Jobs: Join the team

If you ask our students the best thing about MIT, they will say “the people,” and we are the people who make that happen.

Our dedicated team recruits, selects, and enrolls talented students from diverse backgrounds who will succeed at MIT and make the world a better place. Some of us have spent our career in admissions; others had long careers in other fields before falling into the profession. Regardless of prior experience or current role, everyone on our team works together to support our mission-driven, student-centered admissions process, which we see as part of the public interest.

If the idea of challenging, meaningful, principled work — with dedicated people, for amazing students, at the world’s most dynamic institution of science and technology — appeals to you, then you might consider applying for one of the current openings to the right⁠01 Or at the bottom of this scroll, if you're on your phone 👉

In order to apply to these jobs, please go to MIT’s Careers website and search for the job ID number. Alternatively, you may select “Admissions Office” under the “Select Departments” field and search under that. You can also use this website to subscribe via email to alerts for job openings in the office.

About our office

The MIT Office of Undergraduate Admissions⁠02 MIT Admissions for short. oversees the recruitment and selection of all undergraduate applicants to the Institute, including both prospective first-year and transfer students. You can read more about our office here and view a current directory here.

The office is broadly organized into a few different teams. Each is chiefly responsible for leading some important area of our work, but we all work across teams to make that happen. In alphabetical order, they include:

• Campus Visits: welcomes more than 45,000 visitors to campus annually and provides friendly, helpful support to those with questions via email and phones
• Communications: oversees how we make MIT (and our admissions process) intelligible to a vast and varied audience, while retaining both factual accuracy and deep cultural resonance
• Educational Council: coordinates our international network of more than 5,000 alumni who serve as local ambassadors and conduct interviews
• Targeted Recruitment: designs and leads the programs and initiatives that help us recruit, select, and enroll a diverse student body, supported by the entire office
• Operations: develops and deploys the technical systems and analytical capabilities for the entire office to do its work
• Outreach: plans and produces on-campus (e.g. Campus Preview Weekend), off-campus (e.g. fall recruitment travel), and virtual events
• Research & Analysis: continuously studies our own processes and outcomes so that we can equitably enroll a diverse and talented student body that succeeds at MIT and in the world after
• Selection: designs and oversees the application process for both first-year and transfer students, helping to develop policy and processes that are in the best interest of applicants to MIT

Some members of the staff are admissions officers (AOs), who do recruitment travel, give information sessions, read applications, and select students in committee. Others do not have any admissions travel, reading, or committee responsibilities, but work alongside AOs to meet the needs of their teams. Whether or not they are admissions officers, everyone in our office is motivated by our incredible students and vibrant community. We also are deeply invested in the professional development of each person on the team. ⁠03 We have a specific leadership position dedicated to helping staff identify opportunities for themselves to learn and grow. The office encourages and supports professional development by e.g. funding the fees and travel for conferences, helping staff plan for continuing education, and looking for opportunities to collaborate across teams in the office to build cross-functional skills. While we work hard to retain our staff, we are also proud of the MIT Admissions employee alumni network, which spans not only traditional paths in higher ed or college counseling, but also doctoral programs, entrepreneurship, nonprofit leadership, and more.

We are often asked by interested people outside the profession: “what makes a good MIT admissions officer”?⁠04 Since every admissions office is different — with different priorities, serving different institutions, with different visions — what we say in this section and on most of the page applies primarily to MIT. There are many answers, but in general, they include:  

• The ability to read and write quickly, accurately, and well, with keen attention to detail, and the ability to discern pattern from chaos 
• The capacity to rapidly form a well-supported opinion, and just as rapidly defer to the collective judgment of the committee when situationally appropriate
• The adaptability to succeed in multiple professional contexts: reading at home alone, discussing cases in committee, and traveling to speak publicly before large audiences
• The discretion and tact to discuss deeply sensitive matters, and the integrity to be entrusted with extremely important decisions
• The initiative to work independently with minimal supervision over sustained periods

Certain roles in the office require specific skills, but these are the underlying attributes common to people who tend to enjoy, and do well in, the admissions profession.

Beyond the pay and benefits, most of us find deep meaning in the people we serve as stewards of the Institute. Working at MIT means working among some of the most creative, brilliant, thoughtful people in the world. While most of us aren’t alumni of the Institute, many of us have developed deep connections with the community through our own cultural match with MIT.

You can read more about the mission, vision, and principles of our office here.