MIT Admissions

About MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is ranked #4 (tied with Yale University) in U.S. News and World Report rankings of National Universities. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 4,602 students who study on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Students at MIT have General Institute Requirements which means they base their studies on core subjects in science, math, humanities, arts, and social sciences. They major in the physical or biological sciences, management science, architecture, urban studies and planning, engineering, etc. By their third and fourth years, students are focused on their departmental programs having completed their core requirements.

One of the most exciting opportunities for a MIT undergraduate is the many research opportunities. In fact, there is a program called: Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP).

MIT offers an early action option for admissions. This is non-binding, but allows the admissions office to give applications a closer read in early November. Early Action is limited to U.S. citizens and permanent residents; international citizens may only apply during the regular round.

MIT Early Action isn’t single-choice which means you can apply to an Early Decision school which is binding, but if you get into both MIT and the Early Decision school you would have to decline MIT.

MIT is transparent with their admissions data and shares their information from the Common Data Set. Typically they accept more public school students than private school students, more males than females, and their acceptance rate is typically 6-7%. Very few students get off the wait list – this is because so many students say YES to MIT when they are accepted. Typically MIT takes about 10-20 of the students from the wait list. That said, for the Class of 2022, 460 students were offered a spot on the wait list, 383 students accepted this spot, yet zero of these students were actually admitted.

MIT is a tough admit for anyone, but even tougher for an international candidate as they typically only take about 8% international students representing 54 countries. 41% of accepted students this year were Asian American with 2% being Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islanders.

MIT is VERY specific with recommendations. They require two letters of recommendation from teachers. One recommendation should be from a math or science teacher and one should be from a humanities, social science or language teacher. This is not the case for most colleges so take note.

Interviews are also a bit different at MIT. YOU will need to contact an alumni interviewer in your neck of the woods, AND you will have to do it early. If you are applying in the Early Action round you contact, via the MyMIT link, an appropriate interviewer by October 20th and by December 10th for regular. So, well before the application is due. Don’t mess this up as last year MIT only admitted 1% of students who chose not to interview.

You must take the ACT or the SAT. You must take a Math Subject Test (Math II as they really don’t count Math I) and a Science Subject Test – Biology, Chemistry or Physics. In our experience and backed up by the Common Data Set, your scores need to be, SAT: 780-800/section, SAT Math Subject Test: 770-800, Science Subject Test: 740-800.