Good luck to your friend. Skypacer. That's really bad news to other applicants in China. The interviewer stays in Shanghai for only one day, so I estimate that there are only about 10 applicants get the interview invitation.
It's true that the interview will hold just one day for all the mainland applicants. I read through her essays, and concluded pretty sure that her essays helped her stand out.
For myself, I did my MIT interview at the January of 2001 at Beijing with Rod Garcia, and got in.
There're around 30 students speaking Mandarin in each class, including ABC's, Green-card-holders, Taiwanees, Hong-Kongers, Prior visaholders from Mainland China, Chinese Canadians, those directly from Mainland China, etc. I guess around 15 students really fall into "Chinese" category.
In case you also applied for Sloan but have not received interview invitation yet, here is the information from the adcom:
"...If you have a friend or colleague who is also applying to the MIT Sloan School but has not been invited, please let him/her know that we are still evaluating applications and will invite candidates to interview through April 4, 2005..."
did anyone receive thus words before this round? Have anybody received MIT invitation in Hongkong the second round?