6,102 apply early to MIT, slight drop from last year
6,102 apply early to MIT, slight drop from last year
6,102 people applied early-action to MIT this year, a 4.72 percent drop from last year’s 6,405. Early applications were due Nov. 1, though some residents affected by the late October blizzard were granted an extension. Early applicants can expect to hear back from MIT around mid-December.
Those 6,102 applicants represent over five times the target size of the Class of 2016, about 1,130 (roughly the same as the Class of 2015, but larger than Classes 2012—2014). Last year, 12 percent of early applicants were admitted to MIT — slightly higher than the regular decision rate of 9.6 percent.
MIT has a nonbinding early action program, which means applicants can submit early applications to other schools in addition to MIT. Harvard University, which had stopped its early admission program in 2007, reinstated it this year in a single-choice early action form — if they apply to Harvard, applicants can apply nowhere else early. Binding early action programs might account for fewer early applicants to schools that compete with Harvard, like MIT.
—Ethan A. Solomon