If you are reading this post, things didn’t go to plan. You’ve been rejected EA by MIT, and you may not be sure what to do next. We’ve got you, but first let’s talk big picture.
MIT accepts application Early Action, which is a non-binding process, and regular decision. People outside of college admissions often think that applying in the early round always favors applicants over the regular decision round. However, that actually isn’t always the case in a statistically meaningful way — and that’s true for MIT. The MIT early action acceptance rate is higher than the regular decision rate, but this is mostly because there are people in the early round that are very confident of an acceptance before even submitting. Predominately, this applies to athletes who have been recruited and who have already been advised by MIT that they are likely to be admitted.
These acceptances skew the early acceptance rate upwards. If you are a ‘normal’ MIT applicant (highly qualified and with a thoughtful, well-edited application), your chance of getting in early was about as low as the regular decision round. The overall acceptance rate for the Class of 2028 was 4.5%, while the early action acceptance rate was 5.3%. As we said, the difference was nominal.
Now you are on the receiving end of a rejection, perhaps you wish you’d been deferred instead. Emotionally, we get that. Strategically, we actually prefer the rejection. MIT defers thousands of students (64% of early applicants to the Class of 2028). Being deferred by MIT tells you nearly nothing about the strength of your application or where you have room for improvement. It also doesn’t mean you will eventually get in. Only 2.6% of deferred applicants were admitted in the Regular Decision round for the class of 2028 — nearly half the overall acceptance rate. So right now, in this moment, thousands of students who want to go to MIT and are counting on their deferral turning into an acceptance aren’t making the strategic moves they need to take to get into another dream school. But you can.
Being rejected from MIT is frustrating, especially if it was at the very top of your list, but it’s not the end of your college application process. It also doesn’t mean that you won’t get into an exceptional college in the regular decision (or EDII) round. In this post, we’ll break down what you need to know (and do!) to turn your college application experience around.
Recovering from an Early Application set-back requires strategy. Contact us to get yours.
First, let’s be clear. The house isn’t on fire, but it is starting to smoke. Unless you planned ahead for this potential eventuality and have some Early Action acceptances in your pocket, you have one more shot at the admissions process and you need to get it right. To pull this comeback off, we suggest taking things back to basics. First, your college list.
Reevaluate Your College List
It’s possible that you have agonized over a well-balanced college list, and you knew MIT was a far reach. It was a risk you wanted to take, and now you’re ready to move on. Chances are, though, that this isn’t entirely the case. Most students we meet who have received an Early Action rejection from MIT don’t have a super solid back-up plan — even if they think they do. MIT defers so many students from the EA round, that receiving a rejection is a huge signal that you need to recalibrate your list and shift your expectations. MIT did not deem you a strong candidate. While that doesn’t mean that you for certain wouldn’t get into any school with an acceptance rate under 10%, it definitely signals that it isn’t likely.
When rethinking your college list, you need to start with 3-4 foundation, or safety, schools that are truly accessible for you, not aspirational. This isn’t as urgent if you have early acceptances to fall back on, but if you are starting from zero you absolutely need to have true safeties to ground your list. Your grades and scores should be at the very top of the averages for students accepted for the class of 2028, and your extracurriculars and interests should align with what they emphasize.
After your foundation schools, you need 3-4 targets. Let us be completely clear: MIT was not a target for you. Schools similar to MIT are not targets for you. Targets are schools that you are a strong fit for academically and culturally. They may also be schools that you are an in-state applicant for. These are schools for which your grades are in the top 50% of accepted students.
Finally, you get to identify 2-3 reaches. We highly recommend keeping your reaches grounded in reality. For you, this would mean schools with an acceptance rate above MIT — possibly significantly.
Remember, too, that you have a powerful tool still in your pocket: Early Decision II. While it may be tempting to ED II a reach, we have found the strongest move strategically is to ED II a school that is between a target and a reach for you.
Next, you need to take a fresh look at your main essay.
Rework Your Main Essay
If you had the grades and scores for MIT, your essay wasn’t good enough. That’s harsh, we know, but it’s also true. Please note that we did not say that you aren’t good enough. It’s theoretically possible that you didn’t get into MIT because of some core flaw that no essay can fix, but over a decade of work with hundreds of students on thousands of essays, we know that is probably not the issue at hand. The essay is the changemaker for so many applications, and it’s also where so many applications fall flat and lose the reader. The essay is your opportunity to tell your story, outside of the context of college-specific supplements, in a way that highlights the aspect of who you are that, when brought together, make you interesting and exciting and a positive addition to any college campus.
An essay doesn’t argue for your ability to get an A in a math class. Instead, it proves, through life experience and reflection, why you’re the type of student a professor wants showing up to office hours, a peer wants leading a study session, and a community feels proud to have in their midst. And while an exceptional essay may not have gotten you into MIT, you would have at least received a deferral.
With that in mind, it’s time to make your essay exceptional. We advise starting by reviewing our Guide to the Common App Essay, which is specific to this year. Then you should take some time to read a few of the successful college essays we’ve supported students through, leading to dream school acceptances. If your essay doesn’t measure up to these in narrative structure or depth of storytelling, you need to rework at minimum — and potentially rewrite. This could possibly include completely changing the topic of the essay, not simply taking a fresh stab at a stale subject. We often find that students (or, even more often, parents of students) want to write about the most “impressive” thing they’ve done during high school. The second most popular option is the most traumatic experience they’ve had. Neither of these is a reliably strong option. Instead, we encourage students to identify something about yourself that is intrinsically you. It isn’t an experience you’ve had or a role you’ve played or an award you’ve received — it’s the core trait that undergirds who you are.
Sometimes it’s resiliency, or creativity, or playfulness, or a particular lens through which you see the world. Amplifying that one thing through story is the best way to hook an application reader and keep them locked in for your entire application. A strong core essay is truly the special sauce to an acceptance-earning application, so this is extremely important.
Find a Fresh Supplement Strategy
Parallel to working on a new essay, you need to embrace a new supplement strategy. We have college-specific supplement guides for dozens of schools, and they are free for you to access and use. Often it benefits to have additional help from a pro who knows what your ideal schools are looking for, but you can certainly start making headway on your own! Remember to begin each supplement with a blank slate. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t stories, or even passages, you can reuse from one supplement to the next, but it does mean that you should prioritize answering the question over not having to do additional writing.
A common weak spot we see in rejected applications is that a student strove, most, for efficiency. They looked for every opportunity to reuse their hard work, even when the perfect answer for one college supplement didn’t really work all that well for another. If you did this, it’s going to be okay. The first step, though, is understanding that copy-and-pasting essays results in a feeling of the application being forced through a mill, rather than a carefully crafted product produced specifically for a single school. Putting in the time to write singular essays that are strong for a specific school may seem arduous, especially after being rejected from a top pick, but it’s worth it.
A rejection from MIT in the Early Decision round is a rude awakening. They defer so many early applicants that being rejected tells you a huge amount. Namely, that you need to overhaul your essays, and your entire college strategy. Now, get started.
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