Ask anyone at MIT what their favorite thing is about the Institute and they’ll probably say “the people.” The quality of the MIT community is the single biggest reason why admitted students enroll, and why Professor Emeritus Jay Keyser once observed that “MIT is hard to get into, and even harder to leave.”
The people at MIT
The best asset of MIT isn’t the nuclear reactor or the wind tunnel: it’s the people.
We search the world for students who we think will be a good fit at MIT, and try to put together the best team of students to go through MIT together. On your journey, we will surround you with brilliant faculty, helpful graduate students, caring staff, and an idiosyncratic extended family who will inspire and guide you along the way.
What follows is a brief overview of some of the kinds of people you’ll find at MIT. We believe the humans of MIT are truly special, and we hope that among them you will find a sense of home.
Our undergraduates
In any given year there are ~4,500 undergraduates at MIT. They hail from all 50 states and more than 100 countries. The undergraduate population is 51% men and 49% women, and among them there is no majority race or ethnicity. MIT students come from a wide range of economic and educational backgrounds, and has the highest economic mobility index of its peer schools. Long a home for those who felt like they had no other, MIT has one of the oldest LGBTQ+ student groups in the country, as well as several ethnic or cultural affinity houses, and an affirming home for international, undocumented, and trans* students.
We wish we could tell you about how awesome our undergrads are. But anything we could tell you would fail to capture it. The next best thing you can do is read the blogs and see for yourself.
Graduate students
There are more than 7,000 graduate students at MIT. Some of them are MIT alumni, while others come from hundreds of other universities around the nation and the world. Graduate students do not teach undergraduate classes at MIT, but they do serve as academic and social mentors, by leading discussion sections for large classes, or by serving as live-in Graduate Resident Advisors in the residence halls. They’re responsible for providing advice, mediating conflict, and managing stress. Most MIT undergrads will, at some point, pursue a graduate degree, and benefit from having outstanding graduate students closely involved as advisors in their undergraduate education.
Faculty
MIT has ~1,000 tenured and tenure-track faculty, all of whom teach and conduct research, and ~1,000 members of the academic instructional staff, who possess training and credentials similar to those of faculty members but who are solely dedicated to teaching. There are 10 Nobel Prize Laureates, 26 MacArthur Genius Grant Winners, and one Pulitzer Prize winner among MIT’s current faculty.
Jay Keyser, in his book on MIT culture, observed that there is an “incredibly strong bond” between MIT students and faculty, in part, because both students and faculty often realize that they are of like kind, just separated by age and experience. Our faculty see themselves in our students, and our students, in some cases, aspire to become our faculty, or at least to become more like them: smart, hardworking, creative, and accomplished.
Staff
There are over 5,000 non-academic staff at MIT. They administer majors, support activities, protect campus, provide therapy, deliver mail, hand-letter doors, and, yes, read applications. Drawn initially by the work, many are kept here by their love for the Institute and its humans; indeed, an uncommon number of MIT staff are “lifers,” and a select few have even been made honorary members of the MIT Alumni Association for extraordinary, lifelong service to the Institute.
Our values
In December 2020, responding to calls from the community that MIT would benefit from having a statement of shared values, the Institute charged the MIT Values Statement Committee to develop one through broad consultation across the MIT community. On April 12, 2022, President Rafael Reif, Provost Cynthia Barnhart, and Chancellor Melissa Nobles shared the values statement with the community, with their strong endorsement. Read more about our shared values.
Extended family
MIT operates an open campus. The wifi doesn’t require a password, and its museums and libraries are open to the public. This unusual degree of access has deep cultural roots in our longstanding commitment to the public interest. So long as people aren’t bothering anyone, they’re generally welcome on campus.
It’s not uncommon to see people without a formal MIT affiliation spending significant time around campus: not just the usual lecturers or tourists, but also local jugglers and fire spinners who have adopted MIT as their institutional home. We’re very happy to have them, and hope that they take some of the values of MIT with them wherever they go.
