Mass. Colleges Send Out Record Numbers Of Rejection Letters
Many Massachusetts colleges that had long accepted students unlikely to make the cut for an Ivy League school are sending record numbers of rejection letters this year.
Prefrosh Explore MIT at CPW
Nearly 1,000 prospective freshmen are on campus for this year's Campus Preview Weekend. The weekend, which runs through Sunday, will offer over 600 activities at all hours for prospective freshmen and parents.
News Briefs
The Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility has passed its recommendations regarding whether MIT should divest from corporations that are involved with the Sudanese government on to the MIT Corporation's Executive Committee. Michael Baenen, staff to the ACSR, wrote in an e-mail that the Executive Committee is now considering the recommendation report and "is aiming to bring its deliberations to a close in early May."
Lender to Pay So Students Can Learn Loan Options For Finaid
Sallie Mae, the nation's largest lender to college students, agreed Wednesday to pay $2 million to settle an investigation by the New York attorney general's office and said it would close down student call centers it has run for college financial aid offices.
Ground Searches For Missing Student End
The search for freshman Ryan M. Davis '10, who has been missing since March 31, has been called off after the South Hadley Police found no signs of Davis or his whereabouts. Intensive ground search operations in the buildings, wooded areas, and mountains in and around Mount Holyoke College, where he was last seen, were called off, according to an article published in <i>The Patriot Ledger</i> Wednesday.
Charges in Duke Lacrosse Case Dropped Wednesday
North Carolina's attorney general declared three former Duke University lacrosse players who had been accused of gang-raping a stripper innocent of all charges on Wednesday, ending a prosecution that provoked bitter debate over race, class, and the tactics of the Durham County district attorney.
Chemistry Dept. Revamps Lab Curriculum For Fall
Over the next two years, the Department of Chemistry will be implementing a new laboratory curriculum which will incorporate some of the department's current research topics. Replacing three chemistry labs required for Course V majors, these 12 four-unit "module" classes are intended to give students more flexibility in scheduling, according to Sylvia T. Ceyer, associate department head of the Chemistry Department.
Wrestler Foley’s Lecture Packs a Punch
Mick Foley once incurred burns and required 42 stitches in one night after a wrestling match in Japan involving explosives and barbed wire.
Death Toll in Algeria Bombings Rises to 33; Manhunt Underway
The death toll from Wednesday's suicide bombings in Algeria rose by 10 on Thursday, to 33, and the police mounted a nationwide manhunt for those responsible for the attacks.
Missing Repub. E-mails May Relate to Fired Prosecutors
The White House said Thursday that missing e-mail sent on Republican Party accounts may include some relating to the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.
Running Against the Wind
On every day this month, the mean temperature has been lower than the climatological average. This cold spell looks almost certain to continue through at least the middle of next week, as we will not get the southwesterly flow necessary for warm conditions this time of year. Instead, after a couple days of chilly northwesterly winds, we will have a potent Nor'easter to ride out. All of the long-range numerical weather prediction models develop the storm just off the mid-Atlantic coast on Sunday, and then park it somewhere off the south coast of New England on Patriot's Day. This means we will likely see a prolonged period of stiff easterly winds and heavy rain from Sunday night through Monday, with the timing of the heaviest rain and strongest winds dependent on the exact trajectory of the storm. Anyone participating in the Boston Marathon or planning to go out and cheer on the runners should keep a close eye on this late-season Nor'easter as it develops.
Shorts (left)
For American law enforcement agencies the smuggling investigations were among their most elaborate, producing dozens of arrests and hard evidence that Chinese criminal gangs had smuggled counterfeit U.S. currency, cigarettes and drugs made in North Korea into the United States.
Shorts (right)
U.S. officials said Thursday that they were working assiduously for the release of Amir Mohamed Meshal, an American who had been jailed in Ethiopia on suspicion of terrorist activities, and that they hoped he would be freed very soon.
Off the Air: the Light Goes Out For Radio Personality Don Imus
CBS brought the weeklong confrontation over racial and sexual insults by the radio host Don Imus to an end Thursday when it canceled the "Imus in the Morning" show, effective immediately.
Suicide Bomber at Parliament Kills Eight People in International Zone
A suicide bomber wearing an explosives vest struck deep inside the heavily fortified International Zone on Thursday, killing eight people when he detonated inside the Parliament building just a few feet from the main chamber.
Corrections
The April 3, 2007 news article about the Department of Defense investigation into MIT's Lincoln Laboratory misstated the nature of the review on which the charges were based. According to the MIT News Office, the review evaluated a piece of software developed by military contractor TRW that was intended for, but never used in, a missile defense flight test. The researchers used data from an earlier test to examine whether the software worked as claimed by TRW. They were not asked to evaluate the flight test.
MOVIE REVIEW ★★★ 1/2 'Grindhouse': Guts, Gore, Good Times
Trying to describe "Grindhouse," Quentin Tarantino's and Robert Rodriguez's double feature B-movie homage, is kind of like describing the Grand Canyon: sure, throw enough words out there and you can get the idea across, but why not just go out and see for yourself? Of course, the Grand Canyon won't have zombies, lots and lots of blood, and a hot girl with a gun for a leg; whether that's a good or bad thing pretty much determines if you should see "Grindhouse" or not.
CD REVIEW Too Close For Comfort
Love — true love, head-over-heels, seeing stars love, til-death-do-us-part love — only lasts a year. Don't believe me? Researchers showed that some chemical or protein (excuse this MIT student's highly technical explanation) is found in the brain at high levels for the first year of romance. We read an article about this phenomenon during my writing course last semester, and the facts all seemed in place. After reading, my outraged classmates presented numerous arguments against this stoic and un-storybook-like viewpoint. After a group discussion, we concluded that perhaps the intensity and excitement of first love fades with time, but it is then replaced with the satisfying feeling of familiarity. I think I can live with that definition.
Babson Scores 13 in Second Half, Flattens Women's Lacrosse 21-10
The Babson College women's lacrosse team scored 13 second-half goals en route to a 21-10 win over visiting MIT in a NEWMAC contest on Tuesday night. The nationally-ranked No. 17 Beavers improved to 8-2 overall and 3-0 in the conference while the Engineers dropped to 2-6 on the year and 0-3 in the NEWMAC.
Pritchard Smacks Two Homers, Tech Men Thump Clark 19-14
Senior designated hitter Mike Pritchard went 4-for-6 at the plate with a pair of home runs and five RBI to lead the Clark University baseball team to a 19-14 victory over MIT in a NEWMAC slugfest Tuesday afternoon, at Granger Field. Clark (9-12, 2-3 NEWMAC) snapped a two-game conference losing skid with the win, while MIT (6-7, 3-3) endured its third straight loss after a surprising 3-0 start in league play.
Imminent Collapse
Before we begin properly today, let me first ask: are you a CalTech student? If so, I must ask, in all seriousness: WTF?
Ask SIPB
Welcome to MIT, prefrosh! We're the Student Information Processing Board ("SIPB", pronounced sip-bee), MIT's student computing interest group. Our office is on the fifth floor of the Student Center, just outside the Athena cluster. You're welcome to stop by and ask us for help, or just use our computers, or even talk with us.
Monkey Gone to Heaven
CPW is finally upon us. I had trouble admitting it at first, but as a senior, I can barely muster the energy to care. I did the whole CPW/Orientation thing with full gusto when I was younger, but I just can't keep up with the '09s and '10s. My roommate applied for us both to host pre-frosh, but as my former pre-frosh can attest, I'm an awful host, and am probably single-handedly responsible for mine and my roommate's rejections. Maybe I just have trouble relating to someone who was four when Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me" first came out.
