MIT’s Unique Admission Process

Many wonder what happens after the time you submit your application and the time you receive your decision?

For MIT, once your application is complete, it will be read by admissions officials who will evaluate it holistically and if your application is perceived as strong, it will be reviewed by another admission officer before presenting them for the Admissions Committee.

Your application will be sent to the selection committee, which will include numerous groups of admissions staff and faculty members. Before an application is placed in the accepted pile, at least a dozen people will discuss and debate it extensively.  It’s literally like the 2013 movie, Admission, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fclznaYtZEQ

At MIT(https://web.mit.edu/admissions-aid/), the admission committee assures that every judgment is carefully made in the context of the entire applicant pool, and its approach is student-centered rather than school- or region-centered.

This implies that MIT does not read your application alongside the applications of other students from your school or region in order to compare you to one another, like many other colleges do.

Each applicant is judged on their own merits. There are no quotas in place for schools, states, or regions, and it is a huge difference compared to all other top ranked colleges.  If other outstanding students from your school or area apply, you will not be at a disadvantage.  Also, another unique admission process at MIT is that it doesn’t take legacy/alumni relationships into account in the admission decision-making.

MIT’s very unique process in their admissions portrait is that MIT only focuses on students’ merit alone.  It can be considered as “fair” for some students, and as very “unequal” for others.