MIT Admissions Blogs

Category: Interests Summary: Jack’s relationship with the MIT Admissions Blogs — the internet’s most earnest window into what MIT actually is Last updated: 2026-04-06

Overview

The MIT Admissions Blogs (mitadmissions.org/blogs) are student-written posts published by MIT’s admissions office. They are unusually good. Students write about psets, identity, mental health, housing, research, what it feels like to fail a midterm, what it feels like to pass one. They are also part of what makes MIT’s application process feel different — the admissions office has spent decades cultivating a culture of radical transparency about what the place actually is.

Jack reads them. This is not a casual relationship.

Why They’re Different

Most university blogs are admissions marketing. They’re written to persuade, not to describe. The photos are professional. The challenges mentioned are framed as growth opportunities. The students sound like they have it together.

MIT Admissions Blogs are not that.

Students write about crying in the bathroom before an exam. They write about switching majors three times. They write about the feeling of being surrounded by people who all seem smarter than you and slowly realizing that this feeling is universal. They write about 5am psets and the specific type of delirium that sets in around hour 9. They write about building a trebuchet in the courtyard at 2am because someone thought it would be funny.

The admissions office publishes this. This is the policy. The philosophy is: if MIT is right for you, reading the real thing will confirm it. If it’s wrong for you, reading the real thing will reveal that. Either outcome is valuable. Marketing serves the institution; transparency serves the student.

The Texture of MIT Life (via the Blogs)

Reading the blogs over time builds a specific picture:

• Problem set culture: Not just difficult, but dense. Multiple courses simultaneously, each with problem sets due the same week. The culture around collaborative problem solving (working together, citing collaborators) is distinct.
• East Campus vs. West Campus: Two distinct social universes. East Campus (EC) is the hacker, artist, weirdo side — building elaborate dorm room contraptions, running roller coasters during orientation. West Campus is cleaner, more institutional. Both are real MIT.
• Hacks: MIT has a century-long tradition of elaborate technical pranks called “hacks” — putting a police car on top of the Great Dome, installing a functional fire hydrant in the Infinite Corridor, turning the MIT chapel into a pirate ship for a day. The hacks are documented on the blogs.
• The Infinite Corridor: The 160-meter main corridor connecting buildings 7 and 8. On specific days in November and January (MIT Hack days), the sun aligns directly down the corridor — an event called MIThenge, MIT’s version of Stonehenge.
• Course numbering: MIT refers to departments by number, not name. Course 6 is Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Course 2 is Mechanical Engineering. Course 18 is Math. Students identify themselves by course: “I’m a 6-3” (CS), “I’m a 2A” (flexible MechE). This is part of the cultural fabric.
• The Brass Rat: MIT’s class ring, shaped like a beaver (the MIT mascot, chosen because beavers are nature’s engineers). The ring faces inward during freshman year, is flipped outward at graduation.

Notable Blog Types

• The honest failure post — appears regularly; a student describes bombing an exam, not as a cautionary tale but as a real experience to sit with
• The “what I wish I knew” post — retrospectives from upperclassmen; remarkably self-aware
• The April Fools tradition — annual absurdist posts; elaborate fake interviews, fake policy announcements, shitposts with genuine comedic effort
• The day-in-the-life post — real schedules, including the ones where everything goes wrong
• The “I almost left” post — students who seriously considered transferring or taking a leave; these exist and MIT publishes them

The MITAS Connection

MIT Alumni Entrepreneurs (MITAS) is the network that has been a concrete touchpoint for Jack. The Founder Breakfast on April 16, 2026 in Boston is an event through this network. The blogs are the cultural substrate; MITAS is one of the places that culture produces.

What the Blogs Built in Jack

For someone who grew up in Cupertino — surrounded by Apple, Google, the ambient culture of tech ambition — MIT was never just a university. It was a specific type of place that produces a specific type of person: technically serious, intellectually restless, practically oriented, not impressed by credentials alone.

The blogs are a significant part of why that picture formed and why it stuck. They provide texture that a US News ranking doesn’t.

Whether the interest is aspirational, nostalgic, network-driven, or all three simultaneously is left to the reader.

Related

• Jack Luo
• Cupertino High School
• Georgia Tech Era
• Z Fellows
• Y Combinator
• Internapalooza

Jack’s MIT Essay

Jack wrote a full essay on jack-luo.com titled “MIT Blog” (jack-luo.com/blogs/mit), written after receiving his MIT rejection on Pi Day (March 14 — the day MIT decisions come out for 45,000 applicants, of whom ~43,000 are rejected).

The essay opens with the rejection experience directly:

“On that day, shattered dreams and broken hearts were the only companions of the thousands who dared to dream big, work hard, and hope for a better future.”

Then it pivots. The essay is structured around four components of a world-class education you can build anywhere:

1. Drink from the right firehose — MIT’s curriculum is described as “drinking from a firehose”; the essay argues you choose your own firehose, calibrate the intensity, and blast consistently
2. Ripple of kindness — MIT students cite the people as the best part; building that network requires starting with random acts of kindness
3. IHTFP — “I Hate This Fucking Place / I Have Truly Found Paradise” — MIT’s actual unofficial motto; the essay uses it as a lens on any environment: paradise and hell are both always true simultaneously; your attitude determines which you experience
4. Positive mindset as prerequisite — the “five good things today” reflection as a daily reset

The essay ends: “As they say at MIT, ‘Pain is just weakness leaving the body.’ So go forth, and conquer the world!”

This piece sits at the intersection of two things that define Jack’s early writing: processing rejection through reframing, and building systematic frameworks for self-directed growth. It is also the origin of the “unconventional education” thread that runs through his entire arc — Ucsc Era, Georgia Tech, Boston, building Agentdex.

The essay is dedicated to “those who may be feeling the sting of rejection.”