Massachusetts Institute of Technology

about

The mission of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century. We are also driven to bring knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges.

The Institute is an independent, coeducational, privately endowed university, organized into five Schools (architecture and planning; engineering; humanities, arts, and social sciences; management; and science). It has some 1,000 faculty members, more than 11,000 undergraduate and graduate students, and more than 130,000 living alumni.

At its founding in 1861, MIT was an educational innovation, a community of hands-on problem solvers in love with fundamental science and eager to make the world a better place. Today, that spirit still guides how we educate students on campus and how we shape new digital learning technologies to make MIT teaching accessible to millions of learners around the world.

MIT’s spirit of interdisciplinary exploration has fueled many scientific breakthroughs and technological advances. A few examples: the first chemical synthesis of penicillin and vitamin A. The development of radar and creation of inertial guidance systems. The invention of magnetic core memory, which enabled the development of digital computers. Major contributions to the Human Genome Project. The discovery of quarks. The invention of the electronic spreadsheet and of encryption systems that enable e-commerce. The creation of GPS. Pioneering 3D printing. The concept of the expanding universe.

Current research and education areas include digital learning; nanotechnology; sustainable energy, the environment, climate adaptation, and global water and food security; Big Data, cybersecurity, robotics, and artificial intelligence; human health, including cancer, HIV, autism, Alzheimer’s, and dyslexia; biological engineering and CRISPR technology; poverty alleviation; advanced manufacturing; and innovation and entrepreneurship.

MIT’s impact also includes the work of our alumni. One way MIT graduates drive progress is by starting companies that deliver new ideas to the world. A recent study estimates that as of 2014, living MIT alumni have launched more than 30,000 active companies, creating 4.6 million jobs and generating roughly $1.9 trillion in annual revenue. Taken together, this "MIT Nation" is equivalent to the 10th-largest economy in the world!

What Humanities Students are Making

From music composed from big bang particle energy to a handset printing press to virtual reality programs, take a look at what students are making in MIT's humanities, arts and social science (HASS) fields. Watch the video.

RA Interview Deadline

The RA deadline to set up your interview is December 10. Find out who your EC is by logging into your MyMIT account. Don't wait until the deadline to reach out to your EC.

December Test Scores for RA

If you are taking the standardized tests in December, you must list MIT to receive your scores. You should also list the test date on Part 2 of your application so we know to wait for your results. Don't worry—the scores will arrive in time for our review. You don’t need to use rush reporting.

Document Processing Time

All documents require processing! It can take up to 10 business days for materials to appear on your MyMIT tracking page.

Designing the First-Year Experience

A team of students, faculty and staff from across the Institute has developed a new course with an ambitious goal: to reimagine the educational experience of first-year undergraduate students at MIT. Offered in spring 2018, the class will lead a community-based design effort that conceptualizes the first-year experience as a complex system. Learn more.

Incredible Faculty

We are a research university that places a great deal of emphasis on undergraduate education. There are 21 MacArthur Genius Grant Fellows, 10 Nobel Prize Laureates, and 2 Pulitzer Prize winners, among many other luminaries, currently on our faculty, and all of them teach undergraduate classes.

In fact, all classes at MIT are taught by distinguished professors because we believe that you should learn from the very best from the moment you step foot on campus. That's why folks like Eric Lander, father of the Human Genome Project, teaches introductory biology.

Student Collaboration

MIT also has a strong culture of student collaboration. Students are encouraged and expected to work with each other on homework—or psets, in MIT parlance. For any given pset, you likely won't be able to do everything on your own, so you'll find (or make) a few friends in the class and go work together to get it done.

We do this because it's how problems are solved in the real world—by small teams of smart people contributing their individual expertise and understanding. When you graduate from MIT and go to work at a Fortune 500 company or a nonprofit, or as an entrepreneur delivering an elevator pitch, you're going to need to know how to work with others. So that's what you'll do here at MIT.

Research @ MIT

MIT students have unparalleled opportunities to engage in cutting-edge research as undergraduates.

Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program

The flagship MIT student research program is UROP. When you do a UROP, you will find a professor who is working on something that you think is awesome. You and the professor will work on a proposal, and then you will join their team. 90% of undergraduates complete at least one research experience through UROP before they graduate, and most do four or more. Many of them will be credited as co-authors on peer-reviewed publications. Some even earn patents—our Technology Licensing Office has signed 50-75 option and license agreements every year for the past five years.

By the example of their own lives, a crucial part of what our faculty members teach is the "instinct" for first-class research: the disciplined curiosity, the irreverent creativity, the endless ability to persevere. At MIT, those skills and values are as much a part of the atmosphere as oxygen.

Research labs at which you could pursue a UROP include:

The Center for Civic Media, which develops new technologies that support civic media and activism

The Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, a National Cancer Institute designate and the hub of cancer research on the MIT campus

D-Lab, which develops sustainable technologies and solutions for problems in the developing world

MIT Game Lab, which develops games to demonstrate and conduct research

MIT's nuclear reactor, which conducts advanced, interdisciplinary research on materials science and radiation therapy

plus hundreds of other laboratories across campus.

Global Research: MISTI

If you'd like to pursue your research globally, you can undertake a fully-funded internship through the MIT International Science & Technology Initiative (MISTI). Programs are designed to provide real-life work experience in leading companies and labs around the world.

Education

Spanning five schools — architecture and planning; engineering; humanities, arts, and social sciences; management; and science — and more than 30 departments and programs, an education at MIT covers more than just science and technology.

Arts, business, global languages, health and more complete an education at MIT, and the Institute makes freely available its class lecture notes, exams and videos through MIT's OpenCourseWare and complete courses are offered through the new online-learning initiative, edX.