News

1548 admitted frosh for the Class of 2017

Record low acceptance rate of 8.2%

Yesterday evening, 898 high school seniors found extra reason to celebrate, besides the inherent mathiness of the date. As per tradition, MIT released admissions decisions for the fall’s incoming freshman class on Pi Day at precisely 6:28 p.m., or “tau o’clock,” in honor of pi’s bigger cousin constant.

Over 18,989 students applied this year, yielding a record-low acceptance rate of 8.2 percent (650 were admitted under early action), compared to 8.9 percent last year and 9.6 percent in 2011. Simply because of the higher number of applicants and lower acceptance rate, which was partly influenced by MIT’s unexpectedly high yield last year, Dean of Admissions Stu Schmill ’86 emphasized the admissions office’s regrets at needing to turn away more excellent students. However, he mentioned that the admissions office will try to admit students off the waitlist due to the low acceptance rate, unlike last year when no students from the waitlist were admitted to the class of 2016. A final decision on the waitlist has not yet been made.

The admitted Class of 2017 hails from all 50 states and 58 different countries. 48 percent of the students are women, and 16 percent are first generation college students. Rounding out the diversity, 24 percent are underrepresented minorities — 9 percent African-American, 15 percent Hispanic, 1 percent Native American — plus 36 percent Caucasians, 30 percent Asian-Americans, and 8 percent international students for the remainder of the class. In comparison, the class of 2016 is 8 percent African-American, 15 percent Hispanic, 1 percent Native American, 37 percent Caucasian, and 28 percent Asian-American; 46 percent are women.

Interestingly, a number of the admitted students noted that they had explored classes on edX, an online system of free courses from MIT, Harvard, and Berkeley. In its inaugural year, edX turned out to be a great extension for students to go above and beyond their high school curriculum. The classes expose and give students a preview of the depth of academic material they will encounter at a school like MIT, Schmill said. That experience can be very different from, say, taking classes at a local community college, which many previously have done for enrichment.

Based off the high number of interested applicants, Schmill expressed pleasure that consciousness about MIT seems to be growing, both domestically and internationally. “Young people today are growing up with a greater appreciation of science and technology, more so than just about any other time,” he said.



9 Comments
1
Anonymous over 11 years ago

How many students applied early action?

2
Leon over 11 years ago

1: 6541 students. http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N61/ea.html

3
Anonymous over 11 years ago

"A final decision on the waitlist has not yet been made." Does that mean no one was notified who was waitlisted yet? My son was rejected but might he still be waitlisted???

4
Kath over 11 years ago

It means that those who were waitlisted have yet to find out whether or not they will be accepted off the waiting list. Unfortunately, a rejection is final.

5
Class of \'67 over 11 years ago

Could the great ingfographic of 2016 vs 2017 be aligned? One class seems to rotated pi radians from the other.

6
Anonymous over 11 years ago

I second the request 5.

7
Anonymous over 11 years ago

The Tech should write a script to reject any article containing the phrase "based off".

8
Anonymous over 11 years ago

What's the international student acceptance rate?

9
Anonymous over 11 years ago

Pl. give me the Number of your premed students enrolled in 2013 in MD at Harvard ,Yale,Columbia,Wasu,Stanford

John Hopkin.