You know, I emailed MIT early in the fall to ask them if they were taking in less students for the class of 2025 because of the gap year takers from the class of 2024. I emailed twice asking that exact question. MIT didn’t respond. So much for MIT’s commitment to transparency.
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I know that 2.2% is the admission rate for RD decision. Some people (see below) are taking the 2.2% as the admission rate for the class of 2025 and that’s very misleading. Everyone had an equal chance to apply EA. Honestly, the MIT admission rate for the class of 2025 is 4.5% (1500 / 33000). OR, if 1350 is the actual number that MIT admitted this year, MIT’s admission rate for 2025 class is 4.09 % (1350 / 33000).
However, ASSUMING that the increase in applications this year of 33,000 vs 20,000 in “normal” year is due to the lack of standardized testing this year, that gives about 13,000 students who applied without standardized testing. MIT states clearly on their admission website that their internal metrics show that standardized testing, especially the math SAT score, correlates with academic success at MIT. Given this, I would argue that the students who applied without standardized scores were never serious contenders for a spot at MIT. Of course, this does not include those who couldn’t take standardized tests, yet were International Math Olympiad winners or some such honor that clearly demonstrates the student’s aptitude. Bottom line, my feeling is that competition this year for a spot at MIT is NOT more unusually difficult than other past years. You really can’t count the students who had poor standardized scores and applied without submitting them. I don’t see MIT admitting students who are not mathematically proficient.
MIT should share stats on T/O applicants vs T/O admitted. MIT claims transparency and this is a valid metric to be transparent about.
Those that were admitted last year and took a gap year because of Covid probably account for the lower number of spots.
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Regardless of the decision, you all deserve a ton of credit for your hard work. I hope each and every one of you will have a wonderful college experience wherever you go.
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My best guess is T/O admit rate is non-trivial this year, which has been the case in other selective colleges.
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T/O means?
T/O means test optional
My S21 was deferred and then rejected. He was going to be a recruit and personally thought the messages and calls from coach was misleading…but I understand how that works…they need to keep as many fish in the net as possible…this was a tough year for all and tougher for students who couldn’t demonstrate their capabilities to their fullest…MIT wants a diverse incoming class…with the good you need the bad…I would er on the side that my S21 was on the good - as with many parents here would also say ') - but not enough spots for all the goodness.
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Yep.
The way I run the stats (this is NOT official btw) –
I believe ~65-75 delayed entry from last year plus assuming around a 81% yield (1340 * 0.81 = 1085), so that puts us around the right amount, 1150.
And being rejected by MIT does not define a person nor their future. I’ve read plenty of things from fellow interviewers and from various people involved with MIT Admissions that they are thrilled when they see people thrive elsewhere.
I’ve written about “being recruited in other places” (not CC). One of the veteran interviewers (who has been at it for over 4 decades) believes that if you are recruited, your chances might be closer to 25% in previous years.
I’ve also written about things that have higher chances, but these include things like “representing the United States prior to your senior year for International Science Olympiads.” I’ve gone on the record even on CC that Benjamin Qi ('23) was on their radar. That wasn’t haphazard – it was a highly educated guess.
I’ve always heard it was 50/50 if you had full coach support.
Definitely not 50/50. Most coaches have zero admissions pull.
Yield is going to be an interesting factor this year. With decisions coming from Harvard, Yale and Princeton on April 6th and Stanford on April 9th, one might suppose MIT’s yield might be higher than normal. With more than 3 weeks to focus on the wonders of MIT, students who might have considered HYPS as an alternative might be more likely to stick. With each 1% accounting for 13.4 new students, caution makes sense. There is a waitlist.
the math y’all do for this omg you definitely deserve a spot hahaha
hope you all are dealing well with the decisions, you’ll get in where you belong, please don’t let this dishearten you if it did not go your way, good luck!!! :)))
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My SD21 was going to be a recruit and was differed then rejected as well. The coaches gave us very promising likely messages even several days before Pi day. Totally understandable to get rejected out of this record high applicant# year (my SD has great stats), but I just wished the coaches didn’t mislead my SD this way. If SD was at least waitlisted then we could understand the situation a lot better. Congrats to all those admitted and good luck to future recruits!
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Same exact situation and sentiment here for my S21. Coach went say far to say he’d be very surprised if he didn’t get it. I do wish he never said that, it made things much harder than it needed to.Thankfully he’s staring to feel better today!
Let’s of great option out there for our kids, good luck everyone!!
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It was actually the opposite for me, the coach said I was likely to be rejected after being deferred but I ended up getting in! I think this year was a very tough one.
The numbers are what they are and are just stated for facts so folks have full information. For EA applicants the admission rate is 4.09%, I agree. For RD applicants, the admission rate is ~2%, because only 621 spots were available for some 28000 applicants. That reduces the odds of admissions to half and of course then MIT will have to reject many super qualified kids just because they don’t have a seat. And I do not agree that for the sake of argument and stats you can remove the kids with poor stats, then that’s true for every single college/university. There is always going to be a distribution. It is generally understood that MIT puts a lot of emphasis on test scores yet they had a test optional policy, so just curious where did they end up with final numbers. We already know UPenn accepted 24% T/O in ED, USC received 60% applicants as T/O, UCs and Caltech are test blind. So to say that students who applied T/O were never serious contenders for MIT, well, I don’t know how to react to that. I’m glad they have so many options to still go to a competitive school.
Yup yup. I also have a couple RSI friends in the same situation. In any other year, RSI almost always gets you into MIT.