The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, is one of the most famous STEM-focused schools in the world. For engineering, math, and anything emerging technology, there is nowhere more famous or competitive in the US than MIT. They challenge their students to think differently, to defy understood boundaries, and to play an integral role in the next generation of innovation. If you know anything about MIT at all, you probably know two things:
They have their own application separate from the Common App.
It is devilishly hard to get in.
MIT is very transparent with their statistics, and the acceptance rate for the Class of 2029 was . MIT believes that students should have their options open, so they do not offer Early Decision. They do offer Early Action, which is not restrictive like EA at many Ivies, and the EA acceptance rate for the Class of 2029 was 5.9%. Regular Decision, which included nearly 7,500 students deferred from EA, the acceptance rate that year was only 2.4%.
What this tells us is that applying EA to MIT does not have a downside unless you would be applying somewhere else REA. Applying RD, however, does have a real downside. So, apply EA if you can. This is especially important if you are an international applicant. The international acceptance rate for the Class of 2029 was a tiny .
Before you can pick your application path, though, you need to make sure that your grades and scores measure up to MIT expectations. The university that all applicants submit either the SAT or the ACT. And, while they do not require the writing portions of either test, they do emphasize that they value writing highly and evidence of your strong writing skills is appreciated when your application is being reviewed, in addition to the writing on your application. Whether or not you opt to include the written portions, you do need to have to be a strong applicant to MIT. A 780 on the SAT Math section only puts you in the 25th percentile of admitted students, and to be in the 75th percentile for ERW you need a 780, too. On the ACT, a strong composite score is a 35 or 36.
The bar for how you performed in your coursework is just as high. While weve helped students get into MIT with imperfect early high school transcripts, it isn really feasible to pull off an acceptance on your own without years of unarguably exceptional grades in the hardest courses you have access to. of students admitted and enrolled for the Class of 2029 were in the top tenth of their high school graduating class. MIT does not report GPA data on accepted and enrolled first-years, probably because it would discourage applicants. An unweighted 4.0 is sort of table stakes.
Once you have your grades and scores in order for MIT, it time to dig into the application. In this post, well be giving your guidance on each piece of writing you need to do for MIT, from the answers under 50 words to the longer, albeit still micro, essays. MIT does not have a personal statement like the Common App, so you can count on that to tell them who you are beneath your academic interests. Instead, you need to weave your personality into each piece of your application. Now, let get into it.
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The MIT application has , but we view that as great news. Yes, it takes time to complete, but it also gives you space to show how awesome you are. The cost of this, of course, is time. You cannot do the MIT application well in one sitting. We work our students for hours, often over many weeks, to craft their perfect answer to each MIT question. Below, well give you some of our best general strategies for each one, but if you want personalized guidance you will need to get in touch.
LONG-ANSWER QUESTIONS (100-200 words)
First, you have the longest responses MIT allows for up to 200 words. These are short by Common App standards, but for MIT you need to pack a punch into each one. Remember, there is no personal statement. Youll notice that we bring a few rules to MIT supplement writing: there must always be a story, show don tell, and no repeats.
What field of study appeals to you the most right now? (Note: Applicants select from a drop-down list.) Reflect on what has led you to this interest.
Reflect could be interpreted as loose pondering of how you got to where you are now and what you want to study at MIT. That is not the approach that will get you in. One of the most important things MIT is looking for in your application is clarity of purpose and depth of curiosity. For this supplement, we love focusing on a spark moment when you first fell in love with a subject. Ideally, this involves someone else, too, like a teacher or mentor, but it doesn have to. What your response does have to have, though, is storytelling chops. We like dialog, we like strong imagery, and we love a moment of friction or challenge.
Youll notice that there are a few places in the MIT application where they are specifically looking for evidence of resilience in the face of challenge, and this is one as well. A challenge doesn have to be a massive set back, though. It could be struggling at first in a subject, or having to look for learning resources outside of what was within easy reach. The point is that this challenge deepened your interest in what you want to study. You have a planned academic path because you love something, not because it came easy.
The next supplement will build upon this moment, putting the next chapter into the arc of your story that will, if all goes to plan, lead you to MIT.
While some reach their goals following well-trodden paths, others blaze their own trails achieving the unexpected. In what ways have you done something different than what was expected in your educational journey?
Next, MIT wants to know how you have gotten around road blocks to make things happen. For example, a recent student now at MIT wrote about finding a welding class to take during the summer so he could build a project he really wanted to do. To do the project, he needed to know how to weld. The easy thing would have been to just pick a different project. Instead, he spent a few months in a guys garage learning to weld with a group of dads with kids his age. Definitely not the usual path for a high school junior.
Another student recently wrote about combining their love of language with engineering, translating coursework into Spanish to make it accessible for more members of their community. The translation wasn directly related to engineering, but it sparked a deeper interest in accessibility of information and strengthened his connection to his community.
Both are things the students did not to impress MIT, but because they were the right next step on their personal learning journeys. This is exactly what MIT wants to hear more about in your story, and you undoubtedly have a story to tell even if it doesn immediately jump to mind. Start, then, by thinking through the last few years. What was your plan when you started, and where have you ended up? What wrenches were thrown along the way, and what tight turns did you have to take to get here. Those stories will give you your best material for this prompt.
Reflect on how your personal and academic experiences have influenced the types of problems you would want to tackle with an MIT education, and who you would like to work on those problems with.
This is MIT version of a why us? True to MIT, they are curious not only about if you can handle the academics, but how you will use what you learn. Focus here on an experience that was and this is super important collaborative. They do not like lone wolves, and if you cannot pinpoint an experience when you leant on others you are not a strong fit for MIT.
Perhaps it was a robotics team, a bunch of friends you built a fort with, or a class project you and your peers took beyond what was expected, whatever you pick has to include camaraderie, teamwork, and genuine enthusiasm for learning.
Then, pan over to MIT. How do you see yourself embracing learning with classmates? Imagine a hypothetical grounded in a real program, course, or activity, and let it play out. Who would you be working with, and what would you be working on? Specify a professor you hope to rope in for support, a resource at MIT you would absolutely rely on, and a course that would give you the know-how to pull off something mildly insane.
The key here is to show a joy in learning, a passion for collaboration, and an enthusiasm for giving a challenging proposition your best effort.
How did you manage a situation or challenge that you didn expect? What did you learn from it?
Youve written a lot about what you want to study and the subject(s) that fascinate you, so here we challenge you to examine your experiences from a broader point of view. Yes, you can write about a challenge that is relevant to your major if one jumps to mind immediately, but don limit yourself to that. Pulling from another area of your life can provide depth and dimension to your application, while emphasizing the character traits that make you a strong applicant to MIT.
For example, maybe you are an Eagle Scout and you led a camping trip that went sideways. How you navigated that situation speaks directly to the thoughtfulness, perseverance, and ingenuity that MIT wants to see, without writing another response about a club, an internship, or a project you have already mentioned elsewhere.
When possible, too, weave the learning into the answer rather than sticking it onto the end of the supplement. Ending with a version of what I learned is, isn technically incorrect, but it is bad writing. Instead, make the lesson clear by making it integral to the story. If you aren sure how to do that, we can help.
SHORT-ANSWER QUESTIONS (40-50 words)
Next, you have your short answers. These are short, but not so short that you should rush through them. Each answer will be about 2-3 sentences, and by our estimation that is plenty of room to build a narrative.
What do you do just for fun?
This question is genuine, and it a place where you can truly be yourself. Maybe you play an instrument, are a wiz Scrabble player, cook dinners on Thursdays, or take your siblings out for ice cream. The key is to 1. Make what you write about here actually fun, not sounding fancy for MIT kinda fun. Then, 2. Tell a story. Don just describe what you do, show them. Write about the smells in the kitchen when you roast veggies, the bajillion flavors you taste to land on the perfect pick, or Gail, the 80 year old who always beats you with two-letter words. Bring your experience to life such that they wish they were there, too.
Who is someone you admire, whether you know them personally or look up to them from afar? Tell us why.
Well admit it. This question is tough. Not because there aren a ton of people to admire, but because writing about someone you admire is extremely illustrative of who you are, and sometimes in surprising ways. First, take all the family members off of your list. Then, take anyone political off the list. You don know the politics of the people reading your application, and you surely don want to assume they share the same beliefs as you. You want to look beyond yourself, but not too far. Someone being famous doesn make them a stronger person to focus on, in fact it usually serves to weaken your response. You do not have to know them, but you do need to have engaged with them or their work directly.
For example, maybe there is a researcher whose papers you have relied on heavily, a coach who inspires you, a mentor who challenges you, or a professional athlete who pulled off something absolutely insane because they truly understood the craft and art in their effort. Or maybe there is someone who fought through extreme adversity and set-backs in their field, and you want to build similar resilience to obstacles.
No matter who you pick, though, you aren writing a biography. What matters is constructing a thread between them and yourself that makes the connection feel obvious.
What a topic, academic or non-academic, that you could talk about for hours?
We love this question, because it lets you show how your brain works. In short, go wild. Take them down a rabbit hole with you. You should pick something, though, that relates in some way to something you care about academically. For example, maybe you are really into robotics. If so, don write about robotics. But you are fascinated by how octopuses' brains extend into their arms, and the arms can operate independently of each other. Arms have even been shown to have different personalities. So, how has that impacted robotics innovation? Can you dream up future applications? Go wild with it, whatever your particular obsession is.
MIT values both generalists with varied interests and specialists who focus deeply on one or a few passions. Which do you think best describes you, and why?
This is an interesting question, particularly because many students who are objectively outstanding write MIT off as an option because they haven specialized enough. By including this question, MIT is opening the door to students who have always been strong candidates but often didn even think it was worth writing an application.
Like weve been saying for everything, you need a story here that shows you as a generalist or a specialist, and that answers the why within it. What you should not do, though, is say both. They want you to pick a side. Not picking one isn unique or positive. Rather, it shows an inability to follow instructions. That not a good taste to put in their mouths, so don do it.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION SECTION
The final piece of the application that we will dwell on here is the Additional Information section.
There is also one final, open-ended, additional-information text box where you can tell us anything else you think we really ought to know.
We advise all of our students applying to MIT that we will be putting something here, but there is no blanket answer for what that something should be. For some, it may be a spotlight on a creative project. For another, a description of a meaningful, but short term, experience that didn make the cut for your activities section (because activities only has space for 4). You could also use this section to spotlight something on-going that you want them to know is in the works, but hasn been fully realized yet.
Whatever you choose to put here will be distinctly yours. That poses a challenge, but it also totally awesome.
There are a lot of things on the MIT application that we have said aren cookie cutter. They are yours to do with as you will, and that often makes students feel unmoored or uncomfortable. If you are unsure, send us a note. Were experts at this.
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