MIT Admissions

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Mikey Yang '05▾

May 10, 2011

Waitlist Decisions 2011

Posted in: Process & Statistics

For the sixth consecutive year, we will admit students from our waitlist. This year, a high number of admitted students have chosen to enroll, but we do plan to admit 26 students from the waitlist.

Today, around 3pm Eastern Daylight Time, we will notify the admitted students via email, informing them that they have been admitted from the waitlist. If you have applied for aid, the Financial Aid Office will follow up shortly thereafter with award packages. Admitted students can then choose to accept our offer (it is an understood part of admissions that some people will shuffle around during the waitlist period; you will lose your deposit at the other school, but it is a standard practice to consider accepting a waitlist offer) or decline it.

For all other students on the waitlist, we will notify them today via email (at approximately 3pm Eastern Daylight Time) that we will not be able to offer them admission. At that point, we will consider our waitlist "closed" and do not expect to admit any additional students this year for the Class of 2015.

Thanks to all of you on the waitlist for your time and patience during this process. Congrats to those that were admitted - we hope to see you in the fall. For those whom we were unable to admit this year, we wish you all the very best at the college you've chosen.

Comments (Closed after 30 days to reduce spam)

Whoa!! At least you should have given us some sort of warning, like saying that the decisions will come after a week or something similar. :O Decisions coming today is like OMG DECISIONS ARE COMING TODAY!!!

Posted by: 0 on May 10, 2011

Anyone get any news yet?

Posted by: anon on May 10, 2011

Hey you know, I thank you for the opportunity and everything... but it seems to me that if you waitlisted a thousand applicants and in the end admit 26 of those, didn't you just made it too safe? I know that you always warned that waitlists are uncertain (to the point to which it is even possible that nobody is admitted from it), but it just doesn't seem right (at least for me) to make that much applicants waiting... Thank you anyways, and I know that job isn't easy, but still, something doesn't seem right to me in all that.
Cheers, Guy

Posted by: Guy Fawkes on May 10, 2011

I'm both surprised and impressed that the admissions team was able to go from 1000 -> 26 in barely any time at all. In most years it seems that this is a week early.

Anyways, good luck all. Post when you get news--I haven't gotten an email either way yet.

Posted by: anon on May 10, 2011

Hmmm, I wonder what is taking so long... Perhaps it is difficult to e-mail a thousand persons at the same time? I hope it's not some misunderstanding and that we got the time wrong raspberry

Posted by: Guy Fawkes on May 10, 2011

Well, no luck here.
Going from 1000 to 26 is pretty crazy, though.

Posted by: anonymous on May 10, 2011

Just got the call. My daughter is in!

Posted by: Judy on May 10, 2011

Congratulations to everybody out there that got in from the dreaded waitlist. Sad to say, didn't make it, but Im glad I tried (:

Posted by: Victor on May 10, 2011

Rejected :(

I'll just go to that other institute of technology on the west coast, best coast!

Posted by: David on May 10, 2011

Just got the call. My daughter is in!

Posted by: Judy on May 10, 2011

Didn't get in, but so glad it's over smile

Posted by: Guy Fawkes on May 10, 2011

Please waitlist less people next year.... There hasn't really been an upward trend on the people accepted from the waitlist, so why waitlist more?

Posted by: anon on May 10, 2011

I have to say, being wait listed was overall a positive way for me to be let down. I was able to keep a sliver of hope, while simultaneously becoming attached to a different school, such that by today this doesn't hurt. Furthermore, being waitlisted was being told I wasn't rejected due to a lack of qualifications. Wait listing is a way of being told, "we'd like to if we had space."

As it is, I'm curious, where are the rest of you going? Harvey Mudd for me.

Posted by: Ari on May 10, 2011

Caltech 2015!!!

Posted by: 0 on May 10, 2011

Ari, I agree completely. If I received the rejection notification earlier, I would have been devastated, but I am now very much attached to another school, as you are.

That said, for those who still wanted very much to get admitted from the waitlist but were rejected, you have my sympathy.

(And for those who got in, CONGRATS!)

Posted by: Fang on May 10, 2011

To all my fellow waitlistees,

I agree with the comments above: in many ways we have to be happy that we were all waitlisted. Whether or not that letter we received on pi day translated into any real results, there is no doubt that MIT, and whatever school we choose to accept, feels like we will, in some way, be able to change the world. For some of us, this simply means we will go somewhere else, but we've known that, accepted it, and appreciate it for a while now. For others, this means we get to go to through the college decision fun time again, but this time on steroids.

I am truly blessed that I was considered among such a group of applicants and I will (fortunately or unfortunately) have to reevaluate my college decision again. But judging by the comments under this thread, none of us should be disappointed in the least. Just look at the schools you are going to: are any of these a walk in the park to get into?

So CONGRATS, to everyone. All of you are truly amazing, and good luck to whatever your endeavors may be in life, in any shape and in any form.

Posted by: ANONYMOUS on May 10, 2011

Any international students get in off the wait list? If so, from where?

Posted by: Anonymous on May 10, 2011

International student from Taiwan, got accepted, was notified by e-mail. I thought I had no chance at all, but I guess sending in a cover letter really helps.

Wow...2.6%. And they were supposed to distinguish international and US citizens too. I can't believe it. My elation has gone through the roof.

Posted by: International from Taiwan on May 11, 2011

@International from Taiwan: OMG!!! CONGRATULATIONS! A **shout out** to you from Taichung. You're in Chiayi, right? (I've done some intelligence work...)

I just emailed the entire list of MIT directory in Taiwan, and you should be able to get an invitation to our June 12 gathering soon! We'll meet current students (and a couple of graduates) in Taipei.

Email me if you want!

-Jeff
jeff dot chen at mit dot edu

Posted by: Jeff Chen on May 11, 2011

I meant *Hsinchu.*

Posted by: Jeff Chen on May 11, 2011

Didn't get in :( but i still love MIT! I'll definately try again as a transfer :D Congrats to all those who got in!

Posted by: Anonymous on May 11, 2011

Hi + congrats to all admittees... Join our facebook group: "MIT class of 2015" (as simple as that).! I'm waiting for you guys, and Congrats Again!!!!
As for international students, join also " MIT class of 2015 Internationals". Welcome ones more.!
MJ
MIT class of 2015!!!

Posted by: M.J on May 11, 2011

Didn't get in.. poop.
Guess I'm going to WashU (so far away T_T)

Posted by: JXC on May 11, 2011

Didn't get in. But I am not sad as I m going to Harvard!!!! Go Harvard!!!

Posted by: Asad'15 on May 12, 2011

but, i am sad, as it was, and still is my top choice.

Posted by: Manu on May 12, 2011

Congratulations to everybody who got in! Good luck to everyone else who didn't I am sure you will have no problem getting in next semester or next year should you choose to apply! (Come on if you can get waitlisted during the HARDEST YEAR IN MIT HISTORY then any normal year you will be rockin' it!) I found out via phone from a voicemail, they called while I was in the HL English Paper 2.

Posted by: David on May 12, 2011

Dear Members of the MIT Admissions Team,

I thank you for considering me worthy to even be on the wait list. I really appreciate it. Applying to MIT itself was an amazing ride and I hope I will be enrolling at MIT for a post graduate degree.

Posted by: Sarabjot Anand on May 13, 2011

I never sent in that card, but I still got the email haha. Thanks a lot though MIT. Being waitlisted was much better than being rejected because it made those 24 days or whatever it was while the rest of my decisions were pending easier. It made me know I still had a shot at some other places. If I was rejected, I think my hope would have plummeted.

Posted by: 0 on May 13, 2011

Reading through the comments, it's very interesting to see everyone's varied reactions to not getting in off the waitlist. Having been waitlisted at a school myself (one of my top choices) when applying to colleges, I know all too well the feeling of uneasiness and being in "limbo" - even worse (or better I guess, depending on how you look at it), I was offered January admission off the waitlist - i.e., "there's not enough room for you in the fall, but how about halfway through the academic year when some people have dropped out or graduated". It was an offer of admission, but still left me feeling on the fence. In other words, I feel your collective pain - at least to some extent.

Just to elaborate a bit more on the ratio of waitlisted students to those admitted - it does depend on a multitude of variables, many of which are difficult to predict. First, there is the "yield", or how many admitted students will choose to enroll, which affects how much space there is left in the class to admit from the waitlist. Second, not everyone we waitlist will choose to remain on the waitlist; many will decide to commit to another school that they are happy with. Third, even after we admit students off the waitlist, not all of them will decide to enroll. (Usually the vast majority do, but sometimes we need to go deeper into the waitlist to account for this.) Fourth, once students enroll, for various reasons each year, a small number of students change their minds over the summer and "melt", or "de-enroll" (typically to accept an offer of admission from another school's waitlist).

All of these things contribute to the need to have a healthy waitlist beyond what we may end up admitting (not to mention the fact that we think the waitlisted applicants are seriously amazing people whom we'd like to keep that possibility open for).

I hope that sheds a little light on some of the rationale. It's never easy for us to have to say "no" (or even worse, say "waitlist" and then say "no") to so many people, but I hope y'all will be able to take it from an optimistic perspective. We really thought you were incredible and amazing, and thus thought a spot on the waitlist would have been a better decision than an outright rejection.

All the best wishes to all of you - from the bottom of our hearts!

Posted by: Mikey on May 18, 2011

Is it theoretically possible that you admit a few more students from the waitlist this year? (because some admitted students may still decide not to enroll)

Thank you.

Posted by: Galstyan on May 18, 2011

@Galstyan - unfortunately, no. We took that into account ahead of time when we admitted the 26 students off the waitlist. As I mentioned in the post, we did close out our waitlist and finalized our decisions, so if you received an email from us stating we were not able to admit you off the waitlist, then that is the final decision.

Posted by: Mikey on May 18, 2011

@Mikey Thanks for the explanation. Of course that I still have a feeling that too much people were waitlisted, but I do understand that I don't know what that job is like and that you must obviously be right in describing all the variables. I don't think that you would like to put people through waitlist limbo if there wasn't a need for it. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Posted by: Guy Fawkes on May 18, 2011

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