First!

relax? RELAX? RELAX!?!??!?!?!?!??
relaxing just might be the last thing i'm capable of right now, besides that six pack.

also while you're waiting you could bake something... jess does this a lot and her apple torte is to die for!!! (ask her for her recipe)

@rebecca - you can do it. I BELIEVE IN YOU

I agree with the idea of relaxing (I've been trying since Oct 23 when I submitted my application, obviously I am failing)

Err, not six days...Exactly 4 days, 13 hours and 9 minutes...

I do plan to finish my applications within that time limit since, essays written under severe depression are quite...unique, the bad kind...

Well, good luck on finals!

LOVE MIKA!!!
Very very nervous for Saturday.....

Its so hard to relax.

Apparently Mika is huge in France.

My French teacher told us this, and then I brought in 'Life in a Cartoon Motion' to play.

I don't think I've lived down 'Big Girls' yet, or 'Billy Brown,' nor do I think that I ever will :)

Subconsciously, I really want to try out being a psychology major.

i LOVE mika! and yes, he is huge in europe... he was constantly played on the radio in geneva over summer!

"I can't relax! "

that just crossed my mind..except I just realized I have a calc test tomorrow that I will most likely bomb, and it would be best if I forgot about decisions coming out in 5 days..and stop procrastinating and study..

Mmm, I adore Mika.

I'm trying to have the ultimate relaxed week in school that way when I have to stress about finishing all the rest of my apps in the next two weeks I'm be ready and in a good mood (or at least that's what the procrastinating devil on my shoulder tells me).

relaaaaaaax take it easy.
true, but as people above have alluded, this is the most challenging, stressful, sleepless part of the year for us senior

but thanks for the taste of hakuna matata attitude (which if all goes well, i will enjoy in 6 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-D)

Thanks for the suggestions ... as with others, I am having trouble with the relaxing part ... I am doing some cool stuff though:

Thursday night, three friends and I are going to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Friday afternoon I have to give my giant Research Project presentation that counts as a whole semester grade (and that in my stress over college, I've been ignoring much more than I should)

Friday night, Christmas party with friends!

so .. hopefully, I'll sleep in Saturday and wake up to a wonderful surprise ^_^

now .. just to fit those regular applications in somewhere .. -_-

anyway, good luck again, all.
~Donald Guy

Hah.. for me, it's the week before finals right now. I'm studying.

more college apps?? ewwwwwww
jk lol. i sent in my harvard one today actually

Even when I had to apply Regular Action, I feel the same range of anxiety of those people waiting for this Saturday.

By the way, I think that 8-letter about M*A*S*H location is Gyeonggi. Just saying...

i love mika!

omg...that game is soo evil..

I've just spent a good hour on that...

THANKS!

Must finished before 12 pm Saturday... :D

Haha, relax?
I'm sure everyone will go to bed tonight by midnight saying, ugh, everything will be alright, Jess Kim told me to relax.

At least that's what I'm planning on doing. ;)

omar fernandez is actually omar '10, of course. ;)

@Donald
I just saw the Trans-Siberian Orchestra a few weeks ago and I thought that they put on an excellent performance. Hope you enjoy it!

And good luck to everyone!

Ahhh FINALS. A year ago I was so happy. NOW I'M SO STRESSED.

^.^

It's so worth it.

Um... don't we only have two pectoral muscles?

I would've wanted for admissions to tell us of the Day 6 days before and not like 2 weeks in advance. Makes the waiting a whole lot easier!

I'm pretty sure milnea is right about the pectoral muscle count...I just assumed she meant abs when I read it.

Oh well, its only about four more days now!

4 days, 11 hours!

relax, don't do it, when you wanna get to it
relax, don't do it, when you wanna come

Sorry milena*
I should really proofread before I post...

Don't relax!! Feel every moment! Stay up the night before the 15th all strung out on Mountain Dew! Or relax... But definitely do that mom/kitchen thing. That's sound advice.

You are a piece of work, trying to show off when many of us are sitting on pins and needles.

chill bro life dont end if you dont get in early.

nooo don't show the prefrosh Funny Farm. now they won't get anything done...

you got me hooked on funny farm. aghh

Milena - you're totally right, my bad. Don't know what I was thinking..

Anonymous - I'm definitely not in any way trying to show off, and I apologize if my entry came off that way. I'd appreciate if you'd point it towards what it was that led you to make that distinction, but mostly I hope you realize that I, too, was as much on pins and needs as you are now. College admissions is a really scary time - I know firsthand - and if you'll humor me, I'm trying to reduce that by writing this blog.

Jess, thanks for the advice! I just seem to be incapable of doing any of that right now...
and it's worse for me, here in India, because we get the decision later! as in, noon 15th for you is about 10:30 for me, so... longer to wait!! :O

Damn Funny Farm, some of the associations are so...obscure!

SPOILERS!!!
I only got Pink Floyd -> Animals because I am an avid Pink Floyd fan (and also, "Funny Farm" kinda reminded me of the album...). And, come on, Karma -> Karma Police? I'm lucky the one Radiohead album I have is OK Computer.
END SPOILERS

Great way to blow off two hours without even noticing it! ^_^

The Impossible Quiz is some good stuff, too. If you guys like Funny Farm, google it. It's addicting.

And I also think I'm going old school and waiting for the mail. Anyone else?

Yeah, I think I'm going with the snail mail too. It will be so much more satisfying to find out with a tube (hopefully!) then with a webpage. Also in the much much more likely event of a deferral/denial, you at least have some sort of warning with the envelope.

All that being said, I don't know if I'll be able to wait! Darn you, curiosity...

relaaaaax
I was surprisingly relaxed yesterday during IB math hl paper 1 mock exam (if that sounds vaguely familiar to anyone)
And I would love to tell you it worked, but it somewhat did and somewhat didn't. I got slightly lower than I expected, but I got better grades in my physics test that I took after the mock exam.
So, RELAX people! Cuz I know that most of you are going through exam week right now. Just think, a few more days (or weeks for the less blessed ones) and school's out!

I am SO waiting for Christmas and I'm definitely taking your advice on cooking with my mom, Jess! She's literally the best chef I know :D

funny, i was thinking about just sitting around panicking.

That funny farm game is awesome.

six pack = ez. Just to 200 crunches a day.

Gosh, I wish I could relax right now. That would be nice. Unfortunately, the laws of physics don't seem to be allowing me to.

why ? whYYYYY WHYYYY dont international students only get to apply early :(
why???!

i want to know in 4 days too.
no fair :(

and good luck for saturday all you people!

Thanks for the laugh. It really helprd ;)

Shoot, my other post would've been much better here:

¨I've found a distraction to pass the time between now and decisions: I've finally begun to scale down my Vista usage in favor of Ubuntu, which leaves me plenty of customization and learning to do. And when I'm done with that, I'm going to begin (for a second time) teaching myself Python via tutorials.

Oh, and even though I thought knowing the decision date would mean I didn't check the blogs again, clearly I was wrong."

Just one thing we all have to understand (and I know this is going to sound repetitive), is that even to be applying to MIT, we are all excellent students with bright futures. Think about all that we have accomplished to get here. No deferral/rejection letter (even one from MIT) can change any of that, and it certainly cannot stop us from achieving more in the future.

How is MIT reacting to this good news from the good old neighbor - Harvard? If I got in both Harvard and MIT. Guess what college my parents will make me go to?

Harvard University announced Monday that it would significantly increase the financial aid it offers to middle-class and upper-middle-class students, seeking to allay concerns that elite colleges are becoming too expensive for even relatively well-off families.

The move, to go into effect in the next school year, appears to make Harvard’s aid to students with household incomes from $120,000 to $180,000 the most generous of any of the country’s prestigious private universities. Harvard will generally charge such students 10 percent of their family household income per year, substantially subsidizing the annual cost of more than $45,600.

Officials said the policy would cut costs by anywhere from a third to 50 percent for many students and make the real costs of attending Harvard comparable to those at major state universities.

They said the initiative would increase financial aid spending by the university to $120 million annually from $98 million. A little more than half Harvard’s students get some form of aid, including many from families earning $120,000 or more.

The new aid policy is part of a broader effort by elite universities to alleviate the financial burden of rising tuition and ward off the perception that they have become unaffordable. Amherst, Williams, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton are among those that have increased aid and substituted grants for loans to some students in recent years.

The move also comes as some members of Congress, concerned that tuition has steadily outpaced inflation, have been discussing whether universities should be required to spend a minimum amount of what their endowments earn on student aid. Harvard has a $35 billion endowment, the highest of any university.

Harvard officials said they had been considering the aid change for some time.

“We’ve all been aware of increasing pressures on the middle class,” said Harvard’s president, Drew Gilpin Faust. “We hear about this in a number of ways — housing costs, both parents working, the difficulty of amassing any kinds of savings, just the increasing pressures as middle class lives have become more stressed.”

Three years ago, under Harvard’s former president, Lawrence H. Summers ’75, the university decided that families whose income was less than $40,000 would no longer have to pay for their children’s undergraduate education, although students would still have to make some contribution though programs like work-study. It then raised the income level eligible for the waiver to $60,000.

Harvard’s dean of admissions and financial aid, William R. Fitzsimmons, said those changes had increased the number of low-income students by 33 percent in three years. But Harvard officials said they had become increasingly concerned about higher income families.

Many Harvard officials, Faust said, feared that cost was driving the choices students make about graduate school and careers and that it had created what amounted to a two-class system among Harvard undergraduates. Dean Fitzsimmons referred to it as “the upstairs downstairs syndrome.”

The officials said, for example, that often only the wealthy students can afford to pursue highly valuable but unpaid research opportunities with professors, take unpaid summer internships, study abroad or even spend time with their friends.

Under the new financial aid rules, the university said, a family making $120,000 would have to pay about $12,000 for a child to attend Harvard College, compared with more than $19,000 under current policies. A family making $180,000 would pay $18,000, down from $30,000.

The university also plans to substitute grants for loans in all financial-aid packages and will no longer consider home equity in calculating aid. The change in home equity considerations alone will mean, on average, a reduction of $4,000 a year in cost for those families whose home equity would previously have been a part of the financial aid calculation.

Harvard officials say they don’t want families borrowing against their homes — or selling their homes — in order to send their children to the university. “If you had an oil well in the backyard, you could sell the oil,” Dean Fitzsimmons said. “But you need to live somewhere.”

Currently, 763 students whose family incomes are between $120,000 and $180,000 receive some financial aid from Harvard, which has a total of 6,600 undergraduates. The new policy will be applied retroactively, officials said.

Hey StillDreamingGoingMIT

While you are waiting for the EA decision, how about seriously considering going to Harvard instead? It is time to revise and perfect your Harvard application in order to sell yourself well to it. This is what I will be doing from now to the end of this month. Good luck! O Harvard! I love you!

Yes MIT do something similar to what Harvard just announced. Right now MIT is uphill both ways for the student and the family.

If you guys want to go to Harvard so bad, why did you guys apply to MIT? These schools are vastly different in terms of academics and social atmosphere.

Please tell me you didn't apply just for the name, I would feel pretty uncomfortable.

Guys..guys..guys...just relaxxxx and do the things that you like to do for the fun of it while your waiting. (For example,your answer to questions 3a. on the app)

This probably isn't the first time we've all been on the brink of a very life-changing scenario. It won't be the last. It's better to learn how to chill out now--our bodies are much happier that way. =D

If I fail physics I'm blaming Funny Farm. That games is so addictive.

@Anonymous above,

Harvard's computer science and biology, as well as other "courses" are unbelievably excellent compared with MIT's.

^ Well sure they are, but the atmosphere is very different and if a great education is the only singular thing you want out of a college, there are many places where you can get that at a much lower cost.

I'm going to learn how to BAKE during this waiting time! And my fellow EA/ED friends in school shall be the judges of my baking abilities! (we have a system worked out that one of us will bring something every day throughout the rest of this week to alleviate all of the stress and anticipation... it works, y'all should try it too!) =D

Yay food! Go cholesterol!

I am attempting to make that Mika song the theme song to my life for the next few days...it's not working yet, though.

"Relax"
Oh oh
Wee-ell-Now!

Relax don't do it
When you want to go to it
Relax don't do it
When you want to come
Relax don't do it
When you want to come
When you want to come

Relax don't do it
When you want to to go to it
Relax don't do it
When you want to come
Relax don't do it
When you want to suck to it
Relax don't do it
When you want to come
Come-oh oh oh

But shoot it in the right direction
Make making it your intention-ooh yeah
Live those dreams
Scheme those schemes
Got to hit me
Hit me
Hit me with those laser beams

I'm coming
I'm coming-yeah

Relax don't do it
When you want to go to it
Relax don't do it
When you want to come

Relax don't do it
When you want to suck to it
Relax don't do it (love)
When you want to come
When you want to come
When you want to come
Come-huh

Get it up
The scene of love
Oh feel it

Relax
Higher higher

Hey-
Pray

*above*
Dude did you make that up or is that a real song?

MIT's cheer = "I'm a beaver-you're a beaver-we are beavers all,
and when we get together, we do the beaver call,
e to the u du dx, x dx,
cosine secant tangent sine,
three point one four one five nine!
Integral, Radical, m-u dv,
Slipstick, sliderule, M-I-T!"

Yay!

@ A middle class EA applicant
"Harvard's computer science and biology, as well as other "courses" are unbelievably excellent compared with MIT's."

What? MIT = computer science. Google it

First result if you google song lyrics relax so it is a real song

Its a by Frankie Goes to Hollywood .. to me its first association is that it was the trigger song in Zoolander to make him attack the Malaysian PM. If I remember it's wikipedia article correctly (whenever I read it), it was banned from playing on radio because of the explicit nature of the lyrics... its pretty dirty (it looks more innocuous as text, when you hear it, its pretty bad)

anyway ... dirty 80s songs or not ... relax everyone (myself included)
~Donald Guy

Happy Last night of Hanukkah!

And lol at "relax"

Three school days left...

Yeah i was disappointed by the recent Harvard financial aid announcement. My family's income is a little above 200 grand and so I doubt we would still get anything with their new offer. If only they raised the 180000 cap a little more :-) But I'm still happy for everyone this will help!

I've heard this variation:

e to the x du dx, e to the x dx,
cosine, secant, tangent, sine,
three point one four one five nine,
square root, cube root, log base e,
slipstick, sliderule, MIT!

And this cheer is why I want MIT. (Or at least, represents it.)

thanks for the game suggestion, jess. now i'm hooked on funny farm and am getting my friends addicted as well. :D

^ Yeah, I've got my entire family on it. Hopefully I can rope in some friends too. I want to beat it!

Oh, and I've been playing this Funny Farm for the past hour or so and its insanely addicting. And frustrating. But fun!

Jess....funny farm is going to be the death of my biology grade...

why can't i even get the first animal farm thingy?

Hey Taylor,

How about going to Harvard and cross registering largely at MIT? Don't tell me about atmosphere. My brother (MIT '07) lectured me enough about it. You know what? I have seen my middle income parents used up every last bit of financial resource they could have their hands on to make sure my bro finish his MIT degreeS, not bad, 2 degrees in 4 years. A lot of loans to repay in the future!!! Pa and Ma are 4 years older now and I am thinking to give them a little break in scraping money for my MIT (??? don't know yet)education. Harvard really can be a thought. I'll beg my bro to look into my Harvard application during the Christmas break for me. I am serious. I know the money pressure and pains.

Funny Farm begins without giving you a clue as to what to do, Anonymous. In the upper right hand corner, there is a hint link that actually explains the game.

I'm trying... its not working... i wish i hadn't seen the date... its all i can think about anyway... ack!!
XDXD lol... how did i let this happen?? O.o??

@ A middle class EA applicant:

It's awesome that you feel so strongly about Harvard, but why troll the MIT admissions blogs telling us about it? If you so wish to insult MIT's best programs, why not do so on a more appropriate forum than this one, at a more considerate time than a few days before EA acceptances?

By the way--I think we get it. You're middle income. So am I, but I don't let it define me. Why do you let your income define you?

Hehe, I too have become hopelessly addicted to Funny Farm. Fortunately my work ethic kicked in around midnight, since sleeping the night before a final = good times. Thanks for the initiation to this wonderful game, however ;D

On the topic of financial aid, it would be my personal hope that MIT adopts something similar to the "$60,000" clause, since that's where I'd fall :D But then, I guess that position is pretty clearly intrinsically biased.

here's something to figure out....

how WOULD you walk uphill both to school and back home?

It's possible.

go ahead, figure it out.

One more thing to do while you're waiting: Read Jess's blog because laughing is the best stress reliever!

The reason you have to walk six miles uphill through waist-deep snow every day to school is because your school is 12 miles away on the other side of a mountain. And you have school-bus-phobia.

SNOW DAY TODAY!

Haha, Funny Farm you are going down!

The funny thing about the MIT Cheer is that I only know a handful of people that REALLY know how it goes...

@ aaa

I am not insulting MIT, but neither do I think MIT is the only best. Harvrad is not my top choice school either. If Harvard still has EA this year, my "ONLY" EA schiool still will be MIT. Like I said my brother went to MIT and we love MIT, the whole family. Be realistic though. You, as well as I and many MIT EAers, are not sure if we will certainly get in MIT yet. While there is still time, work on other applications as fervently as we all have done to MIT! Harvard's new financial aid/grant thing is truly a welcome news. I don't feel like to be defined by financial either. But who am I? Am I the waist-bending breadmaker in my family?

@Middle Class EA: I wasn't trying to be rude to you, so I'm not sure why you were being rude to me.

I wasn't thinking about the idea of cross registering. And, honestly, I wasn't thinking about money when I made that post. I was thinking about the people who apply to MIT and all of the Ivies, hoping that they get accepted to one of them so that they can tell people about how amazing they are for getting accepted. That point of view is something that bothers and upsets me.

Ack. The post above is supposed to be in response to a post farther up than the one just above me. We posted close to the same time.

So worried and scared about Saturday! It's already Wednesday. Less than three days to go! Thanks for the advice Jessica. The amusing ones just might help to take my mind off of this Saturday. Plus, I agree that working in a kitchen can really rock! What is the recipe for your apple torte? Maybe eating comfort food helps...

I am not going to talk in great detail about Financial Aid, since that's pretty far out of my domain. It's a vastly complicated system, and I don't think it's perfect anywhere - not Harvard, not Princeton, not in your state college system, not here. That being said, I bet you didn't know that MIT has already increased the amount of financial aid that will be offered next year. This announcement was made over nine months ago, which is quite a bit earlier than Harvard's announcement. I would highly encourage you to follow the link; it's a very interesting, relevant article.

Now, something I can really talk about - culture. Of course, MIT has vastly different from Harvard. Do I think ours a better culture? Of course I do. But I can certainly see why some people would be drawn to both schools, and it's not just the name. Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and all the other Ivies are very good schools, with impressive resources, top-notch faculty, great research facilities, and long histories of producing outstanding graduates. Incidentally, this same description also applies to MIT. Indeed, while not everyone on campus would "fit" at Harvard, I think many would.

As for those of you who are saying people shouldn't apply to MIT and Harvard, I can understand where you're coming from...but, honestly, that's pretty unrealistic and unfair. Everyone should be allowed to apply to as many schools, and as wide a range of schools, as they like. This is the main reason MIT's Early Action program is completely non-binding and non-restrictive. MIT wants you to look elsewhere, because we're confident that, if MIT really is the right place for you, you will end up here no matter what else happens.

I do believe I am hooked on Funny Farm now. Must...find...more words...

Chad! I bought a shirt at MIT while I was there for WTP that says that cheer!

I also have one that goes..

"And God said...
*complex equation*
And then there was light!"

Haha.. I love that shirt. :D

I like the "log base e" line a little better than "mu dv". That IS what it says, right?

Whoa marimba (...in the Mika song. Dude...his voice is as high as mine, that's kind of scary.)

Funny farm is killing my research paper...

Why do I always get addicted to things when I really really need to get things done and get a few hours of sleep

@Meghan,
I have that shirt too! Is it the one with a black hole on the front?

That shirt is awesome! I have the one with MIT spelled in equations. All my classmates spend like 50min reading my shirt and giving me a puzzled look. They didn't stop looking until my Physics teacher said, "HA, it spells MIT." (that kinda took a while, hehe)

university of chicago just released their EA decisions eventhough they said they were gonna release this Saturday.

Blog name: it should have alliteration...

The Deadline Demon Strikes Again

Beware the Blog!

Blog. Boo! (not the mean "boo," but the ghost kind)

or maybe it could be one of those strange combinations of words. Like Jazzercise or ginormous. Relaxog, or Deciwalist(decisionwaitinglist)

ugh. I'm disgusting even myself. er... okay, what about majors? You know what I'd like to major in? Cabbage cultivation.

I mean, there must be so many interesting things about cabbages... or eggplants? I don't even like eggplant, but they're pretty.

Ever think about designing a new type of bagpipes?

I always think about designing new types of bagpipes, but then I think of all the work that would be involved--I can't afford to spend any time not concentrating on my Cabbage degree!

BTW, that was the best post I have seen. Ever.

any hints for funny farm would be appreciated. I'm stuck with words on the first page...

Let me just say, I've been doing a LOT of yoga this week. I recommend it! Good luck to everyone!

Jess,

I think it'd be interesting if you started a post like one that was started by a UChicago blogger about the best music/albums, movies, and books of 2007 or something aong those lines...

Just to make it 100, and because JKim's awesome.

I saw "Jess Kim" in a facebook group.
YOU WENT TO MONTA VISTA? Wow!!! I am just down the street at another FUHSD school!!
When I saw "MVHS" on one of your t-shirts i was thinking Mountain View since you are from San Francisco.

Nope, different school. Same state though. Sorry!

opps sorry.. >.
that Jess Kim is also class of '10... maybe it was MontE Vista ....

hey try Uijeongbu for the mash location :D

Wow, I'm honoured that you liked my game (Funny Farm) enough to mention it here. Now I'm not as bitter about MIT rejecting my grad school application. :)

there's a lot of comments for this post...must be interesting...