No Name Blog

Thank you everyone for all of your comforting words. I really am glad for everyone’s support. I know that my last post came off as very…depressed.

The truth of the matter is that I’m hardly in a bad mood at all.

After hearing about the mail fiasco yesterday, I realized that it was highly likely that I had been deferred. For a couple of hours, I sat around, accomplishing very little, trying to come to terms with that.

By this morning, when I actually found out, it wasn’t a surprise, and most of the pain had gone away. And while I haven’t been unusually talkative, I’ve pretty much accepted it as something that’s happened, and that’s more or less out of my control.

At this very moment, I remain completely satisfied in the application I sent in November 2nd. And no matter how I choose to revise things before the regular review, I’m not sure I would have done anything differently for the first attempt.

What matters now is crossing bridges when I come to them. That is, my focus right now is finishing the Stanford essays that are due tonight at 12:00, Pacific Standard Time.

Well, I promised I’d tell you, so I might as well start dealing with it myself.

What most people haven’t heard is that there was a fiasco in the MIT mail system that we didn’t find out about until yesterday.

Turns out that, while the tubes were mailed on Friday, the letters were sent to another agency that handles MIT’s bulk mail. Because of that, they weren’t sent out until Monday or Tuesday.

So basically, not having received anything by Tuesday or yesterday meant that deferral/rejection was very likely.

To compensate for this, MIT admissions decided to allow people to call for their decisions today.

I set my alarm for 7:00, and would have sworn it said 6:00 when it went off, so I went back to sleep and woke up at 8:10 or so.

Took a couple of tries to get through to a person instead of voicemail, but once I did, the guy told me that I was deferred.

2005-2006 NJCL Officers,
originally uploaded by thenerdsangle.

Another photo post.

This picture (and the others from Fall Planning) always make me feel better. I honestly think that FPM was one of the best things I’ve done all year, and I really miss spending time with the other officers.

I swear that readers of my blog will be one of the first to hear of any decision from MIT.

I’m with Zach (different Zach from the picture, by the way) on the longer it takes, the higher the probability of good news.

However, our mailman said today that, during this season, even a ordinary envelope could take this long.

For those I haven’t informed, rejections and deferrals come in normal #10 envelopes. Acceptances come in a tube (that apparently has confetti).

Or, as Connie put it, “good things don’t come in small packages.”

The mailman promises to bring it here as soon after he finds it as he can.

All: the deferred and rejected letters are a small, simple, white envelope. The admit packs are anything but. Believe me, you *will* know the difference right away.

Courtesy of Ben Jones, MIT Admissions Officer.

I think I’m going to go spend all weekend in the fetal position.

I know that this post is just begging for pity, but I really had to get it out.

MIT is going to be mailing their decisions on Friday.

That means I’ll find out on Monday. Maybe even Saturday.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so stressed in my life.

I think the worst part is that whenever I bring this up, everyone is convinced that there no question that I’ll be admitted.

But when they say that, all I hear is what the admissions officer said at the information session – 75% of MIT applicants have the numbers for admission—the SAT scores, the GPA, and the AP tests.

And I really have to wonder if I have enough past the numbers.

Then just to help the situation, I read the blogs of the admissions officers on the MIT website. Here’s what Ben Jones said about the review process:

Playing over and over in my head like a broken record: “deferred is not rejected.” It’s the only way to keep from getting sad about some folks I really want here.

At the end of the day we count…we have hundreds more than we can actually admit EA.

Comforting. Very comforting.

Anyway, I think the point is that the next time I bitch about waiting for the decision, don’t tell me about how sure you are that I’ll get in. It really doesn’t help.

Hopefully I’ll have a happier post come next Monday.