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mission
& message
relations
organization
history
Mission & Message
The MIT Educational Council creates a vital link between secondary schools,
students, teachers, and the parents of prospective students. As advocates
and ambassadors for MIT, Educational Counselors recruit, interview, and
respond to the concerns of admissions candidates within communities across
the country and abroad. Uniquely positioned to put a human face on the Institute,
ECs encourage and assist students and their parents in discovering MIT's
educational, social, and extracurricular opportunities.
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Relations
 The
Educational Council Office (EC Office) collaborates with both the Offices
of Admissions and Alumni. Because the primary purpose of the MIT Educational
Council is to encourage students to apply and to provide input on their
potential in the form of interview reports, our efforts feed directly into
the admissions process. As a result, the EC Office and Admissions work together
very closely. The staff of the EC Office reports to the Dean of Admissions,
and the EC Director also serves as an Associate Director of Admissions.
In addition, since all ECs are alumni of the Institute, the EC and Alumni
offices come together to track current ECs as well as to recruit and appoint
new ones.
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Organization
ECs are appointed to the MIT Educational Council by a Presidential Advisory
Committee as official representatives of MIT to secondary schools and prospective
students. The efforts of the individual appointees are supported by the
EC Office, which keeps counselors abreast of developments and activities
at the Institute (especially in the realm of Admissions and Financial Aid).
The Council itself is divided into regions whose boundaries roughly follow
US and Canadian postal codes; international regions are formed by country
or larger regional groupings. Within those geographic regions where there
are many ECs, the local activities of the Council are usually organized
by a Regional Chairperson.
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History
The Educational Counselors of today uphold a tradition begun in 1931 when
MIT President Karl T. Compton appointed a number of outstanding graduates
in major US cities and some foreign countries as Honorary Secretaries of
MIT. By 1950, they were overloaded with applicant interviews, and the Institute
clearly needed greater alumni involvement in public relations. The solution
was the establishment of the MIT Educational Council, which took over both
the interviews and the liaisons with secondary schools. Today, ECs assist
the Institute in a variety of ways—as recruiters, community resources,
and interviewers—helping the Office of Admissions to find the best
and the brightest for each year's freshman class.
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