt one of the applicants this year nor do I know any rejected applicants so please do not take my comment as an attack of any sort (because I really do think its extremely difficult to decide who takes spots in MITs classes). But I really dont think it makes rejected applicants feel any better when you say you got rejected by 3 schools out of 10, thats only a 30% rejection rate. Also, you got accepted to MIT! Something these students will most likely never experience. Im not sure if your way was the best way to go to sympathize with rejectees. I would not be surprised if some of the applicants who didnt get into MIT have a lower rejection rate than I did. And being accepted to MIT is not the be-all, end-all of life. For the record, the three schools that rejected me were Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Apparently my application did not appeal much to the Ivies (I didnt apply for any other Ivies besides those). Everyone is going to experience rejection during their lives. Some of you have never experienced it before, and it hurts. Theres nothing that I could possibly say that would make it not hurt, but please dont presume that because I got into MIT, I dont know what real rejection is like. Right now youre being rejected from undergrad programs, and later it will be grad programs, professional schools, and jobs (Im job-hunting, remember?). Somewhere in the interim youll probably ask someone out and get rejected, too. ;) It happens to most people, I think. From Kasienia: Why is MIT better than CIT? That depends pretty much entirely on the person considering the two choices. You are not going to draw me into making some sort of MIT rocks, Caltech sucks! statement on here. :) I hope those of you who came to CPW enjoyed yourselves (despite the crappy weather). I saw quite a lot of you, one way or another.