MIT Early Action Decisions Now Available Online by Chris Peterson SM '13

MIT Early Action admissions decisions for the Class of 2025 are now available in the application portal. To check your decision, login to the portal and visit your Application Status page. There, you will be able to see your decision by clicking View Update. There are no interim screens, so you should be sure you are prepared to receive your decision before you click View Update. 

This year, 15,036 students applied for early admission to MIT. This is an unprecedented increase of approximately 62% from last year’s early action period, when we received 9,291. As I wrote a few weeks ago, our dedicated staff has worked tirelessly for weeks to ensure that every applicant receives the individual attention they deserve; we are very proud of, and grateful for, all their hard work. I also know that our prospective students (and their teachers, counselors, and mentors) worked hard to complete and submit their applications amidst all the COVID-related disruptions, and we appreciate that too. 

As of *checks watch* right now, we have offered early admission to 719 newly-minted members of the Class of 2025. These students hail from more than 500 high schools scattered across the globe, from Maine to Mongolia and many places in between. We can’t wait to welcome them to campus to join the 4,360 outstanding undergraduates who already call MIT home. Though they are all different in their own way — fencers and farmers, pilots and powerlifters, beekeepers and biologists — they are united by a shared standard of rigorous academics, high character, and a strong match with MIT’s mission to use science, technology, and the useful arts to make the world a better place.

We deferred 10,656 applicants.⁠01 I know this looks like a large number, and it is. In recent years, we have typically deferred a majority of applicants because we want to give them as much time to develop as possible and make the most informed decision we can. As a matter of philosophy we try to always give the student the benefit of the doubt, so we usually err on the side of deferring, rather than denying, students in Early. Given the increase in the applicant pool, and the significant disruption and uncertainty produced by the pandemic, we had many applicants who we would like to consider again in a few weeks. These students will be reconsidered without prejudice in Regular Action. If you are deferred, you are not expected to send us any new information besides the February Updates and Notes Form, which will become available in mid-January in your application portal. We have posted more information for deferred students here; you can also read posts from bloggers who were deferred here, here, here, and most recently here. 

Given the competitiveness of our pool, we have also informed 3,101 students that we will not be able to offer them admission this year. This decision has been made with care, and it is final. I know this can be a difficult decision to receive, but trust me: it works out okay in the end. Take a deep breath, shake it off, and go crush the rest of your college applications (or whatever else you choose to do) this year.

The balance of the applicants withdrew from our process before we issued decisions or requested to be switched to Regular Action; we wish them luck in their college search.

We recognize it’s a lot of effort for all of you to apply to MIT. It’s an honor and a privilege for us to read your applications. Thank you.

Again, congratulations to the newest members of the Class of 2025. I’ll be closing comments on this post to focus the conversations on the open threads for admitted, deferred, and not-admitted students immediately below.

All best, everyone; wishing you healthy and happy holidays.