Mikey Yang '05 | October 20, 2009
"Obama's Visiting MIT!"
You may recall back in March of this year there were a couple blog posts that mentioned MIT President Susan Hockfield's trip to the White House to join President Obama talk about clean energy research (video below).
Now, he's returning the favor and coming to visit us this Friday! Pretty exciting stuff.
Regardless of your political views, I think a visit to campus from the President is pretty darn special. Of course, it sounds like with the limited space in our largest auditorium (seats ~1300 people), it won't hold everyone who will want to come hear him speak, so they're going to ticket the event by invitation only with a preference towards students...but it sounds like for everyone else, they'll be webcasting the event live on campus too.
The subtitle of this entry was also my stretched attempt at trying to tie in a completely unrelated, but also important topic that comes up every year. Typically, in September and October each year, we travel across the country to give presentations about MIT. And, many folks come visit MIT's campus, whether it's for a couple hours or a couple days. Usually, when people come to our presentations when we're on the road, or come visit campus, we have a sign-in for students where people check off their name or fill out a form with their information.
Why do we do this? Well, it's really just for us to keep track of how many people came to the event. That way, the next year, we can try as best as we can to find a venue that's the appropriate size. Also, by collecting or confirming your contact info, it let's us know who you are and that you might be interested in learning more about MIT.
Of course, the natural follow-up question to that is often, "so does visiting campus or coming to an MIT presentation help my admissions chances at all?" This is certainly a valid question, as some colleges do track this type of information and use it in their admissions decisions. For those colleges, seeing that you came to a presentation or visited campus shows that you have an "expressed interest" in the school, and they try to use that piece of data to gauge your level of interest when deciding whom to admit.
But for MIT, that is simply not true.
Sure, we analyze the data to figure out whether the recruitment we're doing is working, and how we can potentially improve what we do on an annual basis, but at no point does information about whether you came to a presentation or visited campus have an impact on your admissions decision. We know that not every student has the time, money, or means to come visit - and that's perfectly fine. There's certainly value in coming to visit campus for you to learn about and experience MIT, but for our admissions process, it has zero effect on your chances of being admitted - no worries.
So rest assured, even if Barack Obama was applying to MIT this year, the fact that he's coming to visit campus on Friday doesn't mean he'd have a better chance of being admitted. Truly. (Although, I'm pretty sure he won't be applying - I think he's got some other job he's busy with for at least the next 3 years...)
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The author has filed this entry in the "Fall Recruitment Travel Schedule" , "MIT-YOU" , "YOU-MIT" section; check it out for further reading on this topic. |
Responses To This Entry:
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OMG! IT IS OBAMA! He is my hero btw...
Posted by: C2 on October 20, 2009 08:26 PM
FIRST! That is so exciting that Obama is visiting MIT!
Living approx. 3,122 mi. away from MIT, it is a relief to see that visiting does not impact the admissions process. :)
Posted by: makesense on October 20, 2009 08:30 PM
whoops...second! :) in the time it took me to look up the distance on google maps I was surpassed :D
Posted by: makesense on October 20, 2009 08:32 PM
Times like this, I wish we could 'like' things on the admissions blog.
'Like!'
Posted by: Anonymous on October 20, 2009 08:56 PM
Seconded ^^
Posted by: Unnamed '14 on October 20, 2009 09:15 PM
GREAT Suggestion Anonymous!
Can we work on this Chris?
Super 'Like'!
Posted by: Quinton on October 20, 2009 09:16 PM
If I try to recall it; Obama has already graduated from Harvard, right? So he probably won't be applying for MIT :)
Even if he, the President of USA, goes for it, will MIT dare reject his application :P?
Being the most respected President certainly means having the best chance of being admitted, right? ^^
May be I'll try to run for an election someday LOL ;))
Posted by: QA ('14???) on October 20, 2009 10:14 PM
I thought you can't apply for a second bachelor's anyway :P
Posted by: Piper '12 on October 21, 2009 12:30 AM
wow!
Posted by: B'14? on October 21, 2009 01:40 AM
That's friggin awesome.
Posted by: Steph on October 21, 2009 02:06 AM
WOW!!!!!!! That is AMAZING.
You guys are so lucky (and by 'guys' I'm referring to all the students at MIT right now) =]
Posted by: Banerjee on October 21, 2009 03:15 AM
man I wish I wuz there!
Posted by: NMK on October 21, 2009 06:33 AM
I hope someone will post the video link, so the rest of us can watch at our convenience.
Posted by: anonymous on October 21, 2009 08:36 AM
LIKE^(infinity) ^_^
Posted by: Isra on October 21, 2009 09:34 AM
WOW.. That is AWESOME!! I wish I could be there!!!!
Posted by: Shraddha ('14) on October 21, 2009 10:54 AM
@QA and Piper - yeah, I was just kidding. :)
Posted by: Mikey on October 21, 2009 11:08 AM
Wow! That's awesome!! I wish I could be there.
Unfortunately, I live ~600 miles away (10 hours and 56 minutes by car, 9 days and 16 hours by foot). I can't afford to miss three weeks of school (and sleep!). :P
Posted by: VAL ('14?) on October 21, 2009 11:17 AM
It's good to know that visiting does not affect ones admission into MIT
Posted by: Telson Erebor on October 21, 2009 01:20 PM
I hope he comes again next year to see him!
Posted by: Alireza'14 on October 21, 2009 04:13 PM
@Alireza'14
why would he come again next year? and how can you guarantee that you'll be at MIT next year to see him even if he did?!
Posted by: anonymous on October 21, 2009 10:38 PM
OBAMA!!!
Enough said. :D
Posted by: Su ('14?) on October 21, 2009 11:03 PM
OMG even Obama isn't guaranteed a space in MIT?!
You guys are really picky...d3
Posted by: Val'14? on October 22, 2009 10:00 AM
