MIT Admitted 1438 Students to the Class of 2021

Between Early and Regular Action, 20,247 students applied to join the MIT Class of 2021. As of today (inclusive of Early Action), we have offered admission to 1,438 students.

These 1,438 students are truly exceptional. The admitted Class of 2021 includes musicians and mathematicians, farmhands and physicists, rocketeers and raconteurs, from Albania to Zambia and everywhere in between. Individually they represent more than 60 countries and 1,000 high schools; together, they constitute an incredible community, each contributing a set of rare skills and perspectives while holding in common the highest caliber of cognition and character.

We often say we don’t admit numbers to MIT, we admit people. Yet this isn’t quite true either; we admit classes, cohorts which have been curated with care to create the best possible team to climb the mountain that is MIT.

There are also those students who may be climbing other mountains, with other people, next fall. Of the students to whom we do not offer admission today, we have placed a small number on our waitlist and informed the balance that we will not be able to admit them to the Class of 2021. Turning away so many kind, generous, super-smart students has been more than difficult: it has been truly painful.

If you are among them, then all I can say is that MIT is just another place. If it is amazing, it is amazing not because of some occult magick embedded in the Great Dome, but because the people here make it so. If you spend the next few years trying to make wherever you are as amazing as you can (as you are), then someday you'll look back on this Pi Day and realize it all worked out okay.

I'm closing comments on this blog post to concentrate conversation in the open threads for admitted, waitlisted, and not admitted students. Answers to frequently asked questions for waitlisted students can be found here, with more information about next steps to come in early April.

Congratulations to the Class of 2021. I wish all of our applicants well. No matter where you enroll next fall, please make it a better place. I know you can. I hope you will.

http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/mit-regular-action-decisions-now-available-online4