Am I rural or small-town? by Nicole Cooper

Well, are you rural?

You might have heard about the STARS College Network—which stands for Small-Town and Rural Students—and wondered, “Am I from a rural or small town?”. This is an iteration of one of the most common questions I get at college fairs and webinars:

“Does MIT consider {insert town name I have never heard of} a small town in their admission process?”

While I know the ideal answer to the question above is a solid “yes” or “no”, rurality is much more nuanced than that. Answering that question without more information can be reductive to your lived experience. However, I can help you think about place and how it shapes your access to resources, your perspective, and your resilience, and the inherent strengths of this experience.

So this is where I come in —because at the end of the day, it’s about your lived experience, not just your zip code.

Understanding rurality and small-town life: Starting with the data

Figuring out what rural and small-town means isn’t as simple as drawing a line on a map. The U.S. Census Bureau defines “rural” as basically everything that isn’t an urban area. Not super helpful, right? The USDA provides further guidance with maps.

According to the U.S. Census, about 60 million Americans live in these rural spaces—stretched across places as different as lobster towns in Maine, mountain communities in Montana, small Southern towns, and farming hubs in the Midwest.

When reading applications, we try our best to get a good sense of the place(s) in which you’ve grown up—reading up on how a place has developed over the last twenty years, using Google Maps to see how far away common resources are (I mentioned Taco Bell earlier because we jokingly call that our Taco Bell Index, but it’s much more than just Taco Bells), or seeing how long it takes most of your neighbors to drive to work.

While they can be a great starting point for us (and for you) to understand the size of your town, and its relation to resources often found in larger cities, these definitions and tools don’t really capture the true essence of what it is like to live in a rural area or a small town (even though I do care about how long it takes you to drive to get a Crunchwrap Supreme).Here at MIT, we don’t refer to rural as “everything else that is left” because these spaces and places are much more than that. They have strengths and texture that bring value to campus communities, that are largely missing (but we are working on changing that!).

Your essays are the next step to understanding your experience, and are a great place to help an admission officer understand your hometown and how it has shaped you beyond the US Census. We focus on your story—how growing up has shaped your perspective, resilience, and problem-solving abilities.

What are we looking for in a small-town or rural area?

When we talk about rural and small-town students, we’re not just hunting for zip codes or checking boxes. We’re valuing the kind of life and how it shapes—the grit, the creativity, and the deep sense of community that comes from growing up in places where everyone knows your name (and probably your dog’s, too).

It is important to think about the shared commonalities of rural and small-towns, like a lack of public transportation, small class sizes, dirt roads, no major airports, or a sport franchise. A place where you are often surrounded by large masses of land, where cows on drives are common, and the state-fair and backyard cookouts make the highlights of the year.

I always say,

“If you’ve seen one rural or small town, you’ve seen…well…one rural or small town.”

These communities are incredibly diverse, each with its own character, strengths, and quirks.

Maybe you live in a town where “traffic” means waiting behind a line of combines during harvest season, being stopped behind a cattle drive, or where your high school’s idea of a college fair is a stack of brochures in the counselor’s office. Perhaps the nearest Taco Bell is a full tank of gas away. Maybe you’ve gotten really good at fixing things yourself because the nearest specialty store is two counties over. Or maybe you’re from a small town where Friday night football is practically a holiday and every face in the bleachers is familiar. You might live in a place with one main street, where the coffee shop is the heartbeat of the community, and your teacher is also your neighbor and your cousin’s basketball coach. Where you don’t have AP courses, and where going to college means going to a 2-year institution (which is great, but not for everyone).

We’re talking about students who live it—who know what it means to attend a school where AP classes are few and far between, if they exist at all. Where they have to advocate for their classes, drive 30 minutes to their dual credit course, and know what a hardship permit is. Where participating in a robotics competition means borrowing equipment from neighboring districts or building prototypes out of spare parts found in your uncles shop. Where accessing a science lab with proper equipment requires a two-hour drive to the nearest community college.

These are students who travel hours for college fairs or rely on virtual tours because campus visits aren’t feasible and the sight of an Ivy League institution in their hometown is unheard of. It’s about learning to maximize the resources available—joining 4-H or FFA to get hands-on experience with agriculture and engineering, volunteering at local clinics to explore healthcare, or building makeshift studios in basements for art and design projects.
Perhaps some of these descriptors resonate with you.

Your story matters and what this means for you:

These experiences—no matter how small they seem—bring something valuable to MIT. They offer perspectives that are grounded, innovative, and refreshingly different. When you’re used to making the most of what you have, you see possibility where others might not. For example, some students talk about using scrap materials to build a clubhouse, fix a fence, or repair farm equipment or organizing community events (like prom) in the high school gym because it’s the largest gathering space in town.These are all characteristics that mold a perspective. Rural and small-town aren’t just map dots. They’re mindsets—a way of thinking creatively that adds to the classroom in innovative ways.

While rural and small-town experiences are something we pay attention to, it’s important to know that this isn’t about admitting rural students instead of urban students. It’s about finding talent in places that have historically been overlooked. Expanding our reach means uncovering brilliance that may have otherwise gone unseen—not shifting the scales, but widening the lens.MIT isn’t just trying to “diversify” for diversity’s sake. We’re building a community of problem-solvers with a wide range of perspectives and skills—and rurality and small-town life come with their own set of strengths. Which is why we need you to share these strengths with us! If you’ve grown up doing more with less, solving problems creatively, and supporting your community along the way, you already have many of the qualities we look for in MIT students.

TLDR; if you’re wondering, “Does knowing how to drive a tractor or starting a community garden in a town with one stoplight matter to admission officers?”—the answer is a resounding YES. Tell us your rural and small-town story. Take advantage of the STARS College Network and the free programs that MIT and other institutions plan and host to help you with the college application process so you can better learn how your unique strengths gained from living in a rural area or small-town are important in the process . Share what your place, your home, your community has taught you. It doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s—because just like every small town is its own world, every student’s story is its own adventure. We want to hear yours.