Early Action

Early Action *Update as of 2015: Early action is available to both domestic and international students. This year, we received 3493 applications for early action, 13% more than last year. We admitted 390 students, or 11% of the applicants. A similar number of students were denied, while those students in the middle, about three quarters of the applicants, were deferred to regular action for further consideration. I am often asked why MITs admit rate for early action is so low in comparison to the admit rate for early programs at other highly selective colleges (where the early admission rate is often much, much higher than the regular action admission rate). The reason is that we are committed to admitting no more than 30% of our class during early action. We feel that the pressures to apply early are too high, and dont want to further contribute to that by leaving only a very small number of spaces for regular action, further pressuring people to apply early. Additionally, we dont want to penalize those students who apply regular action. While this 30% is a much smaller percentage of the class admitted early than many other places (where, often, nearly half of the class is filled from a much smaller early pool), remember that here, being deferred is not a polite rejection. Deferred students are given full consideration again during regular action, where most (~75%) of our admitting is done. Many students were deferred, and I know that those students will be very competitive during the regular action process. For example, last year, we admitted 295 students during regular action who were deferred from early action (and the year before, it was 267). (Look for more entries on deferred applicants soon) I know I speak for all of the admissions officers when I say that this was the most challenging early action admissions weve ever done. There were so many incredible students who applied early this year, more than we can ever remember. We loved reading your applications. Thank you for applying!