AMA MIT 2016 Answers Part 2: Interview, Test, LoR and transcript

Language: Bahasa Indonesia and English

Application and Requirement

Sebelum mulai, aku hanya mau klarifikasi. LoR di nama judul itu adalah Letter of Recommendation, bukan Lord of the Ring. #jayus #krikrik. Anyway...

I would like to address the technical aspects of application first. Jadi, timeline dan deadline pendaftaran MIT tiap tahun kurang lebih sama. Secara umum, aplikasi ke MIT dibagi menjadi 2 gelombang: Early Action (EA) dan Regular Decision (RD). EA dan RD berbeda di deadline-nya. So essentially, as the name suggests, EA has an earlier deadline, usually on the month of November. RD, on the other hand, is due on 1^st January, 11:59 pm EST. Karena EA kumpulnya lebih duluan, hasil EA juga bakal diumumin duluan, sekitaran bulan Desember sementara RD diumumin pas Pi Day (3/14 or March 14th).

Basically, the process of admission is as follows. Semua pendaftar EA bakal dibaca berkasnya satu per satu. Lalu, jika ada yang admission officer-nya suka bener, maka langsung diterima (Accepted). Apabila ada yang menarik, tapi admission officer nya kurang yakin, maka akan di-defer (dialihkan ke kelompok RD). Jika sama sekali ga suka, maka langsung di-reject. Jadi, di gelombang EA ini admission officers cuman bisa menerima sekitar 500 orang. Sisa anak-anak yang kena deferred kemudian akan dipertimbangkan/direview ulang bareng gelombang RD. Dari pool RD bakal diambil sekitaran 1000 orang, sehingga total yang diterima tahunnya sekitar 1500 orang. Bagi yang belum keterima, bakal diambil ~100 orang (maybe, I’m not so sure) untuk dimasukkin ke waitlist. Nah, waitlist ini sendiri adalah kelompok orang ‘pengganti’, dalam kata lain jika misalkan ada anak yang keterima MIT nih, lalu dia tolak tawarannya, maka penggantinya akan diambil dari kelompok waitlist ini. Jarang sih ada yang tolak tawaran MIT, although in my year there was about 20-30 people admitted from the waitlist group.

Jika ditanya apakah EA ada keuntungannya dibandingkan RD, menurut aku sih gak. In the end, both applicant pols are considered as equally and fairly as possible. Kalau aku dulu sih masuk gelombang RD, soalnya dulu international students belum bisa daftar lewat EA (tapi sejak tahun lalu sudah bisa). If I had to choose, I would still pick RD karena RD waktu lebih panjang sehingga esai, SAT, dsb nya bisa dipersiapkan lebih matang (Also, I would just die if I was deferred because I couldn’t bear the suspense of waiting). A complete schedule can be found here.

As seen in the link above, MIT requires international students to submit a 2-part application forms, an evaluation (‘recommendation letter’) from a Math or Science teacher, another evaluation from Humanities, Social Science or Language teacher, a Secondary School Report (which includes evaluation from your school counselor or principal and transcript) and standardized tests (choice between 2 SAT Subject Tests (which consists of a math test and a science subject) and TOEFL or SAT Reasoning or ACT).  MIT also recommends you to schedule an interview with an appointed educational counselor (EC), which basically is an MIT alumnus/ae. You can be exempted from having interview (especially if there is no EC available), but it will significantly decrease your chance of getting in, so don’t forget to schedule a meeting as early as possible. 

Let’s talk about interview for a bit, cause surprisingly, it seems everyone is curious about this part. Jadi yang wawancara kalian itu EC yang dipilih secara acak. Nama EC kalian beserta alamat emailnya akan muncul di portal MyMIT (MIT uses its own application portal, unlike most colleges in the US which use CommonApp, which can be accessed from mitadmissions.org). Dari sana, kalian bisa mulai menghubungi EC kalian dan mulai menjadwalkan sebuah wawancara. Wawancara ini bisa berupa skype (online) atau tatap muka langsung (misal di kafe atau di kediaman EC kalian). One thing that you guys need to know that your EC has no control on the final admission decisions. They, instead, help you by writing a recommendation letter based on your interview. First, they will rate you on scale 1-5 then write a few paragraphs describing who you are. Jadi, EC itu perannya seperti ‘guru’ kalian, yaitu nulis surat rekomendasi. Therefore, in that sense, not having an interview will hurt you as you essentially ‘lose’ one extra recommendation letter sent to the admission officer.

Pertanyaan yang diajukan saat wawancara biasanya sangat umum (generic questions), seperti “Why do you want to come to MIT?”, “What does MIT benefit from admitting you?” atau “What are your strengths and weaknesses?”, semacam itu lah. Interview is conducted in English, and ranging from 15 minutes to 2 hours (depending on how well you interview turns out and your EC. Some EC like it short, others enjoy long, deep and/or fun conversations).  You can easily google this stuff under “college application interview” to see all possible questions and answers. Before continuing to the hard questions, EC sometimes open with easy, personal questions, like “Gimana kabarnya? Sehat” or “Gimana kabar keluarga di rumah?” to lighten up the mood, so don’t be startled when you face any of this question.

Okay, so here’s the thing, people often get too agitated when facing interview. They overthink, and over prepare, thus come up with pre-made responses that may or may not actually answer the questions being asked. My advice, for every interview out there, is to relax. Think of the interview as a simple day-to-day conversation with a common passerby (which usually is not the case since people often try to “google” someone else’s name to get an idea of him).  Be confident, be polite, be convincing, be passionate, be likeable, and most importantly, be yourself! For instance, talk about your hobbies or things you collect. Throw in some jokes (if you like to pretend to be funny like me, haha jk. I am funny J) whenever you can. Try to sing, like me, in front of your EC if he requested it. Feel free to ask and start a new conversation (this is a MUST, actually, since it is nice to have an interviewee with initiative. Also, your EC won’t bite so don't be afraid to do it!).  Always try to extend any conversation you have (e.g never settle for a simple “yes” or “no”. Try to elaborate your point more). At the end of the day, you REALLY don’t have to do much. The way you talk, act and react, every little thing you do is enough to portray who you really are, and any good EC will surely catch that.  

Next big thing on my list is about testing. Jadi kalian diwajibkan untuk mengambil 2 jenis tes, yaitu tes kualifikasi Bahasa Inggris dan Ilmu Sains (cause duh, we’re an engineering school. What you expect?). There is no cutoffs for these tests, meaning you can still apply even though your SAT Reasoning is 0 (though then it’s pretty much impossible to get in with a 0 on a test), with exception for TOEFL (cause it’s America, of course you are expected to communicate fluently in English). The minimum requirement for TOEFL IBT is a 90, but it is RECOMMENDED to get above 100.  

Jadi, untuk kualifikasi Bahasa Inggris, untuk anak internasional kalian boleh milih dari TOEFL IBT, SAT Reasoning atau ACT (but NOT IELTS, or any other similar tests). Saran aku, misalkan kalian hanya mau daftar ke MIT, adalah untuk mengambil TOEFL, karena TOEFL jauuuhhh lebih gampang dari SAT. I took my TOEFL IBT after <1 mo preparation and still got a decent 109 score. Try to get at least 24 on each category, this will let your officers know that you are able to write, speak, listen and read in English well enough for school. Untuk yang mau daftar ke sekolah lain di US, mending persiapin SAT reasoning nya bagus-bagus, cause only MIT (and a handful of US colleges) accept TOEFL as a substitute for SAT reasoning.

For those who still want to take SAT or ACT, MIT does something called superscore (taking best scores for each section of the tests taken from multiple testing). So for example, kalau pertama kali ngambil SAT kamu dapat 770/600/800 dan yang kedua dapat 600/780/760, maka yang diperhitungkan MIT adalah 770/780/800. Also, if you send both your SAT and TOEFL IBT scores, MIT will only consider the one that makes you look better on paper (misal nilai SAT anjlok, TOEFL nya bagus, yang dilihat cuman nilai TOEFLnya saat membuat keputusan).

Untuk kualifikasi Ilmu Sains, kalian diwajibkan untuk mengambil satu tes matematika (Math I or Math II) dan satu tes Sains (Bio E, Bio M, Chem or Physics) (A-levels, AP or IB tests can certainly add to your resume, but they are NOT REQUIRED AT ALL). You can google the detail for each examination. I won’t explain much, but essentially try to get a score above 750 (after all, MIT is the world’s premier ENGINEERING school. We expect you to academically be at least that good. Otherwise, you won’t be able to withstand MIT’s rigorous curriculum). Once you get a 760, the admission officer usually won’t bat an eye anymore on your science qualifications. They know that testing doesn’t depend only on your brain power, but also other factors like health, mood, etc.  Untuk latihan SAT Subject tests atau TOEFL disarankan menggunakan buku Barron's, karena soal latihannya secara umum lebih susah daripada tes aslinya, sehingga kamu diharapkan lebih siap menghadapi tes aslinya. I, myself, also with <1 mo prepration (soal kelas 12 kemarin sibuk persiapan A-level dan UN), got a 760 on MII and 800 on Bio-M. Same as before, MIT will also take superscore from your SAT subject tests, so plan ahead and if you think that you didn’t do well in either math or science test, you only need to retake one of them again…

You can register for any of this test on their respective website (TOEFL di ets dan SAT di collegeboard) and take the test on any of the appointed testing center (kalau aku kemarin ambil yang di Jakarta, soalnya di Pontianak ga ada testing site nya). For testing, take it whenever you feel ready. If you think you are ready now, even though you still have a year ahead of you, then go for it. Kalau aku sendiri sih ngambil pas kelas 12, karena baru mau daftar ke MIT nya setelah menang IBO haha. Asal ga mepet aja dengan deadline pengumpulan nilai, kapanpun boleh kok! (biar kalau nilai mu yang pertama jelek, masih ada waktu buat ambil tesnya lagi)

Moving on, talking about transcript nih. Jadi, bagi yang ga tahu, transkrip itu adalah versi simpelnya dari rapot sekolah mu. Transkrip itu hanya terdiri dari nama subjek dan nilainya, tidak seperti rapot nasional yang ada deskripsi nilai yang didapat, komentar dan saran, dsb. Jadi sebenarnya, MIT membutuhkan rapot ‘high school’. Di USA, high school itu dimulai dari kelas 9 – 12. Di Indonesia, high school itu sama dengan SMA, kelas 10-12. Oleh karena itu, walau diminta nya ‘high school’, kalian HANYA perlu mengumpulkan TRANKRIP DARI KELAS 10 -12.

Transkrip sendiri dikumpulkan secara ONLINE melewati website yang disediakan MIT (bisa dicari di sini) oleh kepala sekolah atau konselor sekolah mu. Selain transkrip, kepala sekolah atau konselor mu ini juga diwajibkan menulis evaluasi siswa, mencamtumkan website sekolah (deskripsi sekolah misal kurikulum berbasis nasional atau internasional, jumlah siswa, dsb), GPA siswa (which in this case is out of 100, not 4.0, karena rapot Indo nilai maks nya 100) serta ranking mu di kelas. Satu pertanyaan yang aku dapat adalah seberapa penting ranking di kelas. Jadi begini ya, ranking itu hal yang relatif. Mungkin saja kamu ranking 10, tapi dari 500 siswa (that is good) atau ranking 1 tapi dari 20 siswa (you get the point). Your rank in class is only an indication of how academically good you are in school RELATIVE to your peers. It doesn’t indicate how good you REALLY are with your subjects. So to me (again, this might not be true), your rank at school matters less than actual, concrete grades like your GPA.

For the rest of recommendations, I suggest you to start early and talk to your teachers. Ingat bahwa gurumu banyak kewajibannya, bukan cuman untuk kamu. Jadi semakin awal kamu mulai, semakin banyak waktu yang bisa gurumu luangkan untuk menulis surat rekomendasi. Kebanyakan guru di Indonesia tidak terlalu pandai berbahasa Inggris, sehingga ini dapat menjadi kendala bagi kamu. Luckily, with mine, I chose an English teacher and a Filipino Biology teachers (Filipino speaks very fluent English), to write my recommendation letter, so I don’t have to worry with the language barrier. Aku saranin sih, bagi guru yang Inggrisnya kurang lancar, kalian minta guru kalian itu tulis surat rekomendasi dalam Bahasa Indonesia saja. Kemudian, kalian, bersama guru Bahasa Inggris kalian, perlahan-lahan terjemahin surat tersebut (I assume you guys speak good enough English to translate it. After all, you’re applying to an American college). For guidelines, you can find it in this link.   

Untuk kolom activities, summer and work experience, kalian BEBAS mencantumkan apapun, baik kegiatan dalam maupun luar sekolah. Tapi aku saranin sih untuk memilih aktivitas-aktivitas yang paling mendeskripsikan kamu, atau kegiatan unik yang sering kalian lakukan di waktu luang (karena kalian hanya diminta untuk mencamtumkan LIMA kegiatan untuk masing-masing jenis). You can also list any volunteering work/ community service that you have done (kalau bisa sih, coba masukkin setidaknya SATU kegiatan sosial di resume kalian). For me, I include basketball and ‘Komunitas Tritunggal Mahakudus’, to name a few, as my activities. For my work, again as an example, I tutored the West Kalimantan Biology Olympiad Camp twice. Try to fill in all the blanks, if possible, biar kalian kelihatan sebagai orang yang ‘sibuk’ dan banyak kegiatan.

Untuk kolom achievements, terdapat dua jenis, scholastic dan non-scholastic (atau dalam kata lain akademik dan non-akademik, seperti olahraga dan seni). Kalian boleh mencamtukan prestasi apapun yang kalian punya sejak KELAS 9 (karena by definition, 'high school' dari kelas 9). Usahakan untuk mencamtukan prestasi yang PALING BARU terlebih dahulu (as most proper CV use this format). Jika 'tahun'nya sama, cantumkan prestasi yang lebih bergengsi duluan, misal prestasi internasional, baru nasional, dan setelah itu prestasi tingkat provinsi (state), kabupaten/kota (regional) dan sekolah. Sekali lagi, usahakan untuk mengisi semua tempat yang tersedia.