<p>I was wondering how the transfer rate at MIT is if...</p>
<p>Scenario 1: someone chooses to attend another school for a year and then transfer to MIT to complete undergraduate</p>
<p>Scenario 2: someone completes undergraduate at another school and then transfers to MIT for graduate school</p>
<p>Because I'm thinking of heading into Scenario 2 if I get rejected. Not to be pessimistic or anything, but I'm keeping it real and finding me some backups =)</p>
<p>It's definitely good to have a backup. Here's some information:
MIT</a> Office of the Provost, Institutional Research</p>
<p>Scenario 1 is possible but stupidly rare (several students per year).
Scenario 2 is quite common and even normal. Indeed in some departments, they insist on a different undergraduate and graduate institution in order to achieve greater breadth.</p>
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Scenario 2: someone completes undergraduate at another school and then transfers to MIT for graduate school
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That's not a transfer -- it's an entirely different application process. (It's no more a transfer than is going to a different undergraduate school from your high school.)</p>
<p>Graduate school admissions are done entirely by program, not centrally by MIT, so it would matter which program you'd be looking to attend. Most of the graduate programs are pretty competitive, and some have lower admit rates than the undergraduate program at MIT.</p>
<p>Mollie's "...some have lower admit rates than the undergraduate program..." can best be interpreted as MOST have MUCH lower admit rates than the undergraduate program.</p>
<p>^^do u have proof of this? I think maybe only engineering grad admissions might be hard for non-mit undergrads because admissions is easier for the undergrads .. It seems much easier to become a science grad student in bio or chem than an undergrad.</p>
<p>Well, a lot of the grad programs have admit rates that are higher than the undergraduate program -- bio, for example, interviews about 30% of applicants, then admits about 2/3 of those who interview. So about 20% of applicants get in overall, versus ~13% of undergrad applicants.</p>
<p>But I think it's probably a mistake to see the 20% admit rate vs. 13% and conclude that it's easier to get into MIT biology as a graduate student than as an undergrad. </p>
<p>The admit rates for some of the engineering programs are artificially high because of the large number of MIT undergrads who are applying and getting in. I think US News shows the aero/astro master's program as having about a 50% admit rate, but MIT undergrads are hugely successful in gaining admission to that program -- in my husband's year, only two MIT course 16 undergrads didn't get in. </p>
<p>(And, collegealum, course 7 now admits MIT undergrads, and at least when I applied in 2006, the admit rate for MIT undergrads applying to the program was ~100%. So some of those spots are now taken by MIT undergrads as well.)</p>
<p>Well, I've seen people apply to both undergrad and graduate programs, and guys who wouldn't have had much of a chance to get in as an undergrad got in for graduate school. That's what I'm basing it on.</p>
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can best be interpreted as MOST have MUCH lower admit rates than the undergraduate program.
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<p>I am aligned with collegealum134 and molliebatmit when I say that I am almost certain that the above quoted statement is false. If anything, I suspect that most (not all, but most) of the MIT grad programs have higher admissions percentages than does the undergrad program. For example, USNews Graduate Edition states that 22% of the applicants to MIT's graduate engineering programs (aggregated across all engineering disciplines and across both master's and PhD programs) are admitted. Similarly, 20% of the applicants to the MBA program at the MIT Sloan School of Management are admitted. Granted, I don't have information about all of the other programs at MIT, but I doubt that, when aggregated all together, the analysis would lead one to believe that most grad programs have far lower admissions percentages than does the undergrad program. </p>
<p>But I also agree with molliebatmit when she says that admissions rates by themselves do not tell you much about how hard it is to actually get into a particular program, due to the nature of self-selection.</p>
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But I think it's probably a mistake to see the 20% admit rate vs. 13% and conclude that it's easier to get into MIT biology as a graduate student than as an undergrad
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<p>As a corollary to this, I can tell you that it is the general feeling amongst the MIT grad students that the undergrads are, on average, actually more talented than they are, the exception of course being those MIT grad students who were themselves former MIT undergrads (or Caltech undergrads).</p>
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Well, I've seen people apply to both undergrad and graduate programs, and guys who wouldn't have had much of a chance to get in as an undergrad got in for graduate school. That's what I'm basing it on.
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<p>I think we have to keep in mind that grad and undergrad admissions are quite different in their character. MIT undergrad admissions, like UG admissions at all top programs, are highly comprehensive and holistic in nature. For example, being a star athlete or other such stellar EC work can help you immensely in getting into MIT for undergrad, despite (or perhaps even because of) the fact that they have nothing to do with academics. But, with the exception of a few programs - notably the Sloan MBA program - MIT grad programs don't run holistic admissions. They don't really care about your EC's that are unrelated to academics. Being a star oboe player isn't going to help you to get into the MIT Bioengineering PhD program.</p>
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It's no more a transfer than is going to a different undergraduate school from your high school
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<p>Uh, doesn't everybody have to go to a 'different' undergrad school from their high school? Is it even possible to stay at your high school for undergrad?</p>
<p>@sakky: What I will say is this: If you are smart enough to graduate phi beta kappa at MIT, undergrad admissions will be much harder for you than grad admissions. (Yes, I know you need research for grad admissions, but it's not all that hard to get like a 2nd author publication.)</p>
<p>There is some controversy over how much being an athlete or having non-academic EC's help you. I wouldn't say it helps you "tremendously" as it does at the ivies. However, the MIT adcomms have been a little vague on this issue so it's hard to tell.</p>
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If you are smart enough to graduate phi beta kappa at MIT, undergrad admissions will be much harder for you than grad admissions.
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<p>Oh, I don't know that you really need to do that well academically to get into some of the MIT grad programs. Take Sloan for example. Frankly speaking, some of the Sloan MBA students aren't exactly geniuses. Sure, they're smooth and savvy businessmen and networkers, but I think even they would admit that they aren't the most brilliant people in the world and that the MIT undergrads - including the Sloan undergrads - probably have more pure brainpower than they do. {Then again, I don't think that MBA students at any of the elite schools are tremendously brilliant, as MBA programs aren't really admitting for 'brilliance' anyway. Brilliance isn't really that important in the business world compared to other traits such as leadership, boldness, self-promotion, social skills, etc. There's a big difference between knowing what the right answer is and being able to convince others that you have the right answer.}</p>
<p>well, the MBA program is pretty different from the rest of the grad programs in terms of what they are looking for.</p>
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Right, and going to college from high school isn't a "transfer", just like going to grad school from undergrad isn't a "transfer".</p>
<p>I think that in one sense, it is easier to get into a top grad program than a top undergrad program -- in science grad school admissions, there is a set of clear, albeit nonnumerical, things that will pretty much guarantee your admission. If you have a letter (or two!) from famous people in your field that say you walk on water, you will get into all of the top grad schools in your field. If you are an author on a paper in a top journal in your field, you will get into all of the top grad schools in your field. </p>
<p>The hard part, of course, is getting those experiences in the first place, and not everybody who's competitive for a top school as an undergrad will be competitive for a top school as a graduate student.</p>
<p>Undergrad admissions is much more difficult to predict, and, other than a small number of people at the top who are very highly qualified, everybody has approximately the same qualifications. In grad school admissions, I think the pool has qualifications which are much more bimodal.</p>
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well, the MBA program is pretty different from the rest of the grad programs in terms of what they are looking for.
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<p>The same could be said for some of the other grad programs. For example, I don't think you need to be a supergenius to get into, say, the Master in City Planning (MCP) program in the MIT Urban Studies and Planning department (course 11). Or the TPP program. Or the SDM program. Or the ESD program. Relatively speaking, these are pretty easy grad programs to get into, and almost certainly easier than is the undergrad program.</p>
<p>The bottom line is this. I strongly suspect that it is significantly easier to get into some grad program at MIT than it is to get into the undergrad program, as long as you don't really care which grad program you get into.</p>