What a friend would tell you
What MIT is looking for
MIT wants makers. The application should show what you have built, coded, designed, or engineered, not what you have studied. Character counts alongside skill: they read for the world you come from and what you did with it, and the maker portfolio is the skills test. Collaborative projects carry more weight than solo achievements. If your application reads like a future consultant's, you are applying to the wrong school.
What students wish they'd known
The workload is legendary and not exaggerated. Problem sets consume weeknights; sleep deprivation is normalized. Humanities and social science offerings exist but feel secondary. Cambridge winters are cold, grey, and long. The social scene skews heavily toward Greek life (48% participation) and independent living groups, which can feel exclusionary if you are not plugged in.
MIT might be a fit if...
- You have built or engineered something tangible and can talk about the process in detail
- You want to be surrounded by people who stay up until 3 a.m. solving problems for fun
- You care about applying knowledge to the physical world, not just theorizing about it
MIT Admissions Strategy
Application Info
Plans: EA only
Deadlines: EA November 1 · RD January 5
Deadlines: EA November 1 · RD January 5
Test Policy
Test required
Demonstrated Interest
Not Tracked
Not tracked. Skip the info-session circuit and put those hours into the application itself.
Interview
Optional
Yield Rate
85%
85% of admitted students enroll. Almost nobody turns this school down, so waitlist movement is rare.
Want to boost your odds at MIT and every reach on your list, so admissions stops feeling like a coin flip?
Join the free one-hour workshop from two Harvard grads who have helped 3,000+ students get in. Parents welcome.
Cost & Financial Aid at MIT
$83,050
Sticker Price
Need-blind admissions. Meets 100% of demonstrated need. 54% receive financial aid.
What you get for it: MIT spends about $145,000 per student per year on instruction and student resources, roughly 10x the $15K national average. You see it in class sizes, faculty access, and research budgets.
What MIT Graduates Get
$87,000
Avg Starting Salary
99%
Employed or in Grad School
83%
Graduate in 4 Years
The 4-year number is the on-time rate; the 6-year rate (96%) is the one schools usually advertise. A wide gap means many students pay for extra semesters.
MIT Campus & Culture
The Campus
MIT lines the north bank of the Charles River in Cambridge, a mile-long strip of limestone, concrete, and glass facing the Boston skyline. The Great Dome (Building 10) caps a neoclassical portico; the Stata Center, Frank Gehry's crumpled-metal creation, houses computer science and AI. The Infinite Corridor runs 825 feet through the main buildings. Everything is numbered, not named, which tells you something about the culture.
The Social Scene
Independent living groups, fraternities/sororities, maker culture, entrepreneurship clubs
MIT Traditions & Trivia
Hacks
engineering pranks with their own ethics code; a campus police car once appeared on top of the Great Dome, lights on, donuts inside.
The Smoot
in 1958 a pledge named Oliver Smoot was laid end over end across the Harvard Bridge; it measures 364.4 Smoots plus one ear, and the markings get repainted to this day.
Pi Day Decisions
admissions decisions drop on March 14, often at 6:28 pm, because of course they do.
Academics at MIT
What MIT is known for
'Mens et Manus' (mind and hand), undergraduate research, hands-on learning
Most popular majors at MIT
Standout programs
Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics, Aeronautics
How the curriculum works
General Institute Requirements (GIRs) in science and math; major flexibility; extensive labs
Recommended high school courses
4 years Math (through Calculus), 4 years Science including Physics and Chemistry, 4 years English
Notable MIT Alumni
Buzz Aldrin
Second person to walk on the Moon, MIT ScD in Astronautics 1963
Kofi Annan
UN Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize winner, MIT Sloan 1972
Shirley Ann Jackson
First Black woman to earn a PhD from MIT (Physics, 1973), later chaired the NRC
Drew Houston
Co-founded Dropbox, MIT class of 2006
Amar Bose
Founded Bose Corporation, MIT BS, MS, and ScD
Mildred Dresselhaus
"Queen of Carbon Science," MIT professor for 50+ years
If you like MIT, also consider
Stanford University
Same builder ethos, warmer weather, more startup culture
Caltech
Even smaller and more focused on pure science, less engineering breadth
Carnegie Mellon
Strong engineering and CS with more accessible admissions
Georgia Tech
Top-tier engineering at public-school cost, Atlanta location
Harvard University
Cross-registration available, broader academics, less technical focus