MIT, or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is widely recognized as one of the best universities in the world for studying STEM. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT is in an academic, research, and technology hub that offers students opportunities and that attracts an exceptional caliber of professors. Resources like the MIT Media Lab incubate innovation, while the on-campus culture encourages exploration, growth, and discovery within and beyond STEM subjects. There are about 12,000 students with 4,500 undergraduates. The acceptance rate is 4.5%.
First-year applicants are required to submit SAT or ACT scores as part of their MIT application, and remember that MIT does not use the Common App. They have their own application system that is only for them. They offer Early Action and Regular Action options that parallel the generally used deadlines for similar colleges and universities — but who are on the Common App. The EA acceptance rate is just over 5%, and most EA applicants are deferred to RA. Back to standardized testing, MIT does not require the writing sections for the SAT or ACT. This doesn’t mean they don’t care about writing, though. Instead, they’d rather assess your work themselves than see what the ACT and SAT assessors think. A strong SAT score is nearly perfect, and the same goes for the ACT.
When it comes to showing who you are beyond your scores, MIT does not have one big college essay. Instead, you’ll need to tackle a few essay and short answer prompts. In this post, we’ll break down how to approach each one for your strongest possible application.
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The MIT application has five questions, and they are looking for answers between 100-200 words. That is a very small about of space, and you need to fit a lot. Below, we break down how best to pull it off.
What field of study appeals to you the most right now? (Note: Applicants select from a drop-down list.) Tell us more about why this field of study at MIT appeals to you.
First, you need to be clear on what you want to study. Yes, you will have time once on campus to finalize (or switch) your area of focus, but the MIT admissions officials want to be 100% certain that you have a vision for your future. Selecting a prospective field of study that clearly connects to how you’ve been spending your time in high school is important, as it shows continuity and commitment.
You don’t want to just list what you’ve done in the field already and be done with it, though. Instead, we counsel our students to introduce the reader to their involvement in their area of interest through a short vignette that is focused on a moment of action. For example, maybe troubleshooting a challenge in a robotics competition or facing tough questions from judges at a science fair. After opening with this short story, transition to how you would bring your passion to MIT. What is it about the program in the field at MIT that is particularly exciting for you? Share at least one academic program you hope to become involved with and a professor you’d like to study under.
End the supplement by envisioning yourself in the lab or classroom at MIT. What are you doing, who are you working with, and what is driving you towards success?
We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it.
We love this supplement because it invites you to be you. The trap we see a lot of students falling into, though, is that they don’t actually lean all of the way into the request to share something you do simply for fun. Instead, they play it safe, picking something that sounds ‘impressive’ but that actually feels performative.
The only way to be successful here is to actually share something about yourself that won’t show up anywhere else in your application because it is totally separate from academia. It could be walks in the woods with the family dog, doing crossword puzzles with your grandpa, or foraging for ramps. Whatever it is, the way you tell the story is as important as picking something that feels true to you. Bring the reader into your world in the moment of doing the activity you focus on. What are you seeing, hearing, and feeling? Immerse them in your experience to bring the narrative to life.
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?
This question is interesting, because MIT knows that they attract a lot of applicants who have done all the ‘right’ things. They have the best grades, outstanding activities, and impressive experience on their resumes, but MIT isn’t actually looking for cookie cutter. They want students who have charted their own path in some way, and this supplement offers you the opportunity to show that you have done exactly that.
But how to tell that story? And what do you do if you aren’t sure that you have a story that fits the bill?
Some people have something big to share that jumps to mind straight away. If that describes you, awesome. If it doesn’t, you’ll have to get a bit more creative. We encourage students who do not have an easy answer to think small and specific. You don’t have to have done something groundbreaking to write a great story here. In fact, small is often easier to work with because you have so little space within which to convey an impactful narrative. So, let the story be small and tell it in immense detail.
MIT brings people with diverse backgrounds together to collaborate, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to lending a helping hand. Describe one way you have collaborated with others to learn from them, with them, or contribute to your community together.
Answering this question well is crucial to a strong application. MIT wants to find and enroll students who genuinely want to be a member of a community that emphasizes collaboration and teamwork. So, telling a strong story here truly matters. We advise our students to select a story that shows them working with at least two other people on a project that, ideally, connects to their area of most interest. This could be a robotics competition, or something like that, but what we really love is when students can pick a story that also incorporates in service to others. For example, maybe you worked with a team on a STEM camp for younger students.
The combination of service to others and relevance to your area of academic interest is more powerful for this supplement than being in charge, so don’t prioritize whether you are a designated leader with a title over giving back alongside peers.
How did you manage a situation or challenge that you didn’t expect? What did you learn from it?
MIT really comes with the hard-hitting questions, paired with a small amount of space to answer them in. We love this prompt because it allows you to address something that might show up elsewhere on your application (say, in your transcript), and that emphasizes the characteristics about yourself that you are most passionate about MIT knowing. Don’t be melodramatic, though. Stick to simple facts and convey strength through solutions.
The Additional Information Box
MIT also offers an “Additional Information Box” which is a place to put something (or things) that MIT needs to know but that won’t come up otherwise. The admissions office does not want you to use this section for a resume or a stale bulleted list. Rather, we advise our students to celebrate a passion here in a short format response. Often, this may be an activity that doesn’t fit in the Activities Section — which we’ll address next — because it isn’t directly related to your area of academic interest.
Activities
Unlike the Common App, MIT only allows you to list four activities. You will, however, more room to explain why they are important to you. We advise our students to make sure that at least one activity is oriented towards serving others, one is oriented towards working with others (like being on a robotics team), and one or two are solo activities like independent research.
MIT highly recommends that you read some of the blog posts on their website before applying, and even give you a few to look at first that give a sense of what they really want to see in an application.
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