What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$0 to $48,479 a year, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $82,730 a year. Average need-based aid package: $72,593.Aid and debt
$41,297
average debt at graduation
Not reported by this school: share receiving need-based grants, merit aid.
Getting In
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1520–1570 · 83% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 34–35 · 31% of the class submitted
97% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Character
- Important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- SAT/ACT scores
- Personal essay
- Recommendations
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Considered
- Class rank
- First-gen status
- Where you're from
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Not considered
- Legacy status
- In-state residency
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
MIT rates four things you can work on as Important: course rigor, your essay, your recommendations, and your activities.
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AP, IB, and dual-enrollment classes strengthen an application here — a strong mix of them helps. A strong essay can differentiate an otherwise average application. Recommendations matter here too — a recommender who knows you well helps. And depth and leadership in a few activities matter more than a long list.
MIT doesn't consider demonstrated interest in admissions at all — visits and follow-up emails won't move the needle here.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section C7 (admissions factors)
MIT just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-MIT essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
68.5% of MIT classes have fewer than 20 students.
68.5%
under 20 students
20.1%
20 to 49
11.4%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. MIT CDS 2025–26, I-3.
8:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
93%
live on campus
42%
of men in fraternities
26%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- Asian35.9%
- White21.6%
- Hispanic13.9%
- Black6.7%
- Multiracial6.5%
- Unknown / other3.6%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. MIT CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
85.9% of MIT students graduate in 4 years.
85.9%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
96%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
98.6%
return after first year
Finishing late means paying for extra semesters, so the 4-year rate is the one that shows the cost.
Students with Pell Grants
91% finish in 6 years, against 96% of all students.
A 5-point gap: Pell Grant students finish less often than students overall.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Cambridge.
The campus runs along the Charles River in Cambridge, facing Boston across the water, with Kendall Square — one of the densest concentrations of biotech and software anywhere — starting at its edge.
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Harvard is a twenty-minute walk up Massachusetts Avenue. Everything is reachable on foot or by subway.
The City
Major city
Cambridge, MA
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Richard Feynman
Shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for quantum electrodynamics, and taught a generation how to think about it. He took his bachelor's degree here in 1939.
Class of 1939
Buzz Aldrin
Second person to walk on the Moon. He earned his doctorate here in 1963 with a thesis on orbital rendezvous — the manoeuvre Apollo depended on.
Class of 1963
Kofi Annan
Secretary-General of the United Nations and joint winner of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He took a master's in management here in 1972.
Class of 1972
I. M. Pei
Designed the Louvre Pyramid and the East Building of the National Gallery. He graduated here in architecture in 1940.
Class of 1940
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
Hacks
Elaborate, technically ambitious pranks staged on campus — a police car and a fire truck have both appeared on the Great Dome overnight. The unwritten rules are that a hack must be safe, must not damage anything, and should be funny.
The Brass Rat
The class ring, redesigned by every class and worn with the beaver facing inward until graduation, then turned outward.
IAP
Independent Activities Period, the month of January when the ordinary curriculum stops and students take, or teach, whatever they like — from glassblowing to a course on nuclear reactor operation.
Course numbers instead of names
Students say they are in Course 6 or Course 18 rather than electrical engineering or mathematics, and the numbering is used in conversation as fluently as the names.
Weekend escapes from Cambridge
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Cambridge
Boston across the river
About 15 minutes by subwayMuseums, the North End, Fenway. Close enough that it is an evening rather than a trip.
The White Mountains
About 2 hours 30 minutesNew Hampshire's high peaks, for hiking in autumn and snow in winter.
Cape Cod
About 1 hour 30 minutesBeaches and dunes; the standard warm-weather escape from the city.
Vermont ski country
About 3 hoursKillington and Stowe, reachable for a long weekend.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Boston Logan International (BOS)
About 20 minutes from campus
Flies international — you can start a trip abroad from here.
Pro sports nearby
- Boston Red Sox MLB
- Boston Celtics NBA
- Boston Bruins NHL
- New England Patriots NFL
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Kendall Square begins at the edge of campus, which is why so much of the work students do for pay is a walk from their dorm.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Moderna
- Novartis
- Draper Laboratory
- Amazon
Kendall Square, immediately adjacent, with downtown Boston across the river
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
MIT admits 4.6% and requires the SAT or ACT, having reinstated the test when most of its peers did not — the middle half of enrolled first-years scored 1520 to 1570, so scores are a gate here rather than an option. It is small for its reputation, 4,561 undergraduates, and taught at that scale: an 8:1 student-faculty ratio and 68.5% of class sections under 20. Outcomes are what the selectivity implies, 85.9% finishing in four years and 96.0% within six. On money the answer is unusually clean — 100% of demonstrated need is met — and the debt figure needs reading carefully rather than at face value: graduates who borrow leave owing about $41,297, but only a small minority borrow at all, so that average describes a narrow group rather than the typical student. The part families underestimate is the culture. 93.0% live in university housing and 42.0% of men join a fraternity against 26.0% of women, which makes this a far more residential, more Greek place than its problem-set reputation suggests. A student who wants to be left alone with the work will find the dorm floor is the social unit whether they like it or not.