Rats

Ahhh... I remember those MyMIT days. The fun we had trying to impress Dean Stu.

Greetings Applicant,

We have received your application to be admitted to the rest of the puzzle. Please contact HQ to make an appointment with an educational counselor for your admissions interview. The interview is an important part of the admissions process, which determines whether you should be allowed to see the rest of the puzzle. If you underperform during the interview, you will probably need to wait for awhile before you can apply again.

Your educational counselor will be an MIT hunt graduate who will be able to answer your questions about the rest of this puzzle. To help you prepare, some MIT alumni, known as “rats”, have dropped by to talk about their time at MIT. There are of course things that you will not be able to comprehend until after you are admitted to the rest of the puzzle, such as how to correctly interpret the names of the rats. Admittance to this puzzle offers many benefits, not the least of which is actually being able to solve it.

Thank you for your interest in the rest of this puzzle. We look forward to seeing you at the interview.

Regards,
Borbonicus and Bodley – Puzzle Admissions Department

The rats reminisce:

Adam A. Agouti discovered that math is hard.
Atlas Gnawer worked with a head of sales at MIT.
Carol Coypu found that an important part of her MIT experience in 2003 was making connections.
Clark Ax found himself out of sorts upon arrival.
Claude H. Chinchilla studied radio waves.
Cody Construction really got engrossed in a research puzzle at MIT.
Cosmo Cricetidae focused on the bottom line of his financial package
Elmo Myomorpha learned from a MIT laureate.
Ethan Teeth studied by making a list, checking it twice, and he became fully trained at MIT.
Franklin Shrew got into disarray at MIT.
Godfrey Bandicoot got lost in a snowfield on campus.
Horace The Hutia of Haiti got trashed on hot shots late one night.
Jimmie Dams got into trouble and got grounded for life.
Morgan Musquash mastered thinking outside the box.
Nyssa Nocturnal first got into Atlas Shrugged while on campus in 2000.
Oscar Otter took the direct approach at MIT.
Peter Porcupine had a shadow of a doubt, but he overcame it.
Rob-Rick Gopher and his MIT roommate were two of a kind.
Rosie Upriver fiscally discovered [Message Redacted].
Sandy Incisors felt that some MIT classes from overseas faculty got lost in translation.
Schoolfellow “Hank” Hyrax did some light reading at MIT and got fully trained.
Tate Pacas spent a lot of time in a cubicle in 2003.
Vernon Muskrat found that MIT’s “console-nation” prizes vintage NES systems.
Werner Rodent got smashed on MIT’s Grizzly Ale.
Xavier Gerbils studied Castor and Pollux at the highest level.
Zoe Dammaker sadly found herself in a police lineup while on the MIT campus.

During the hunt, the following was presented to teams who completed the interview:

Congratulations! The friendly rats you met wanted to show you some pictures of themselves, and also give a shoutout to their friends. What friendly rats!

1. Jimmie Dams	2. Godfrey Bandicoot	3. Nyssa Nocturnal	4. Ethan Teeth	5. Peter Porcupine
6. Cody Construction	7. Rosie Upriver	8. Adam A. Agouti	9. Elmo Myomorpha	10. Oscar Otter
11. Franklin Shrew	12. Sandy Incisors	13. Clark Ax	14. Schoolfellow “Hank” Hyrax	15. Morgan Musquash
16. Carol Coypu	17. Claude H. Chinchilla	18. Horace The Hutia of Haiti	19. Atlas Gnawer	20. Cosmo Cricetidae
21. Rob-Rick Gopher	22. Tate Pacas

He was a member of a team that won the National Medal of Technology. He later got to shoot Charlie Sheen, professionally. His MIT thesis was evaluated by the New York Review of Books. It is the only college thesis that they have ever covered.
He has piloted the space shuttle more than once, most recently in 2010.
He became a professional basketball player after graduating from MIT.
He was a Calvin Klein model, a winner of American Gladiators, and played an FBI agent for 93 episodes of a television series.
He co-founded a battery company based on nanophosphate technology. He also co-founded a company that makes superconducting wire.
”Maker hero” and founder of an electronic hobbyist company, she participated in the drafting of the Open Source hardware definition.
A digital librarian, he founded the Internet Archive.
He founded a free online education platform and non-profit organization. His platform has over 200,000 subscribers who watch more than 2700 micro-lectures, predominantly in the sciences and mathematics.
A serial entrepreneur who has started six companies, he invented the optical mouse.
One of PC Gamer’s “Game Gods”, he is the master of the leather goddesses, and one of only two game writers admitted to the Science Fiction Writers of America.
He was a vice president of the European Central Bank who became prime minister of a European country.
He co-founded and is the CEO of a computer game company. He was a member of Time’s list of the 100 most influential people of 2008, and is credited with redefining the music games genre.
He was the CEO of an e-commerce company until its acquisition by Oracle. Today he works as a rock musician.
A Computer Science associate professor and senior researcher at Google, she has been named the “sexiest geek alive”.
This fictional billionaire playboy, industrialist, and engineer suffered a severe chest injury during a kidnapping.
He was a Republican senator from New England, and the youngest member of the Senate for the entirety of his six-year term.
He was a Major League Baseball pitcher.
He is the science and technology adviser to Steven Spielberg, and invented the “g-speak” data interface used in Minority Report.
He was an Olympic-level wrestler, an operatic bass baritone, and an actor, who got to sing opera while taking on a dynamic villainous role in an Arnold Schwarzenegger film. He famously wore his brass rat on screen while playing a role in a comedy film.
He won the main event at the World Series of Poker.
He sang in the MIT Logarhythms, and went on to be an American Idol finalist.
He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of economic governance and business structures for conflict resolution.