MIT --- weird admission numbers!

Student Lounge International Students
1

I wanted to know how many students get into MIT from India each year.
So I came across these numbers on the MIT Registrar website about “number of students from each country”.

http://web.mit.edu/registrar/stats/geo/geo1314.html

This is basically the total number of students from India on campus (as an undergrad) over the 4 years.

From 1998-99 to 2013-14, they are:
12,13,13,13,11,10,13,10,16,19,31,28,29,33,30,21

How do you explain the strange rise from 07-08 to 08-09 (19 to 31)? Or the drop from 12-13 to 13-14 (30 to 21)?

Also, I tried to find the number of students admitted each year from this.
I began by assuming that in 98-99, there were 3 students in each year, for a total of 12. So then I can recreate the steps using an Excel sheet. Eg: 3,3,3,3 becomes 3,3,3,4 because it goes from 12 to 13. (3,3,3,3 means that there are 3 students in each year)

These is what I got. (From 99-00 to 13-14)
4,3,3,1,3,6,0,7,6,18,-3,8,10,15,-12

WHAT?? What’s with the negative numbers? Or the zero?

So I tried varying my initial assumption, like 4,2,2,4 or 1,3,5,3. Any way I tried, I ended up with these mysterious negatives.

I know that a few people drop out (internationals? unlikely) and a few others complete over 5 years, but -12 is still WAY too large.

On another note, does anyone have stats as to how many people get in from India every year? I heard that in each of the last 2 years, 7 people got in.

Good luck to all of you who’ve applied, and Happy Pi Day in advance!

2

There is absolutely no specifics as to how many applicants MIT will take from India.

It may take 10 or 30, all depends on the applicant pool that year. The statistics you pulled up cannot give you any specific number. Indeed, the only useful information they convey is that over the past decade, more Indians have started getting out and trying their hand in US.

No one can reach a certain number of applicants any university will admit from a particular country. There isn’t one.

3

On an average 5 or 6 indians get admitted in a year

4

More admissions than graduations?

More graduations than admissions?

Seriously. I would think an Engineer would be more adept at simple mathematical modeling. This is akin to someone calculating that there are an average of 5.1 Indian nationals admitted every year for the last 20 years, and then calculating that, since they are number 4 in the mix they have it made and then getting upset with the institution for only admitting three that year.

5

“Seriously. I would think an Engineer would be more adept at simple mathematical modeling.”

I think you’ve missed the point I’m trying to make! I perfectly understand that there may be more admissions than graduations, etc. But when I tried recreating the number of admitted students through an assumption that there were 3 in each year initially, I ended up with a negative number of students admitted. (And no initial assumption gave me reasonable numbers)

Basically, this means that there is such a HUGE difference between the number of admits and the number of graduates, that the only way to end up with the given number is to actually remove students.

If MIT decides to admit just one student from India this year, I’ll be the last person complaining! That’s not the point of this post at all.

6

Did anyone receive a late MIT interview here? My MIT interviewer told me that about 10-15 students are selected for the interview, out of which, 4 are selected.

7

Here, try this;

Assume that for each of the years you provided data, there are the following graduations and admits to start the following Fall.

Grads: 2, 1, 3, 2, 2, 0, 3, 0, 1, 1, 4, 3, 2, 6, 9

Admits: 3, 1, 3, 0, 1, 3, 0, 6, 4, 13, 1, 4, 6, 3, 0

I assumed there were your 12 in 98-99, so 2 graduations and 3 admits would give you 13 on campus for the next year. For the next year there was 1 and 1 and so on…

8

The problem with that is this.
Take the first 4 numbers of “Grads”. Add them up. You should get 12. But you don’t.
(And there’s no way you can make it add up either)

Also, one number in “Admits” should roughly correspond to the number 5 years later in “Grads”.

@LAWithANakedLady‌ : I got an interview too! But people in areas where there are no alumni are not offered interviews. And some of them get in too. (So it’s a bit more than 10-15 students in the mix) Where are you from?
Look at this thread. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/india/1616751-mit-interviews.html
No one from Chennai or Mumbai? I think that’s because there are no alumni in the area.