| Full-time Masters of Science |
Admission process.
The admission process at MIT is very straight forward. You can either
fill out an online application or request for a hard copy form which
will be sent to you via mail (http://web.mit.edu/admissions/www); this
also works for international students. Once you have all your
documents you should ask a person to review it, and make sure you are
sending all what is requested.
Most of the following information is applicable to graduate schools.
There is one deadline for admissions, except for the MBA at Sloan. It
is recommended that you apply the earliest to any program, however, in
most of the cases applications will be reviewed after the given
deadline. I totally advice to fill out your application with a
typewriter or in a computer. You should send your applications within
the timeframe given.
Once the applications are received the Admissions Committee of each
department will gather and start reviewing each application. This
often takes 8 weeks. The process is very competitive and
transparent. You can check with the admissions coordinator that your
materials arrived and then wait patiently, they will definitively
contact you. If you have not heard back from them and you need to
make a decision i.e. accept or decline another University, you should
contact the admissions coordinator and let them know. You should also
try to buy time from the other institution.
As an applicant you can be very proactive in your process. You should
definitively review the web page both from the university and your
department. If you already know your specific interests, identify a
professor or faculty member with similar interests and contact him/her
via email. Ask your contact for a brief interview, either by phone or
personally; faculty would usually be very friendly. You should
contact two or three people, and be polite, patient and persistent
while looking for their feedback. Once you have shown interest, your
contact can be a great support and guidance for your admission.
Another source of information is that given by enrolled students either
at the Masters of PHD level. You can contact the admissions
coordinator at the program you are applying and find out if there are
students willing to do so. You can also see in the web some of the
projects that students are doing and then contact them.
While doing this research you will find appealing areas you did not
know before. Also you should check some research or ongoing projects
at your department, related departments and other areas of your
interest i.e. if you are a Humanities major and are interested in how
computers affect human development today, you can check both the Social
Sciences Dept. and the Media Lab, which has cutting edge research
topics. You have very good chances you will be involved in a project
while you are a student at MIT.
All of the previous is vital in your application process.
Most MBA programs and others will have an interview. If you have done
the previous you have a really good source of background information
and you can demonstrate your interest. For interviews it??s good to be
prepared. Although it may not be a job interview, you should really
stand out. Be genuine and listen very well. Be prepared to
communicate your achievements and goals.
Regarding the application, all the documents are important. Your
undergraduate grades are taken into account, your GRE score is
fundamental so try your best. Do prepare for it, you can do it on you
own, with books and internet resources (www.gre.org). These two are
more requirements, but a master piece is your essay and recommendation
letters. I??d say you should take a least a month to develop your
essay. At first let all ideas come, and then you will need to narrow
them down. Be specific, genuine, and original. Articulate your life,
academic interests and the programs and areas you will be pursuing
further while at this institution. Explore and look for patterns,
topics, or things that are core in your life and that relate to what
you want to do at MIT. For instance, you want to do something related
to Automotive Design, express activities, happenings, family ties etc.
that link you to that. Essays are limited to X amount of words, if you
exceed them, don??t worry, but try to limit it. Respond to yourself,
why am I picking sincerely MIT? Why this program? Finally, link all
of these to what is going on in your target program.
Recommendation letters are the crucial complement of your essay. They
may come easy and may not. Do them very early as they may get
delayed; be aware they depend on others. However, you can do some work
for your recommenders. Show them a draft of your essay, if not; write
a list of your interests and goals, and how they relate to the
program. This will give them material to write. Make available your
resume to them too. Ask them kindly to be candid and be clear about
the deadline. You should set a deadline for yourself i.e. 3 weeks
before the application deadline. You can have the letters send
directly to the university or have them given to you in a sealed
envelope with their signatures on top. Your referees should
definitively be people who really and honestly know you. A former
professor, your boss, a client you worked with; someone who knows your
for some time (more than a year). Ask them to talk about their work
experiences with you, how they see you as a professional and
personally. The more information they give about you, the better.
MIT is very competitive. There is a ratio of 1 to 8/10 for each 8/10
applicants, one is accepted. You can be the one, if you have been
serious about your process, and if you are enthusiastic. There would
be people, literally, from all over the world, with all kind of
interests and backgrounds. Your quantitative skills matter for most
of the programs, but there are also social sciences and humanities
programs that are exciting. It??s the University with the highest
population of Asian Americans; full of diversity both in faculty and
students. International students are a very high percentage. Just
do it!
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Graduate Science/Engineering Degrees Admission & Application Surveys
