sample essay to mit

46 Essays that Worked at MIT

Updated for the 2024-2025 admissions cycle.

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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a world-renowned research university based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Known for its prioritization of intellectual freedom and innovation, MIT offers students an education that’s constantly on the cutting-edge of academia. The school’s star-studded roster of professors includes Nobel prize winners and MacArthur fellows in disciplines like technology, biology, and social science. A deeply-technical school, MIT offers students with the resources they need to become specialists in a range of STEM subjects. In many ways, MIT is the gold standard for creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving.

Unique traditions at MIT

1. "Ring Knocking": During the weeks preceding the MIT Commencement Ceremony, graduating students celebrate by finding a way to touch the MIT seal in the lobby of Building 10 with their newly-received class rings. 2. "Steer Roast": Every year in May, the MIT Science Fiction Society hosts a traditional event on the Killian Court lawn for incoming freshmen. During the Steer Roast, attendees cook (and sometimes eat) a sacrificial male cow and hang out outside until the early hours of the morning. 3. Pranking: Pranking has been an ongoing tradition at MIT since the 1960s. Creative pranks by student groups, ranging from changing the words of a university song to painting the Great Dome of the school, add to the quirkiness and wit of the MIT culture. 4. Senior House Seals: The all-senior undergraduate dormitory of Senior House is known for its yearly tradition of collecting and displaying seals, which are emblems that represent the class of the graduating seniors.

Programs at MIT

1. Global Entrepreneurship Lab (G-Lab): G-Lab provides undergraduate and graduate students with the skills to build entrepreneurial ventures that meet developing world challenges. 2. Mars Rover Design Team: This club is part of the MIT Student Robotics program that provides students with the engineering, design, and fabrication skills to build robots for planetary exploration. 3. Media Lab: The Media Lab is an interdisciplinary research lab that explores new technologies to allow individuals to create and manipulate communication presentation of stories, images, and sounds. 4. Independent Activities Period (IAP): A month-long intersession program that allows students to take courses and participate in extracurricular activities from flying classes to volunteering projects and sports. 5. AeroAstro: A club that provides students with the opportunity to learn about aerospace engineering and build model rockets.

At a glance…

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Real Essays from MIT Admits

Prompt: mit brings people with diverse backgrounds and experiences together to better the lives of others. our students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being a good friend. describe one way you have collaborated with people who are different from you to contribute to your community..

Last year, my European History teacher asked me to host weekly workshops for AP test preparation and credit recovery opportunities: David, Michelangelo 1504. “*Why* is this the answer?” my tutee asked. I tried re-explaining the Renaissance. Michelangelo? The Papacy? I finally asked: “Do you know the story of David and Goliath?” Raised Catholic, I knew the story but her family was Hindu. I naively hadn’t considered she wouldn’t know the story. After I explained, she relayed a similar story from her culture. As sessions grew to upwards of 15 students, I recruited more tutors so everyone could receive more individualized support. While my school is nearly half Hispanic, AP classes are overwhelmingly White and Asian, so I’ve learned to understand the diverse and often unfamiliar backgrounds of my tutees. One student struggled to write idiomatically despite possessing extensive historical knowledge. Although she was initially nervous, we discovered common ground after I asked about her Rohan Kishibe keychain, a character from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. She opened up; I learned she recently immigrated from China and was having difficulty adjusting to writing in English. With a clearer understanding of her background, I could now consider her situation to better address her needs. Together, we combed out grammar mistakes and studied English syntax. The bond we formed over anime facilitated honest dialogue, and therefore genuine learning.

Essay by Víctor

i love cities <3

Prompt: We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it.

I slam the ball onto the concrete of our dorm’s courtyard, and it whizzes past my opponents. ******, which is a mashup of tennis, squash, and volleyball, is not only a spring term pastime but also an important dorm tradition. It can only be played using the eccentric layout of our dorm’s architecture and thus cultivates a special feeling of community that transcends grade or friend groups. I will always remember the amazing outplays from yearly tournaments that we celebrate together. Our dorm’s collective GPA may go significantly down during the spring, but it’s worth it.

Essay by Brian

CS, math, and economics at MIT

Prompt: Describe the world you come from (for example, your family, school, community, city, or town). How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?

The fragile glass beaker shattered on the ground, and hydrogen peroxide, flowing furiously like lava, began to conquer the floor with every inch the flammable puddle expanded. This was my solace. As an assistant teacher for a middle school STEM class on the weekends, mistakes were common, especially those that made me mentally pinpoint where we kept the fire extinguishers. However, these mishaps reminded me exactly why I loved this job (besides the obvious luxury of cleaning up spills): every failure was a chance to learn in the purest form. As we conducted chemical experiments or explored electronics kits, I was comforted by the kids’ genuine enthusiasm for exploration—a sentiment often lost in the grade-obsessed world of high school. Accordingly, I tried to help my students recognize that mistakes are often the most productive way to grow and learn. I encouraged my students to persist when faced with failure, especially those who might not have been encouraged in their everyday lives. I was there for students like Nathan, a child on the autism spectrum who reminded me of my older brother with autism. I was there for the two girls in a class of 17, reminding me of my own journey navigating the male-dominated world of STEM. I wanted to encourage them into a lifelong journey of pursuing knowledge and embracing mistakes. I may have been their mentor, but these lessons also serve as a crucial reminder to me that mistakes are not representative of one’s overall worth.

Essay by Sarah J.

CS @ Stanford

One of my earliest memories is pouring over National Geographic magazines with my older brother. As I examined the photographs and illustrations, he attempted to explain the intricacies of the solar system or the mysteries of deep-sea creatures. I have always been enthralled by the expanse of scientific knowledge and the infinite list of unanswered questions.

[Place Redacted], where I grew up, has been a breeding ground for innovation since its days revolutionizing the steel industry. More recently, [Place Redacted] has become a center for medicine, information technology, and robotics. Growing up near the University of [Place Redacted] and Carnegie Mellon University, I’ve been fortunate to pursue unique biomedical research opportunities and participate in the [Place Redacted] Regional Science and Engineering Fair, from which I was selected to compete at ISEF.

[Place Redacted] is also a center for the arts, with world class music and dance. I’ve had the opportunity to study at [Place Redacted] Ballet Theatre for 13 years, performing alongside professional dancers in productions such as Romeo and Juliet and the Nutcracker. Beyond the technicalities of pliés and tendus, ballet taught me about discipline and collaboration – lessons I apply to everyday life. Ballet also encompassed community service. I have enjoyed performing for children with autism and recognize how our ballet community brings joy to other communities.

Each of these experiences has fueled my desire to explore STEM fields and will continue to as I collaborate on biomedical research to improve the lives of others.

Essay by Z.L.

Dancing, crafting, and studying Computer Science at Stanford!

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Someone with the same interests, stats, and background as you

How to Write Outstanding MIT Supplemental Essays (With 5 Real Examples)

This is your complete guide to writing outstanding MIT supplemental essays.

(Step-by-step)

We all know MIT is math- and science- focused.

But MIT isn't looking for students who can just do the work (most students applying to MIT already can).

You need to be able to tackle dense STEM subjects and communicate your ideas effectively.

Which is why your supplemental essays are still incredibly important for MIT.

Let's dive right in.

How to Write the MIT Essay Prompts for 2024

According to MIT Admissions , there are 4 required MIT supplemental essays for 2024 which they ask you to answer in "approximately 200 words."

The MIT essay prompts for 2024 are:

MIT Essay Prompt #1: "Activity for Pleasure"

Prompt #1. We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it. (About 200 words)

This is a quintessential "extracurricular activity" essay.

MIT wants to know what you do for fun, and how you spend your time outside of school.

But they don't want to hear about your "resume" activities. MIT already provides their own Activities Section for that.

Instead, this prompt is about sharing something that reveals who you are as a person , not just what you do.

How to Answer MIT Essay Prompt #1

Your goal with this essay should be simple:

Let the admissions officer understand exactly why this activity is enjoyable to you.

You want them to be able to understand your thought process and how you see the world.

To bring them into your world, you need to show where exactly you find pleasure in this activity.

How to Choose an Activity for MIT Essay Prompt #1

First, here's what topics you should avoid or be careful about writing:

• Activities already on your activities list. You want to reveal something new about yourself. - Generic or broad activities (e.g. "I like to read"). - Common activities without having an uncommon angle (e.g. "I like to play video games"). - A "big" activity (e.g. "I love working on my non-profit to help the homeless"). - Focus on the activity itself, rather than what ideas it represent.

Why? Because these topics are overdone and easily cliché.

Instead of focusing on the activity itself, your essay should be an exploration of an idea.

• Biking around your neighborhood? → An exploration of the unknown and what it means to be free
• Doodling extensive notes and diagrams while on plane rides? → Your exploration of imagination and elaborate daydreams
• Creating a new recipe for Thanksgiving dinner? → How exactly and at what point something becomes tradition

Here's how you can find your own unique topic:

• Focused on ideas. Ask questions like, "Why do I really enjoy this activity?" or "What ideas does this activity represent?" - Be unapologetically honest. Even if your activity seems silly or trivial, you can make it meaningful by connecting to an idea of what it represents.
• Be ultra-specific. Don't write about "drawing" or "playing the piano." Write about "drawing pictures of random people on the subway" or "writing fugal counterpoint." - A "small" activity. Something close to home. Then, connect to a bigger idea. If you like to draw pictures of people on the subway, you could write your love of questioning the seemingly mundane and overlooked.

MIT is a highly intellectual school.

They want to see that you're a strong, deep thinker who can connect the dots between seemingly unrelated things.

Here's the deal:

Focus on writing about ideas , not just the literal activity itself. What does this activity represent ? What unexpected connections can you form?

MIT Essay Example #1: "Activity for Pleasure"

Here's an example of a great response to MIT's first essay prompt.

This essay was written when the prompt was limited to only 100 words, so it's a little shorter than the current 200-word limit.

You can still use this essay as inspiration for your own MIT supplemental essays.

Prompt: We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do for the pleasure of it. (100 words max)

After combining the ingredients came an hour-long wait. I tapped my fingers, paced the kitchen, watched the clock anxiously. Time to shape the dough. Then another 30-minute wait. Stress. Dough in the oven! 40-minute wait. The aroma of freshly baked bread wafted lazily through my kitchen, impossibly tantalizing, evoking daydreams of quaint little French bakeries, ceilings stacked high with masterpieces of flour. Holding the bread to my ear, squeezing, I was reminded of the quote from Ratatouille, how great bread is distinguished by the sound, the “symphony of crackle”. Finally, finally , it was time to eat.

Why This Essay Works

• It's not a "big" activity. It's a small, everyday activity that's close to home. - It's not an activity on the author's Activity List, so it reveals something new. - It's ultra-specific: the author doesn't just say "I like to bake bread," they show us exactly what that looks like. - It has a sense of voice . The author writes informally and stylistically, without being casual.

What Could Be Improved

• Connect the activity to a bigger idea. What does baking bread represent? What does it mean to them? - Too much time spent describing the activity itself. The author could have spent more time on the "why" and "how" of the activity, which is more interesting.

I'm sure if this student had 200 words, they would have been able to expand on the "why" and "how" of their activity.

That said, this is still a great example of showing your personality through a small, everyday activity.

It doesn't need to be big or impressive. It doesn't need to be "quirky" or unique.

It just needs to be a meaningful activity that's close to home.

Then show us why it brings you pleasure. Specifically and vividly.

Allow the reader to relate to you and understand your thought process.

MIT Essay Prompt #2: "World You Come From"

Prompt #2. Describe the world you come from (for example, your family, school, community, city, or town). How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?

Prompt #3. MIT brings people with diverse backgrounds and experiences together to better the lives of others. Our students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being a good friend. Describe one way you have collaborated with people who are different from you to contribute to your community.

Prompt #4. Tell us about a significant challenge you’ve faced (that you feel comfortable sharing) or something that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?

Common App Prompt #1: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. (250-650 words)

Why This Essay Works:

This essay starts off by posing a challenge, which is typical of essays. But rather than showing how they overcame this particular challenge of speaking Romanian without an accent, this reader shows how something unexpected—baking—came to satisfy what was missing all along. By the end, this creates a conclusion that is both surprising, connected to the beginning, and makes perfect sense once you've read it. In other words, the conclusion is inevitable, but also surprising in content.

This student uses Romanian words to help exemplify the culture and language. If you're writing about a culture, using foreign language words can be a compelling way of adding depth to your essay. By including specific terms like "muni" and "cornulete," it shows a depth of knowledge which cannot be faked. Always use specific, tangible language where possible, because it is "evidence" that you know what you're talking about.

This student exhibits strong self-awareness by noting characteristics about themself, even some which may not be the most glamorous ("can be overbearing at times, stubborn in the face of offered help"). Rather than telling the reader flat out about these personal attributes, they are able to discuss them by connecting to another person—their grandmother Buni. Using another person to showcase your own character (through comparison or contrast) is a literary "foil," which can be an effective way of showing your character without stating it outright, which generally is boring and less convincing.

This student doesn't focus on surface-level ideas like "how they got better at speaking Romanian." Instead, they reflect in a creative way by connecting the Romanian language to baking. Revealing unseen connections between topics is a great way to show that you're a thoughtful and clever thinker. Ultimately, having unique ideas that are specific to you is what will create a compelling essay, and this essay is a perfect example of what that could look like.

Prompt: Although you may not yet know what you want to major in, which department or program at MIT appeals to you and why? (100 words max)

I remember boiling down cabbage with my dad to make titration indicators. When I first read about the process of translation, of rendering mRNA into proteins, my eyes filled with tears; this is what I would do, apply the chemistry that had defined my childhood to my love of biology. In the past few months alone, MIT researchers have visualized a critical growth kinase and decoded the kavalactone gene. To major in both the chemistry and biology departments at MIT would be an unequaled opportunity to explore the molecular basis of life and apply that knowledge to real-world innovation.

Prompt: Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations? (200-250 words)

I grew up in a household with a physicist and a chemist. Our cupboards are occupied by periodic table mugs, our closets by t-shirts with taglines like “velociraptor= displacementeraptor/timeraptor”.

Underneath all the unabashed nerdiness, my parents fostered an environment of inquiry. Our kitchen moonlighted as a laboratory, complete with burets. My mom once brought home a 3D printed likeness of her own brain; I traced each sulcus in wonderment, imagining how each fold shaped her personality. My house was a sanctuary, a place where no question was too small, no claim uninvestigated.

It is precisely this background that drew me to research. Spending the past two summers in a neuroscience clinic, I found my second home surrounded by quirky med students, exhausted post-docs, and incisive surgeons. I felt more comfortable than I ever had in high school; loving science was no longer an embarrassment, but an asset. Lunch was spent in discussion about anticipatory alpha activity, and that’s just how I liked it. Though we used EEG’s in place of homemade indicators, MATLAB instead of “borrowed” dry ice, we were working towards the fundamental goal I’d spent my childhood developing: finding new knowledge.

Every one of my dreams can be traced back to my past, to individuals and experiences that have shaped the way I see the world and how I hope to better it. My parent's passion for learning by doing was passed down to me, finding its intersection with my love for the brain in one field: neurosurgery.

Prompt: Tell us about the most significant challenge you've faced or something important that didn't go according to plan. How did you manage the situation? (200-250 words)

Bluntly put, moving in high school was difficult. I remember waving good-bye to my best friend through tear-filled eyes. I remember staying up the night before the first day at my new school, dreading having to eat lunch alone. I remember crying on my birthday. Most of all, I remember hating how my life had become a movie cliche, how I had seemingly been reduced to a shell of myself by relocating 399.2 miles south.

Resolute in my desire to restore some semblance of normalcy, I started running incremental exploratory missions on this alien planet. I joined Science Olympiad, finding comfort in the companionship of fellow biology geeks. Fulfilling a longtime goal, I joined a volunteer station and became an EMT, loving the urgency of working in an ambulance and the unique satisfaction of saving a life. I spent countless hours reading papers about spinal cord stimulation, temporarily forgetting my social isolation with academic collaboration. I learned to drive, much to my parent’s chagrin.

Though I still had the occasional bad day (as do we all), things were looking up. Reluctant optimism replaced hopeless despair as I became more confident in my abilities and less reliant on the context in which I applied them. Moving compelled me to meet different people, try new things, and succeed in an environment I hadn’t grown up in. The result was resilience, a firm belief that with hard work, a willingness to diversify, and a little self-deprecation, no situation was impossible, no crisis un-manageable.

Ryan Chiang , Founder of EssaysThatWorked.com

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Princeton Admitted Essay

People love to ask why. Why do you wear a turban? Why do you have long hair? Why are you playing a guitar with only 3 strings and watching TV at 3 A.M.—where did you get that cat? Why won’t you go back to your country, you terrorist? My answer is... uncomfortable. Many truths of the world are uncomfortable...

MIT Admitted Essay

Her baking is not confined to an amalgamation of sugar, butter, and flour. It's an outstretched hand, an open invitation, a makeshift bridge thrown across the divides of age and culture. Thanks to Buni, the reason I bake has evolved. What started as stress relief is now a lifeline to my heritage, a language that allows me to communicate with my family in ways my tongue cannot. By rolling dough for saratele and crushing walnuts for cornulete, my baking speaks more fluently to my Romanian heritage than my broken Romanian ever could....

UPenn Admitted Essay

A cow gave birth and I watched. Staring from the window of our stopped car, I experienced two beginnings that day: the small bovine life and my future. Both emerged when I was only 10 years old and cruising along the twisting roads of rural Maryland...

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How to Write the MIT Supplemental Essays: Examples + Guide 2023/2024

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• How to write each supplemental essay prompt for MIT
• Prompt #1: "Why major?" essay
• Prompt #2: "Activity for pleasure" essay
• Prompt #3: “Community” essay
• Prompt #4: Extracurricular activity / community contribution essay
• Prompt #5: "Manage a challenge" essay
• Prompt #6: Activities list essay
• Prompt #7: Optional additional information essay

If you’re applying to MIT, odds are high that you’re a pretty exceptional student (and human). Your GPA sparkles, your test scores soar, and your activity list practically sings with meaningful accomplishments. This is great for you, and great for the 20,000+ other people applying annually. In a sea of highly successful seniors, your responses to MIT’s essay prompts will help distinguish you from the pack (or pod if we’re sticking with our aquatic metaphor). The best news: MIT gives you many  chances to make an impression. To this end, we’ve put together the following set of examples, tips, and ideas for each of MIT’s 7 supplemental essays. 

What are MIT's supplemental essay prompts?

A note from MIT’s website: "Depending on the question, we’re looking for responses of approximately 100–200 words each."

What field of study appeals to you the most right now? (Note: Applicants select from a drop-down list.) Tell us more about why this field of study at MIT appeals to you. (100 words or fewer)

We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it. (225 words or fewer)

How has the world you come from—including your opportunities, experiences, and challenges—shaped your dreams and aspirations? (225 words or fewer)

MIT brings people with diverse backgrounds together to collaborate, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to lending a helping hand. Describe one way you have collaborated with others to learn from them, with them, or contribute to your community together. (225 words or fewer)

How did you manage a situation or challenge that you didn’t expect? What did you learn from it? (225 word or fewer)

Please list up to four activities—if you have more than four, choose the ones that are most important to you. (40 words or less per activity description)

Optional: No application can meet the needs of every individual. If there is significant information that you were not able to include elsewhere in the application, you may include it here. (Many students will leave this section blank—and that’s okay.)

Please note, we may not be able to access all links you share. If you have supplemental materials you would like to submit, please refer to our optional creative portfolios. (350 words or fewer)

How to Write Each Supplemental Essay Prompt for MIT

How to write mit supplemental essay prompt #1.

This is a super short “Why major?” essay, but since MIT goes out of its way to specify “why this field of study at MIT appeals to you,” you can ideally weave in some “Why us?” details. Because it’s so short, the key will be to briefly share the origin story for the major you’re considering. Here’s a guide to the “Why major” essay.

Example:  

Why Electrical Engineering? My decision to major in Electrical Engineering was inspired by my desire to improve security through technology. When I lived in Mexico, my father’s restaurant security system lacked the ability to protect our property from robbers, who would break in multiple times a year. Thanks to the influence of my cousin, who now studies Autonomous Systems, I developed an interest in electrical engineering. I am inspired to not only improve my father’s security system, but contributing to security innovations for larger companies and perhaps, one day, national security. (89 words) — — —

Here’s a simple outline for this essay:

Why Electrical Engineering?

Thesis: I want to improve security through technology

Robbers broke into dad’s restaurant

Cousin taught me about Autonomous Systems

In the future: work with large companies or on national security  

Note that your thesis statement should probably be clear and it could come either at the beginning, middle, or end.

How to Write MIT Supplemental Essay prompt #2

Picking a topic:.

Ideally, your topic will be something that is actually fun. (Not something that, for example, is actually academic that you’re trying to justify as also being fun.) Take a look at your brainstorming work and see if there are any random/odd/fun parts of you that haven’t yet made their way into your application. Past students have written about geocaching, doing impersonations, and “Jedi Juggling Club,” among others. 

Here’s an example we love, though since MIT dropped the word count this year, you’d have a bit less space to work with.

One activity which I simply do for the pleasure of it is playing cricket–not on a proper team or league, but casually along with friends and family. Though I have enjoyed competitively participating in soccer, ultimate frisbee, and table tennis in the past, the lack of competitive nature in cricket is refreshing, especially because I am not that great of a player. The whole playing experience with other casual cricket players is more enjoyable: Though the goal is to win, we can learn and grow without the stress of losing an “important” match. The connectivity with others is another reason I enjoy being a casual cricket player. I usually play with my family, and have taught many friends with non-cricketing backgrounds how to play. One time, my friends and I were playing at a local park, and a family of three generations joined us: representative of how casual cricket is welcoming to all. The accessibility of the sport in my backyard, where I can pick up the bat and hit a tennis ball around during an evening walk, and sometimes having my parents bowl at me/me bowl at them, shows the spontaneous fun that I can have at any time.   As someone who likes to watch cricket, Indian cricket specifically, it is enjoyable to be able to casually play a sport that many in the US have never properly experienced. It also connects to my identity as an Indian who grew up with stories of “gully cricket.” (248 words) — — —

Tips & Analysis:

Showcase something new about your personality. Use this prompt as a way to showcase a part of your personality that you haven’t been able to express elsewhere in your MIT application. For example, we love how this essay is about an activity that likely didn’t make the student’s activities list (since he only plays cricket for fun), but also how he’s able to find joy in playing cricket, even if he’s not “great” at it (#vulnerability).

Give specific examples to show why you like the activity. These details allow admission officials to learn about your way of viewing the world. So, don’t hold back on that color and specificity. Share details about how you became interested in the activity, what keeps you interested, and how the activity influences your connection to other aspects of your life. In this example, notice how the author weaves multiple stories together with specific examples that give the essay a nice flow from start to finish.

Connect it to your intellectual curiosity. MIT is looking for intellectually curious students. So, even though this prompt asks about an activity you do purely for pleasure, it helps if you can at least hint at how the experience of it also sparks your mind to think deeply in other ways—like how this student ties his cricket play to the benefit of not always being competitive and finding connection with others.

Here are two more great examples we encourage you to read for inspiration (though, again, the second one is a little over the current word count). 

I love collecting, whether it be playing cards or arrowheads, my most significant collection. I first started my arrowhead collection after a trip to an ancient adobe village in Sonoma, California. I was fascinated by the idea that ancient peoples had walked where I walked and had a life where I was standing. When I arrived, I realized how the stories behind the bricks of the buildings tell of the past and can predict the future, as trends repeat themselves. This principle of trends repeating themselves is important to me, and I strive to apply it through volunteering with the Smithsonian, transcribing and editing historical documents to preserve them digitally for future generations. By securing a moment in time, I can help protect future communities from mistakes of the past.  Now I seek out other places and stories that document moments in time, like a Boomtown from the gold-rush era in Jamestown, California. Arrowheads are often difficult to source; my collection of 13 represent my strategy of remembrance and preservation. (170 words) — — —

Beyond my busy life at school, I compose and perform music as a way to channel my creativity to escape the rigidity of my course curriculum through improvisation. When I was eight years old — after years of school-mandated recorder classes — I begged my mum to let me graduate to the clarinet. I spent hours each day practising scales and climbing the grade ladder in Classical music.  But I found myself gravitating towards the sounds of jazz — and the opportunities for improvisation that the genre provided. Through secondary school, I continued practising my favourite jazz short pieces, eventually performing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue which I played for my mother’s birthday. Entering GCSE Music, I found a perfect opportunity to combine my talents as a musician with my passion for creating new things as a programmer. Specifically, I spent two years developing a piano-clarinet jazz duo that I premiered for the class at the end of the course. More recently, then, I have moved beyond the clarinet to begin composing music myself — not only jazz, but also electronic music that I can bring to life on my computer. Combining Icelandic vocals and California drum solos, I aim to create music that stretches across genre and geography. Whether I actually release anything, of course, a different story. But as I prepare to ship off to college, I look forward to the chance to find new collaborators that can both teach me new skills as a composer and play alongside me in the ensemble. (250 words) — — —

How to Write MIT Supplemental Essay prompt #3

One approach here is to treat this essentially as a “community essay,” with some focus going to how your community/ies have shaped your dreams and aspirations. Or uou can write about an extracurricular activity, a volunteer experience, your family—or something else entirely. The possibilities are pretty vast in terms of potential topics. That can feel empowering, or overwhelming. If you want to try the community approach and need help brainstorming a topic, check out our full guide on how to write the community essay for an in-depth explanation of how to approach this type of essay, and some quick tips you can follow after reading this great example essay.

My world is at once expansively big and recognisably small. Coming from a multiethnic European family, I’ve spent my childhood encountering an array of rich cultures across the continent and beyond. I learned about the Jewish holiday of love “Tu B'Av” to bring me closer to my extended family living in Tel Aviv. Further north, I joined my relatives in Ukraine to celebrate the Orthodox new year two weeks after all of my friends back home. Even in London, my world feels stretched across neighbourhoods, zones, and ethnic traditions. Whether it is making sense of the Islamic conception of peace on a school trip to our local mosque or losing myself in Caribbean music at the Notting Hill Carnival, I have learned to see the world through my city and the 300 languages spoken in it. Yet my world is also one of close-knit communities. As a volunteer, I have developed close relationships with a range of students who see me as a mentor in their ambitions to become a video game developer. Among my school friends, I have built a family of bandmates and co-conspirators that come together every week to make new music, work on joint programming projects, and train in Jiu-Jitsu. And in my actual family, I spend my nights playing geography games and attending cooking schools where we learn new cuisines that we can incorporate into our meals at home. Together, the big and the small combine to make my world one of exploration and intimacy. (250 words) — — —

Tips + Analysis

Show what makes your place in this “world” unique. Many students may come from the same “world” as you. So your goal here is to show the reader how your place in it is different. Notice, for example, how this author weaves together multiple parts of her identity to show her unique perspective within her family, city, and the world at large. 

Give examples of how you give and receive from your community. The community essay is important in helping admission officials see how you may fit in on their campus community. So think of this as an opportunity to show how you not only learn from your community but also contribute to it. In this example, we learn that the author is not only an active member of her communities through volunteer work and group activities, but she’s also curious about learning from the people whose identities are different from her own. 

Don’t forget to show how the community “has shaped your dreams and aspirations.” That’s an important part of the prompt, so be intentional in not only showing what you’ve learned from your community and how it’s helped you grow as a person and leader, but also how it’s shaped your vision of your future. This student, for example, ends with that insight—showing how the interactions and experiences she’s had “combine” to shape her world into one of “exploration and intimacy.” 

Here are two more great examples of essays we encourage you to read for inspiration (though—this feels like a trend—they’re both slightly over word count). 

As I have had a knack for fixing errors on computers for friends and family, building a computer was a valuable experience that has reaffirmed lessons and my values. I started with the motherboard, following unvaried instructions, which compares to how I’ve bettered my understanding of the strictness of Hindi grammar. I have learned all the endless grammar rules in Hindi in a monotonous but necessary process, which has taught me patience. Working on the heat sink has taught me to maintain calmness and patience during the mentally challenging troubleshooting phase of programming. The graphics card reminds me of my clarity of my thought process in life–-my long-standing ambition for a degree in computer science and clarity in my desire to contribute to non-profit organizations, such as Gurukul. The Wi-Fi adapter, and network connectivity, connects to how I have built a strong connection to my Indian heritage through learning about festivals such as Diwali, experiencing the rich cultural diversity, and learning the history of India’s fight for independence. RAM, the working memory of a computer, functions efficiently like how I process information and retain the most important, and overall have developed effective learning techniques–such as making sure to understand the derivation of an equation rather than mindlessly memorizing an equation. I have an understanding of hardware–having built a computer–but have reaffirmed my zest for a future in software in computer science through my various experiences. (235 words) — — —

I come from a world of knowledge, expertise, and wonder. My dad is a software engineer who has spent his life building code. A devout mathematician, he has inspired my love of math and analytical thinking, helping me think beyond the material at hand to the underlying concepts. My mom, on the other hand, teaches me to follow my dreams. So when I took an enlightening summer course on engineering at Vanderbilt, she immediately began to support me in my aspirations and helped me identify programs and resources in the engineering realm. In a world where new crises seem to arise without warning, I see engineering as a way to help protect society using intricate processes. Of the many college-level courses I have taken, my favorite has been a course on Materials Engineering. I particularly appreciated the applications of math and the state-of-the-art lab tour. I got to observe some real-life research projects and equipment, which included touring a military helicopter. I also participated in a final lab project, which tasked me with discovering the reason behind the catastrophic failure of a bolt and determining how much stress or strain it would have taken for the failure to occur, helping me to apply my math knowledge in the real world.  Engineering has numerous possibilities. Driven by the values instilled by my parents, I hope to further the field and find innovative ways to help and protect people as a materials or nuclear engineer. (243 words) — — —

How to Write MIT Supplemental Essay prompt #4

This prompt can be a great chance to talk about whichever extracurricular activity or community service project you’ve been most involved in, but notice that the prompt specifies things like “diverse backgrounds” and “collaboration.” Because of that, you’ll want to make sure whatever experiences/actions you discuss allow you to directly discuss collaboration (ideally with people from diverse backgrounds) and how that collaboration allowed you to directly contribute to your community, while also expanding your understanding.

To help you brainstorm ideas for this prompt, here’s a step-by-step guide we put together for this one based on two strategies we recommend: the uncommon connections technique and the Powerwall structure. 

Give it a read and see if you can:  

a) Come up with 1-2 ideas that may work  (making sure to look for community contributions that involved collaborating with others, ideally from diverse backgrounds ).

b) Pick which structure might work better.

Bonus points: Spend 10-15 minutes mapping out a basic outline based on either the uncommon connections technique or the Powerwall structure.

We don’t have an example that hits all the elements above, but check out this example, and the tips and analyses below for how it could be tweaked to fit.

From a young age, teaching has been my way to give back to my community, whether it’s my immediate family or neighbours on the opposite edge of London. My first teaching experience took place when I was 10. My five-year-old sister took a principled moral stand against homework by getting under the table and refusing to do her maths additions tables. After almost an hour of negotiations, our mother admitted defeat, so I jumped in to assist her. My sister and I worked patiently through the tables, finding new tricks to help her master the relationship between the numbers. And I found myself genuinely thrilled to have helped her — and my mother — in that difficult moment. I have been teaching regularly ever since. At Imperial College’s programming club, I volunteered to help show young people the creative side of coding through graphical programming. At people’s homes, I have adapted to people’s needs, from teaching Computer GCSE to helping a group of four girls make a moving Raspberry Pi robot. And during lockdown, I offered free Python coding classes to kids of essential workers. In each, I not only provided support to students to complete their stated assignments. I also found myself learning from the students along the way, helping me to find novel solutions to my own challenges as a programmer. It is this two-way exchange between teacher and student that I find so rewarding in this contribution to my community. (241 words) — — —

Demonstrate a different set of values. MIT is giving you lots of opportunities to show different sides of yourself. That also means multiple chances to show the diversity of your values. Since this prompt is narrowly asking for a specific way you’ve impacted your community, you may not have a ton of options for topics. But you can look for ways to expand on the values you’ve already shared. How? Check out this Values Exercise and scan your essays for the values that are already coming through, making a list as you go. Are some missing, even important ones? If so, look for ways to demonstrate those here. For example, this student was able to inject some humor in their description of their little sister taking “a principled, moral stand against homework” by planting herself under the table and refusing to come out—maybe they weren’t able to smuggle that value in elsewhere? 

Explain how your collaboration partner(s) was(were) different from you. Were you working with peers of the same age but vastly different backgrounds? Did you find opportunities to collaborate with unusual partners, like special-needs students or adults in a different country? Make sure the reader will understand the differences involved, and if they’re not obvious, make the space to explain what made your partners different, and what you gained from working with them. For example, if this student were writing to this prompt, they may have expounded on the “two-way exchange between teacher and student,” using that as the basis of their collaboration and showing how these students’ input and involvement led to “novel solutions to [the student’s] own challenges as a programmer.]”

Show the opportunities and obstacles of the collaboration. MIT admission officials want to see your collaboration skills in action. And when you’re collaborating with someone with a different point of view or background, things don’t always go smoothly. But it’s the friction that can create new solutions while also leading to personal growth. Your goal in this essay is to show both sides—so make sure to note your contributions to the collaboration, but also ways you grew from learning from others. If this student were to tweak this essay to fit the prompt, they may have, say, shared details on a challenging yet beneficial collaboration with a fellow programming tutor or an improvisation that arose from ongoing conversations with an argumentative student. 

How to Write MIT Supplemental Essay prompt #5

Essentially, MIT wants to see how you solve problems. Brainstorm a list of challenges you’ve overcome and times things didn’t go according to plan. 

Consider the following:

The “ Powerwall structure ” can work really well for this essay, since you don’t have to have solved the problem in order to write about it. 

This is a chance to show a side of yourself the admissions counselors haven’t seen yet. Read through the rest of your application and see if any activity or experience is missing. In most cases, something went wrong at some point, and that can be your topic. 

Finally: Most students write about something going wrong in a robotics competition (“Our robot broke!”), so we recommend thinking of other options.

Now, create a basic outline that answers:  

What was the problem?

Why was it a big deal? 

What did you do about it? 

How were you crucial to helping solve it or what gifts or talents were you able to bring to the situation?

How did it turn out? Were there any larger impacts or lessons learned?

Let’s check out an example of this structure coming to life (though, since MIT dropped its word count slightly this year from 250 to 225 words, you’d have a bit less room to work with). 

Off the crack of the bat I tracked the first two hops, but when I looked down, all I saw was a crooked finger. It was the game before CIF, our year to take the championship that had eluded us the year prior. I had received Honorable Mention All-League and Rookie of the Year awards my sophomore year, and this year was my time to help break school history. But a misplaced pebble guaranteed I wouldn’t have the opportunity to live my decade long goal of winning CIF. During the first playoff game, I simply watched from the dugout, restricted by my cast. I felt useless. In the next game, I completely altered my gameplan; I talked to our coach about my helping to manage the team. I traded my glove and bat for a clipboard and pencil, keeping score and tracking pitch counts; I used the data to alter defensive formations based on opponents’ batting tendencies and advise on pitching strategy, allowing us to conserve our ace for the championship. I applied my problem solving skills and led my team from the dugout.  Our team broke school history for the second year in a row, making it to the CIF championship, but fell two runs short of victory. While I could think “What if I had been playing?”I don’t have to, because I know I played a valuable role and was just as much of a threat at left bench as I was making diving stops at second.  — — —

Let’s take a look at how this student used the structure outlined above.

What was the problem? Although the crooked- finger image is a bit graphic, it makes it easy to see this student’s problem. Using a quick descriptive anecdote like this student did can be an effective way to set the scene and get to the juicier parts of this prompt: your actions. Right before you get there, though, let us know:

Why was it a big deal? Raise the stakes. In the example above, the author mentioned a championship and school history. Providing context for your challenge (what you had done to build up to this moment, the investments other people made in getting to this moment, etc.) will help the reader care. 

What did you do about it? Specifics, specifics, specifics. This student shares high-impact actions (tracking pitch counts, using data to alter defensive formations) and does the work for the reader, naming the higher-level skills required (problem solving and leadership). 

How were you crucial to helping solve it? This student doesn’t answer the question directly, but it’s clear that his unique circumstance—a player thrust into a different role—gave him the opportunity to leverage his skills (analyzing data on baseball strategy). If your prior experience (maybe taking a summer course on using Excel) helped you adapt on the fly or overcome a challenge (maybe by creating a spreadsheet to analyze how time of day impacted student conflict during class change time), share it! 

How did it turn out? Were there any larger impacts or lessons learned? Leave the reader with a satisfying conclusion, even if you haven’t fully resolved the challenge. If you’re still working to overcome that challenge, tell us how. And if you learned something valuable along the way, like this student’s new comfort with having a positive impact regardless of his role, don’t hesitate to share it explicitly. 

How to Write MIT Supplemental Essay prompt #6

Simple. 

Pick your top four activities (from your Common App list).

Write 40-word descriptions. Our tips for the Activities List live here , and apply them to this writing as well. 

Citizen Scientist Marine Protected Area Watch Monitor local Marine Protected beaches for illegal activity; coordinate with Park Rangers and fellow Citizen Scientists to deter visitors from abusing the beach habitats and creatures; complete surveys on activity at the beaches: published data 15 times for academic studies (40 words) — — — 2019 Captain; starter MHS Varsity Baseball Starter at 2nd or 3rd base; bat 2nd in lineup; made school history by making 2017 CIF semi-finals, 2018 CIF finals; 2017 Rookie of the Year Award, 2017 All-Frontier League Honorable Mention; to be Captain in 2019 Season (38 words) — — — Educator Heal the Bay’s Pier Aquarium Teach and engage in discussion with guests at touch tanks, shark tanks, and whale exhibit; coordinate whale watching events, encourage ocean respect and environmentalism; received Dolphin Pin for 150 hours of service (32 words) — — — Starting Driver MHS Water Polo Starter, sprinter; 2018 Conejo Classic Tournament Champions, 2018 Oxnard Tournament Champions; 2nd Team All-Frontier League 2017 Award, 2016 MVP of JV team, Frontier League Champions 2015-2018; club season: start for S&S Bruin Water Polo - driver, compete in local tournaments (40 words) — — —

For a comprehensive list of tips and ideas, head over to our full activities list writing guide . 

Most importantly:

Emphasize tangible, measurable impact.

Use active verbs.

Use lists and incomplete sentences

Cut extra words by using more specific words (i.e., “told people about” → advertised, “came up with” → brainstormed). 

How to Write MIT Supplemental Essay prompt #7

Optional: No application can meet the needs of every individual. If there is significant information that you were not able to include elsewhere in the application, you may include it here. (Many students will leave this section blank—and that’s okay.) Please note, we may not be able to access all links you share. If you have supplemental materials you would like to submit, please refer to our optional creative portfolios . (350 words or fewer)

This is basically the Additional Info section of your Common App. You can find a complete guide for that section here .

Special thanks to Ameer for his contributions to this blog post.

Ameer is a freelance writer who specializes in writing about college admissions and career development. Prior to freelancing, Ameer worked for three years as a college admissions consultant at a Hong Kong-based education center, helping local high school students prepare and apply for top colleges and universities in the US. He has a B.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Chicago and an M.A. in Spanish Linguistics from UCLA. When he’s not working, Ameer loves traveling, weight lifting, writing, reading, and learning foreign languages. He currently lives in Bangkok, Thailand. 

Top values: Growth / Diversity / Empathy

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MIT Essay Prompts

MIT does NOT require the Common Application. MIT’s own short essay questions are included below.

MIT Application Essay Questions

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4 Top Tips for Writing Stellar MIT Essays

College Essays

For the 2021-2022 admissions cycle, MIT admitted about 4% of applicants. If you want to be one of these lucky few, you'll need to write some killer MIT essays as part of your own Massachusetts Institute of Technology application.

In this article, we'll outline the MIT essay prompts and teach you how to write MIT supplemental essays that will help you stand out from the thousands of other applicants.

What Are the MIT Essays?

Like most major colleges and universities, MIT requires its applicants to submit essay examples as part of your application for admission.

MIT has its own application and doesn't accept the Common Application or the Coalition Application. The MIT essay prompts you'll answer aren't found on any other college's application.

There are four MIT supplemental essays, and you'll need to answer all four (approximately 200 words each) on various aspects of your life: a description of your background, what you do for fun, a way that you contribute to your community, and a challenge that you have faced in your life.

The MIT essay prompts are designed specifically to get to the heart of what makes you you . These essays help the admissions committee get a holistic picture of you as a person, beyond what they can learn from other parts of your application.

2022-2023 MIT Essay Prompts

The MIT supplemental essays are short, and each one addresses a different aspect of your identity and accomplishments.

You'll submit your essays along with an activities list and a self-reported coursework form as Part 2 of your MIT application. MIT structures its application this way because they rely on a uniform application to help them review thousands of applicants in the most straightforward and efficient way possible.

You need to respond to all five of the MIT essay prompts for your application.

Here are the 2022-2023 MIT essay prompts:

We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it.

Describe the world you come from (for example, your family, school, community, city, or town). How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?

MIT brings people with diverse backgrounds and experiences together to better the lives of others. Our students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being a good friend. Describe one way you have collaborated with people who are different from you to contribute to your community.

Tell us about a significant challenge you’ve faced (that you feel comfortable sharing) or something that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?

Now that we know what the prompts are, let's learn how to answer them effectively.

MIT Essays, Analyzed

In this section, we'll be looking at each of the five MIT essays in depth.

Remember, every applicant must answer every one of the MIT essay prompts , so you don't get to choose which essay you would like to write. You have to answer all five of the MIT essay prompts (and do so strongly) in order to present the best application possible.

Let's take a look at the five MIT supplemental essay questions and see what the admissions committee wants to hear from each.

MIT Essay Prompt #1

This MIT essay prompt is very broad. The structure of the prompt indicates that the committee is interested in learning about your curiosity inside and outside of the classroom, so don't feel like you have to write about your favorite parts of school.

This MIT essay is your opportunity to show a different side of your personality than the admissions committee will see on the rest of your application. This essay is your chance to show yourself as a well-rounded person who has a variety of different interests and talents.

Choose a specific activity here. You don't need to present a laundry list of activities—simply pick one thing and describe in detail why you enjoy it. You could talk about anything from your love of makeup tutorials on YouTube to the board game nights you have with your family. The key here is to pick something that you're truly passionate about.

Don't feel limited to interests relating to your potential major. MIT's second prompt is all about that, so in this first prompt forget about what the school "wants to read" and be yourself! In fact, describing your experience in or passion for a different field will better show that you're curious and open to new ideas.

MIT Prompt #2

Don't repeat information that the committee can find elsewhere on your application. Take the time to share fun, personal details about yourself.

For instance, do you make awesome, screen-accurate cosplays or have a collection of rock crystals from caving expeditions? Think about what you love to do in your spare time.

Be specific—the committee wants to get a real picture of you as a person. Don't just say that you love to play video games, say exactly which video games you love and why.

MIT wants to know about your community—the friends, family, teammates, etc. who make up your current life. All of those people have affected you in some way—this prompt is your chance to reflect on that influence and expand on it. You can talk about the deep bonds you have and how they have affected you. Showing your relationships to others gives the committee a better idea of how you will fit in on MIT's campus.

All in all, this MIT essay is a great opportunity to have some fun and show off some different aspects of your personality. Let yourself shine!

MIT Prompt #3

This MIT prompt is by far the most specific, so be specific in your answer. Pick one experience that's meaningful to you to discuss here. The prompt doesn't specify that you have to talk about something academic or personal. It can be anything that you've done where you have contributed to any community—your dance troupe, gaming friends, debate team teammates. A community can be anything; it doesn't just refer to your hometown, scholastic or religious community.

The trick to answering this prompt is to find a concrete example and stick to it.

Don't, for instance, say that you try to recycle because the environment is meaningful to you, because it won't sound sincere. Rather, you can talk about why picking up garbage in the park where you played baseball as a child has deeper meaning because you're protecting a place that you've loved for a long time. You should talk about something that is uniquely important to you, not the other thousands of students that are applying to MIT.

Pick something that is really meaningful to you. Your essay should feel sincere. Don't write what you think the committee wants to hear. They'll be more impressed by a meaningful experience that rings true than one that seems artificial or implausible.

MIT Prompt #4

This question sets you up for success: it targets your area of interest but doesn't pigeon-hole you.

This essay is where your formal education will be most important. They want to know what kind of academic life you may lead in college so keep it brief, but allow your excitement for learning to drive these words. You are, after all, applying to MIT—they want to know about your academic side.

You should demonstrate your knowledge of and affinity for MIT in this essay. Don't just say that you admire the MIT engineering program—explain exactly what it is about the engineering program that appeals to you.

You can call out specific professors or classes that are of interest to you. Doing so helps show that you truly want to go to MIT and have done your research.

If you love playing games with kids at the Boys & Girls Club, the third MIT essay prompt is the time to talk about that passion.

MIT Open-Ended Text Box

This is one of the most open-ended options that you'll find on a college application! Here's one last chance for you to let MIT get to know the real you—the you that didn't quite get to come out during the previous four essays.

MIT wants to know exactly who you are, but, just as a word of caution, make sure your answer is appropriate for general audiences.

How to Write a Great MIT Essay

Regardless of which MIT essay prompt you're responding to, you should keep in mind the following tips for how to write a great MIT essay.

#1: Use Your Own Voice

The point of a college essay is for the admissions committee to have the chance to get to know you beyond your test scores, grades, and honors. Your admissions essays are your opportunity to make yourself come alive for the essay readers and to present yourself as a fully fleshed out person.

You should, then, make sure that the person you're presenting in your college essays is yourself. Don't try to emulate what you think the committee wants to hear or try to act like someone you're not.

If you lie or exaggerate, your essay will come across as insincere, which will diminish its effectiveness. Stick to telling real stories about the person you really are, not who you think MIT wants you to be.

You're the star of the show in your MIT essays! Make sure your work reflects who you are as a student and person, not who you think the admissions committee wants you to be.

#2: Avoid Clichés and Overused Phrases

When writing your MIT essays, try to avoid using clichés or overused quotes or phrases.

These include quotations that have been quoted to death and phrases or idioms that are overused in daily life. The college admissions committee has probably seen numerous essays that state, "You miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take."  Strive for originality.

Similarly, avoid using clichés, which take away from the strength and sincerity of your work.

Your work should be straightforward and authentic.

#3: Check Your Work

It should almost go without saying, but you want to make sure your MIT essays are the strongest example of your work possible. Before you turn in your MIT application, make sure to edit and proofread your essays.

Your work should be free of spelling and grammar errors. Make sure to run your essays through a spelling and grammar check before you submit.

It's a good idea to have someone else read your MIT essays, too. You can seek a second opinion on your work from a parent, teacher, or friend. Ask them whether your work represents you as a student and person. Have them check and make sure you haven't missed any small writing errors. Having a second opinion will help your work be the best it possibly can be.

#4: Demonstrate Your Love for MIT

MIT's five essay prompts are specific to MIT. Keep that in mind as you're answering them, particularly when you attack prompt two.

Show why MIT is your dream school—what aspects of the education and community there are most attractive to you as a student.

MIT receives thousands of applications, from students who have different levels of interest in the university.

The more you can show that you really want to go to MIT, the more the school will be interested in your application. Your passion for MIT may even give you a leg up on other applicants.

What's Next?

Exploring your standardized testing options? Click here for the full list and for strategies on how to get your best ACT score .

Are you happy with your ACT/SAT score, or do you think it should be higher? Learn what a good SAT / ACT score is for your target schools .

Your MIT essays are just one part of your college application process. Check out our guide to applying to college   for a step-by-step breakdown of what you'll need to do.

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How to Write the MIT Application Essays 2022-2023

Padya Paramita

October 3, 2022

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the dream university for many STEM-oriented students, and it comes as no surprise that it’s also one of the most selective schools in the world. If you’re set on majoring in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Computation and Cognition, or one of the other highly specialized programs that MIT offers, it’s important to let admissions officers know who you are and what you’d bring through the MIT application essays 2022-2023 . 

Since MIT uses MyMIT , its own application system, you don’t have to worry about repeating your Common App personal statement topic here! But, this means that the essays act as your personal statement and supplemental responses all in one. Alongside conveying your love for MIT, you must take advantage of your supplemental essays to provide crucial context on your interests and background. You have five prompts to convince admissions officers why you’re an ideal fit for this highly competitive Boston institution, which only accepted 4% of students this year. To help guide you through the writing process , I’ve outlined each prompt, dos and don’ts for your responses, and more tips on the MIT application essays 2022-2023 .

MIT Application Essays 2022-2023 (answer all - appx. 200 words each)

We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it. 

MIT values students who are particularly invested in activities and topics that are meaningful to them, no matter what the scale. If you have a highly meaningful hobby that isn’t a conventional extracurricular per se, MIT is telling you to go for it. Just the introductory paragraph to most essays requires over 100 words—you might find it difficult to restrain yourself while talking about your favorite activity. In order to get your point across, you need to put less emphasis on describing the activity—limit it to one or two sentences - and more on what brings you joy about it. Why is it your favorite? How does it recharge you in a way others may not? Has it shaped your perspective in a significant way?

Since admissions officers will see your activities list through MyMIT, you should find ways to include anecdotes that will convey additional information about yourself. While you should not pick a purely academic activity or something that you think MIT wants to hear, you also should think of something beyond sleeping, eating, or hanging out with friends. Your outlook on the activity should be unique and help you stand out among your peers.

Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?

It’s crucial that you go through all of the prompts offered by the MIT application essays 2022-2023 before you decide on a topic for each of them because what you cover in this first prompt might also be a good fit for Prompt 4. And if you are invested in more than one community, then you’re in luck! Either way, your answer to questions 1 and 4 should not cover the same topic because each essay is meant to add new information about you.

A good clue on what to write here comes from the second part of the question, “how has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?” It’s time to think about your goals again. Is there any community or group which has played a strong role in solidifying your goals? If the answer is yes, there’s your answer. Start your essay by introducing the chosen world—keep it brief as you have another segment to cover. The major focus of your essay should lie in elaborating on the connection between the topic you’ve chosen and your career aspirations. Use anecdotes as evidence to drive your point home for admission officers to better visualize the impact. 

At MIT, we bring people together to better the lives of others. MIT students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being a good friend. Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in your family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc. 

Since the prompt clearly states that there are no specific boxes that your choice of community has to check, think about a place where you’ve actually made an impact. Think about how to differentiate yourself—while service trips abroad definitely could count as community service, they won’t help paint a memorable picture of you because lots of students participate in them. You could write about the smaller circles such as your family, friend group, or neighborhood. You may have helped the community as a whole or you could have helped one or two individuals who belong to it. 

To think about the kinds of contributions to elaborate on, ask yourself the following questions:

• How have you collaborated with others in your community?
• Have you taken any risks to help others? How have they paid off?
• Have you spearheaded any initiatives towards change?
• Are there any service examples that portray your curiosity and creativity?
• Why do you care about this community? How have you shown it? 

If you choose a larger community—like your whole school or city—make sure your essay still focuses on your own contribution and role. A response to such a prompt needs to follow the classic “show, not tell” advice. Admissions officers won’t be satisfied with just “I helped my family.” You need to dig deeper and convince them through the MIT application essays 2022-2023 that you are the kind of hardworking and passionate individual who can thrive at MIT.

Tell us about a significant challenge you’ve faced (that you feel comfortable sharing) or something that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation? 

MIT values candidates “ who are not only planning to succeed but who are also not afraid to fail .” When admissions officers read prompts about challenges students have overcome, they don’t want to know every single detail about the hurdle. The response should be more focused on the way the student reacted in the situation and how they’ve grown from the circumstances. Don’t pick an experience where you gave up easily after failing to do something. Your essay should highlight your strength and resilience in the face of an obstacle.

The definition of a “challenge” may vary from person to person. The keyword here is “significant.” Avoid writing about situations such as a bad grade or a sprain playing soccer that might be minor in comparison to issues other students have faced. Instead, think about an instance that showcases how your ability to recover from a struggle and proves your determination as well as your humility. Instead of writing general statements, focus your essay on your actions you took during the situation and the lessons you picked up. 

This is a great opportunity to tell admissions officers about the way you respond to tough moments - end your essay on a positive note!

More Tips to Answer the MIT Application Essays 2022-2023

• Use Your Common Application Profile As Inspiration: Chances are, other schools on your list use the Common Application so you’ve already filled it out. The Common App can be a great source of letting you know the kind of context colleges want to know about you. If there’s anything that you’ve mentioned in the Common App that you haven’t gotten a chance to express for MyMIT—whether it’s mentioned in your personal statement topic or an impressive award—you may be able to include it somewhere in your response to the MIT application essays 2022-2023!
• Read the Website Very Carefully: Research is extremely important before sitting down to answer school-specific questions and the MIT application essays 2022-2023 are no different. Luckily, MIT has very detailed information for prospective students that can help you go deeper into admissions officers’ minds. Use the information given on the “ What we look for ” page to get an idea of which characteristics you should emphasize in your responses.
• Use Strong Examples : The MIT application essays 2022-2023 are all about gauging your intellectual pursuits, community involvement, and engagements outside the classroom. Since the word limits for the prompts aren’t generous, each of your essays should focus on being as specific as possible in depicting your personality and interests. Adding specific examples lets admissions officers understand your perspective better and envision the areas of campus where you’d contribute and how you’d fit in with the MIT community.

The questions asked by MIT act as your personal statement and supplemental essays all in one. So when thinking about the MIT application essays 2022-2023 , make sure your responses show your passions and perspective in a way that distinguishes you from other applicants. If admissions officers understand your context and agree with the ways you would be a strong fit for MIT, you’ll be one step closer to that acceptance letter. Good luck!

Tags : how to get into MIT , applying to mit , mymit , MIT essays , MIT Application Essays 2022-2023

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MIT Supplemental Essays 2023-24 – Prompts and Tips

September 8, 2023

When applying to MIT, a school with a 4% acceptance rate where a 1500 SAT would place you below the average enrolled student (seriously), teens should be aware that it takes a lot to separate yourself from the other 26,000+ applicants you are competing against. While trying to be among the 1 in 25 who will ultimately be accepted sounds like (and is) a rather intimidating proposition, every year around 1,300 individuals accomplish this epic feat. We’ve worked with many of these students personally and can tell you one thing they all had in common—exceptionally strong MIT supplemental essays.

(Want to learn more about How to Get Into MIT? Visit our blog entitled:  How to Get Into MIT: Admissions Data and Strategies  for all of the most recent admissions data as well as tips for gaining acceptance.)

There are few schools that offer as many essays as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All applicants are required to respond to five prompts as they work through the MIT application. Your mission is to write compelling, standout compositions that showcase your superior writing ability and reveal more about who you are as an individual. Below are the MIT supplemental essays for the 2023-24 admissions cycle along with tips about how to address each one.

MIT Supplemental Essays – Prompt #1: 

We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it. (200-250 words)

There are many different ways that you can approach this prompt, but the first step is to take MIT at their word that they are sincerely interested in what you do “simply for the pleasure of it.” While this may be something that also happens to be high-minded and/or STEM-oriented in nature, there is no expectation that this will be the case.

In essence, you want to ask yourself, what brings you great pleasure and happiness? Universal experiences of joy like family, a beautiful sunset, smiling children, or your cat or dog curled on your lap are perfectly acceptable answers here. However, you could also talk about dreams for the future, more bittersweet moments, abstract thoughts, moments of glorious introversion, or even something semi-embarrassing and vulnerable. The only “wrong” answer to this question would be an insincere one. As you enter the brainstorming phase, just make sure to turn off your “resume mode” setting. Instead, allow yourself to embrace the limitless possibilities of this essay.

Essay Prompt #2 

What field of study appeals to you the most right now? Tell us more about why this field of study at MIT appeals to you. (Note: You’ll select your preferred field of study from a drop-down list.) (100 words or fewer)

Generally speaking, we all have a story of what drives us to pursue a certain academic pathway and career. How did your interest initially develop? What was the spark? How have you nurtured this passion and how has it evolved over time? If you desire to go into engineering, this is a chance to talk about everything from your childhood fascination with how things work to your participation in an award-winning robotics program at your high school. Share a compelling (and, of course, true!) narrative about how your love of your future area of study has blossomed to its present levels.

In other words, this essay should show evidence of intense hunger for knowledge that extends well outside of the classroom. How do you learn about your favorite subjects? What books have you read on the subject? Which podcasts have you listened to? What museums have you visited?

You can also tie your passions into specific academic opportunities at MIT including courses , professors , hands-on research programs , or any other aspects of your desired major that appeals most to you.

MIT Supplemental Essays – Prompt #3 

MIT brings people with diverse backgrounds together to collaborate, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to lending a helping hand. Describe one way you have collaborated with others to learn from them, with them, or contribute to your community together. (225 words)

How you interact with your present surroundings is the strongest indicator of what kind of community member you will be in your future collegiate home. This prompt asks you to discuss how you have collaborated with others (in any setting) in order to learn from them or contribute to a particular community. This could mean how you’ve collaborated with others during a group project, internship, extracurricular opportunity, sports event, or service project, to name a few.

Some words of warning: don’t get too grandiose in explaining the positive change that you brought about. Of course, if you and your team truly brought peace to a war-torn nation or influenced climate change policy on a global scale, share away. However, nothing this high-profile is expected. Essentially, MIT wants to understand how you’ve worked with other people—in any capacity—to expand your thinking or reach a common goal.

A few potential ideas for areas where you may have worked with/alongside others include:

• Racial injustice
• Assisting those with special needs
• Climate justice/the environment
• Making outsiders in a group feel welcome
• The economically disadvantaged
• Mental health awareness
• Clean-up projects
• Tutoring peers or younger students
• Charitable work through a religious organization

This is, of course, by no means a comprehensive list of potential topics. Most importantly, your story should be personal, sincere, and revealing of your core character and developing values system.

Essay Prompt #4

How has the world you come from—including your opportunities, experiences, and challenges—shaped your dreams and aspirations? (225 words or fewer)

This essay encourages you to describe how your world has shaped your aspirations. We all have any number of “worlds” to choose from, and MIT is inviting you to share more about one of these worlds through the lens of how that has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

Take note of the wide-open nature of this prompt. You are essentially invited to talk about any of the following topics:

• A perspective you hold
• An experience/challenge you had
• A community you belong to
• Your cultural background
• Your religious background
• Your family background
• Your sexual orientation or gender identity

Although this prompt’s open floor plan may feel daunting, a good tactic is to first consider what has already been communicated within on other areas of your application. What important aspect(s) of yourself have not been shared (or sufficiently discussed)? The admissions officer reading your essay is hoping to connect with you through your written words, so—within your essay’s reflection—be open, humble, thoughtful, inquisitive, emotionally honest, mature, and/or insightful about what you learned and how you grew.

You’ll then need to discuss how your chosen “world” has influenced your future, and in what ways.

MIT Supplemental Essays – Prompt #5

How did you manage a situation or challenge that you didn’t expect? What did you learn from it? (225 words)

Note this prompt’s new wording: How did you manage a situation or challenge that you didn’t expect ? Can you think of a time when you felt surprisingly overwhelmed? When something out-of-the-ordinary occurred? When you were caught off guard? Basically, MIT is trying to discover how you deal with unforeseen setbacks, and the important thing to keep in mind is that the challenge/story itself is  less important  than what it reveals about your character and personality.

Of course, some teens have faced more challenges than others, potentially related to an illness or medical emergency, frequent moving, socioeconomic situation, natural disaster, or learning disability, to name a few. However, you don’t have to have faced a significant challenge to write a compelling essay (and even if you have faced a significant challenge, you don’t have to write about it if you’re not comfortable doing so). Writing about a common topic like getting cut from a sports team, struggling in a particular advanced course, or facing an obstacle within a group project or extracurricular activity is perfectly fine. Any story told in an emotionally compelling, honest, and connective manner can resonate with an admissions reader. The bottom line here is that there are no trite topics, only trite answers.

Given the 225-word limit, your essay needs to be extremely tight and polished. In all likelihood, getting this one precisely right will involve a round or two of revision, ideally with some insight/feedback from a trusted adult or peer in the process.

Some tips to keep in mind include:

• Firstly, make sure you share what you were feeling and experiencing. This piece should demonstrate openness and vulnerability.
• Additionally, you don’t need to be a superhero in the story. You can just be an ordinary human trying their best to learn how to navigate a challenging world.
• Don’t feel boxed into one particular structure for this essay. The most common (which there is nothing wrong with), is 1) introducing the problem 2) explaining your internal and external decision-making in response to the problem 3) Revealing the resolution to the problem and what you learned along the way.
• Lastly, don’t be afraid that your “problem” might sound “trite” in comparison to those of others. This essay is about you. Y our job is to make sure that your response to the problem shows your maturity and resilience in an authentic way. That matters far more than the original challenge itself.

Essay Prompt #6 (Optional)

Please tell us more about your cultural background and identity in the space below. (150 words)

Unlike other optional essays, this one truly is optional. You don’t need to respond unless you have something significant to share about your cultural background and identity that hasn’t already been shared elsewhere on the application.

How important are the MIT supplemental essays?

There are 8 factors that MIT considers to be “very important” to their evaluation process. They are: rigor of secondary school record, class rank, GPA, standardized test scores, recommendations, extracurricular activities, and most relevant to this blog—the MIT supplemental essays.

Moreover, character/personal qualities are the only factor that is “very important” to the MIT admissions committee. Of course, part of how they assess your character and personal qualities is through what they read in your essays.

Want personalized assistance with your MIT supplemental essays?

In conclusion, if you are interested in working with one of College Transitions’ experienced and knowledgeable essay coaches as you craft your MIT supplemental essays, we encourage you to get a quote  today.

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How to Get Into MIT: Essays and Strategies that Worked

How hard is it to get into mit learn about mit’s application process and successful approaches to mit’s short-answer essay questions—which are not on the common app — to improve your child’s odds of being accepted.

LEARN HOW TO GET INTO MIT

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: mit requirements for admission, part 3: applying to mit early action vs. regular decision, part 4: 2023–2024 mit supplemental essays (examples included), part 5: frequently asked questions.

If your child has the grades and tests scores to be competitive for the best Ivy League schools and Ivy Plus schools (e.g., Caltech , Stanford ) and is interested in pursuing a career in a STEM-related field (science, technology, engineering, and math), you may want to encourage them to apply to one of the most prestigious Ivy Plus schools: MIT .

MIT—the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—is among the most prestigious, famous, and rigorous universities in the world (yes, in the same tier as its neighbor across the river, Harvard ). In this science and technology-crazed world, a degree from MIT is sure to impress employers. Moreover, the years spent on MIT’s futuristic campus in historic Cambridge, MA can change the course of your child’s life. 

At MIT, your child can conduct research in the lab where the human genome was sequenced, intern at a tech company like Google in nearby Kendall Square, collaborate with scientists on cutting-edge research in aeronautical engineering (actual rocket science), pursue an interest in art and technology at the famous MIT design lab, and even take a creative writing course with a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist. 

MIT students spend their summers pursuing research and prestigious internships thanks to MIT’s network and generous financial support for research grants. Some students may spend the summer interning in Silicon Valley at Facebook or on Wall Street at a top firm. They might even conduct research at NASA or design an innovative suspended bridge in Portugal. 

Because of MIT’s name recognition, students will stand out to recruiters in a variety of professions. 

And life after MIT? Alumni attend prestigious graduate schools, travel the world with Fulbright Fellowships , invent lucrative smartphone apps in Silicon Valley, design skyscrapers, enter politics, and much more—both in and out of STEM fields. In addition to a strong network that includes Nobel Laureates, astronauts, and CEOs, a degree from MIT might make people believe that your child is, well, a genius. 

From years of helping students navigate MIT’s application and essay questions, we’ve put together key tips for how to get into MIT, including how your child can write standout essays to earn a place there. 

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MIT ranking

MIT routinely ranks as one of the best universities in the U.S.:

U.S. News & World Report: 2

Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education: 3

Where is MIT?

MIT is located in Cambridge, MA, just a short walk away from Boston via the Longfellow Bridge or the Harvard Bridge. Take the Boston T (the subway) from Kendall Square to get to Boston in under 10 minutes. Cambridge’s population is approximately 118,000—a small yet densely populated city that is accessible to, but independent from, Boston. 4.9 million people live in the Boston metropolitan area. 

MIT setting

Composed of distinct “squares,” Cambridge is a suburban area that offers tasty food, vibrant cafes, bookstores, record stores, vintage clothing shops, and much more.

MIT student population

Undergraduate students: 4,576

Graduate students: 7,344

MIT acceptance rate

Here are the admissions statistics for the class of 2027:

Applications: 26,914

Acceptances: 1,291

Matriculants: 1,092

Acceptance rate: 4.8%

Here’s what we know so far about the class of 2028:

Applications: 28,232

Acceptances: 1,275

Acceptance rate: 4.5%

MIT tuition and scholarships

In 2024–2025, MIT projects the total cost of attendance (i.e., tuition, room, board, and fees) to be $85,960.

MIT is committed to covering 100 percent of demonstrated need, and 99 percent of MIT students receive some form of financial aid. For students with household incomes (including assets) of $140,000 or less, tuition is covered by the MIT scholarship fund. In 2022–2023, 58 percent of students received need-based MIT scholarships with the average amount being $ 63,729.

Among students receiving any form of financial aid, the average amount paid by families after term-time work is currently $9,926 per year. Eight in ten MIT students graduate free of debt.

Who gets into MIT? 

MIT emphasizes its holistic admissions process and does not publish the average GPA or class rank of its incoming class, although they do publish average test scores. Below, we’ve compiled academic stats and demographic information for the class of 2027 to help you assess your child’s odds of getting in:

MIT average ACT score:

25th percentile: 34

75th percentile: 36

MIT average SAT Math score:

25th percentile: 780

75th percentile: 800

MIT average SAT ERW score:

25th percentile: 740

75th percentile: 780

International students: 10%

Public school attendees: 66%

Asian Americans make up 40% of the class. 38% are Caucasian, 16% are Hispanic or Latinx, 15% are Black or African American, 2% are American Indian or Alaskan Native, and 1% are Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.

Most MIT students major in STEM-related fields. Among those who don’t, architecture, urban planning, and management (at MIT Sloan) are popular choices. The interdisciplinary program “Humanities and Engineering” is a favorite among students interested in engineering, literature, history, and the arts.  

Many students pursue minors in non-STEM fields, such as writing, political science, and comparative media studies.

(Suggested reading: How to Succeed as an MIT Premed )

MIT academic requirements

Like its peer institutions in the Ivy League and the Ivy Plus schools, MIT looks for ambitious students who demonstrate academic excellence and passion, especially in science and technology.

To impress MIT, your child will need to demonstrate great potential in the STEM fields. MIT admissions officers are looking for students who took advantage of the educational opportunities that they were afforded in high school. If your child attended a high school with a rigorous IB or AP curriculum, MIT will look for a successful track record in those courses.

If your child’s school doesn’t have the means or resources to challenge them sufficiently, you should help your child seek outside STEM material and coursework, through community college, online, or summer programs. It’s unlikely that someone without a fairly advanced background in at least chemistry, physics, biology, and calculus stands a chance at MIT admissions. Your child should take AP Calculus AB or BC (or the equivalent) by their senior year, at the latest.

MIT does not specify requirements for what students completed in high school, but to prepare for their rigorous curriculum, the MIT admissions team recommends the following:

One year of high school physics

One year of high school chemistry

One year of high school biology

Math, through calculus

Two years of a foreign language

Four years of English

Two years of history and/or social sciences

But grades aren’t enough. MIT isn’t just looking to admit people who can ace science tests. Those people aren’t the ones who need access to cutting edge neuroscience labs, funding to conduct research abroad, and resources for launching startups. MIT wants to admit students who will utilize the university’s unparalleled resources. They are looking for students who take risks when designing robots and who take the initiative to create their own smartphone apps. 

They want to educate future leaders in STEM, meaning they’re also looking for intellectual creativity and curiosity, often demonstrated through extracurricular activities .

Has your child, for instance, taught themselves to code if their school didn’t offer computer science? Is she an advanced tinkerer who’s created a device to make solar energy more efficient in the school cafeteria? Are they a national robotics champion or a competitor in the Intel Science Fair? Has he excelled in his school’s math team by participating in competitions at the state or national level?

Here are the specifics.

MIT application requirements

MIT does not use Common App, Coalition App, or the Universal College Application. Instead, MIT uses its own application system and process, so your child will need to write new essays or reuse excerpts from the Common App Essay or UC essays .

Here are the MIT application components:

MIT Application , including short answer essay questions

ACT or SAT scores

2 teacher letters of recommendation (1 from a STEM teacher and 1 from a humanities/social science/language teacher)

Secondary School Report including transcripts, a counselor evaluation, and school profile

Optional: Your child may submit a third, supplemental evaluation. While most applicants do not submit this optional evaluation, it may be a good addition to your child’s application if he or she participated in an impressive internship, did research, or succeeded in an extracurricular activity. 

Optional: Creative portfolio

Want to know exactly what it takes to get into America’s most selective colleges?

Get the free 110-page guide we use to help our students routinely get admitted to schools like Stanford and Princeton: How to Get Into America’s Elite Colleges: The Ultimate Guide

Your child can apply early to MIT by November 1st and receive a decision of either accepted, deferred, or denied, by mid-December. 

MIT follows an early action model (in contrast to early decision), which means that your child does not need to attend MIT if they are accepted at this stage. Your child can apply to other universities and make their final decision in April.

If your child receives a deferral , then they will re-enter the regular admissions pool and find out on in mid-March whether or not they have been accepted, waitlisted, or rejected. 

Unlike Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, or Yale, MIT does not have restrictive or single-choice early action. MIT simply asks that students respect other colleges’ restrictive early action policies, so your child cannot apply to MIT early action if they are applying restrictive or single-choice early action elsewhere.

However, your child can apply to schools with non-restrictive early action, like Georgetown’s early action program , or to early decision programs, such as Columbia’s early decision program . If your child is accepted to the early decision program, they must withdraw their application from MIT.

Your child can also apply regular decision, by January 6th.

How do you know if your child should apply to MIT early? 

MIT early action might be the right choice for your child:

If MIT is one of their top choices

If there is no other school they’d like to apply to via early decision or restrictive early action

If your child is applying to their top choice early decision and is willing to withdraw their MIT application upon acceptance to the early decision school.

If their test scores and grades are strong by the end of junior year

MIT admits about half of their class early and half of their class in the regular decision pool. However, the regular pool is more competitive because it includes deferred applicants and regular decision applicants. 

Most importantly: MIT doesn’t offer preference to those who apply early.

(Note: While this section covers MIT’s admissions essays specifically, we encourage you to view additional successful college essay examples .)

MIT is posing the following short essay questions for the 2023–2024 application cycle: 

What field of study appeals to you the most right now? (Note: Applicants select from a drop-down list.) Tell us more about why this field of study at MIT appeals to you. (200 words or fewer)

We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it. (200 words or fewer)

How has the world you come from—including your opportunities, experiences, and challenges—shaped your dreams and aspirations? (200 words)

MIT brings people with diverse backgrounds together to collaborate, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to lending a helping hand. Describe one way you have collaborated with others to learn from them, with them, or contribute to your community together. (250 words)

How did you manage a situation or challenge that you didn’t expect? What did you learn from it? (250 words)

A final, open-ended additional information text box, where your child can tell the Admissions Committee anything they need to know or explain some confusing aspect of their application (note: this is neither an essay nor required). Your child should treat this box like the Common App Additional Information Section .

(Suggested reading: The Ultimate Guide to Supplemental College Application Essays )

MIT essay #1

What field of study appeals to you the most right now? (Note: Applicants select from a drop-down list.) Tell us more about why this field of study at MIT appeals to you.

Like other “Why us?” essays, this prompt offers students an opportunity to show why they are excited about MIT. While students are not required to declare a major, this prompt offers a chance to show MIT that your child has done their homework on their unique course offerings. 

Daniel, who has conducted research on how mosquitoes transmit viruses at the university in his hometown, wants to use this essay as an opportunity to discuss how his autoimmune disorder influenced his career ambitions.

Ever since I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder at thirteen, I have been passionate about genetics. My hours spent in the doctor’s office taught me how vital it is to develop better affordable diagnostic technologies. To pursue this interest, I’d like to major in Course 7, which offers courses in human diseases, neurobiology, evolutionary biology, and other topics related to genetics. The field of genetics is going to explode with life-improving discoveries, and my dream is to make a difference in the world through research such as that being done by Eric Lander into the human genome. 

Here’s how Daniel captured the attention of the Admissions Committee:

He connects his interest in MIT’s academics to his personal story. Daniel does not simply say that he wants to major in biology and become a doctor. Instead, he draws on personal experiences to identify a problem in the medical field that requires innovative research in science and technology. 

He demonstrates an understanding of MIT’s unique course offerings. Unlike the students who responded by saying that they wish to major in math, physics, chemistry, or biology, Daniel chooses an academic program that is unique to MIT. He even lists the course offerings that excite him the most. Of course, if your child does wish to major in the more traditional sciences, they can still pull off what Daniel does by connecting to a particular branch or application of those sciences.

He states his goals for the future. Beyond simply stating what he hopes to accomplish at MIT, Daniel expresses his goals for the future. As a bonus, Daniel demonstrates an interest in a specific faculty member in his field of interest and an ongoing project in which he may participate. 

MIT essay #2

We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it. (200 words)

MIT essay #3

Mit essay #4, mit essay #5.

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What GPA is required for MIT admission?

Unfortunately, the exact GPA required for MIT admission is not known. As noted above, MIT does not publish the average GPA of its incoming class, so determining a specific number is difficult.

While MIT also doesn’t have a minimum GPA requirement, if your child is to be competitive they will need at least a 3.5 if they’re a transfer student and likely above a 4.0 weighted GPA if they’re applying directly from high school.

Is MIT harder than Harvard to get into?

Both MIT and Harvard are extremely selective, only taking the best-qualified applicants who are also the best fit for their campus community. Among the class of 2027, MIT’s acceptance rate was 4.8 percent as noted above, while Harvard’s most recent acceptance rate for the class of 2028 was 3.59 percent.

On the surface, it may seem as though Harvard is harder to get into, however, keep in mind that admissions rates change annually and that different types of students apply to both MIT and Harvard. Students more focused on STEM tend to apply to MIT, while students with a wider variety of interests may be applying to Harvard. Furthermore, Harvard received more than twice the number of applications for the class of 2028 that MIT received for their class of 2027.

Does MIT prefer ACT or SAT?

MIT does not have a preference for either the ACT or SAT. However, they do require that one of these tests be submitted with your child’s application. The ACT writing section and the SAT optional essay are not required.

What is the hardest subject at MIT?

The hardest subject at MIT is entirely subjective and based on a student’s particular strengths and weaknesses. Not to mention, whether they find a subject interesting!

Overall, MIT is known for its rigorous academics and challenging classes. Many of the classes your child encounters at MIT will likely be more comprehensive and difficult than any they have faced in the past. That said, many students point to certain advanced math and physics courses as being the hardest, such as 18.100C (Real Analysis) and 8.022 (Electricity and Magnetism).

Final thoughts

Like other Ivies and Ivy Plus schools, MIT is a reach for even the most brilliant students. Success in AP and IB science and math courses and top grades are the norm in the matriculating class. By making unique accomplishments in extracurricular activities or by developing a project that demonstrates passion, your child will be well on their way to exhibiting the qualities that the MIT admissions committee looks for in their applicants.

About the Author

Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on college admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into top programs like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT using his exclusive approach.

THERE'S NO REASON TO STRUGGLE THROUGH THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS PROCESS ALONE, ESPECIALLY WITH SO MUCH ON THE LINE. SCHEDULE YOUR COMPLIMENTARY CONSULTATION TO ENSURE YOU LEAVE NOTHING TO CHANCE.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 2023-24 Essay Prompt Guide

Early Action: Nov 1

Regular Decision Deadline: Jan 4

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)  2023-24 Application Essay Question Explanations

MIT Requirements: 3 essays of 200-225 words each, 1 essay of 150 words, 1 essay of 100 words

Supplemental Essay Type(s): Why , Community , Activity , Diversity

There’s an old cheesy joke that goes like this: A college student is standing in the “10 items or less” checkout lane at a grocery store in Boston. When she finally gets to the register, it turns out she has 12 items. The cashier rolls her eyes and says, “Okay, so either you’re from Harvard and you can’t count or you’re from MIT and you can’t read.” (Badum-chhh!) Sadly, you will be expected to read and write in college—even at MIT! In fact, MIT admissions cares so much about your writing that they’ve concocted their own separate application with five short essays. Don’t worry, though, you’ll also get to show off your counting skills thanks to each essay’s tight word count. So the real challenge of this application is crafting tight, incisive essays that tell focused stories about your life. Got it? Okay!

Rather than asking you to write one long essay, the MIT application consists of several short response questions and essays designed to help us get to know you. Remember that this is not a writing test. Be honest, be open, be authentic—this is your opportunity to connect with us.

You should certainly be thoughtful about your essays, but if you’re thinking too much—spending a lot of time stressing or strategizing about what makes you “look best,” as opposed to the answers that are honest and easy—you’re doing it wrong..

Alright, now let’s dig in!

For the 2023-2024 application, we’re asking these short answer essay questions:

We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it. (150 words or fewer).

MIT is explicitly asking you to back away from the resume, and forget your structured activities. It’s not about proving what you can do, but revealing what you love to do. Put another way, this prompt is about self-care: What always, without fail, brings a smile to your face? What helps you recharge your batteries? What do you do and where do you go when you’re feeling down? When you start to think of things that feel a little silly or personal, you’re heading in the right direction. The activity you choose should be informal and unique to you. 

Although MIT invites you to be honest, we also suggest you balance your honesty with specific details and storytelling. You might want to try to come up with something a little more original than sleep, read, or hang out with friends, but if these are your options, then you have to commit. If you like to spend time with your friends, what sorts of things do you do together? If you like to sleep, have you perfected the art of the power nap ? What are your favorite things to read and how do you organize your personal library? Let your personality and tastes shine through! And before you start to say, “But I really do love volunteering at the soup kitchen during my spare time,” don’t worry. There’s a community service essay a little later in this supplement.

What field of study appeals to you the most right now? (Note: Applicants select from a drop-down list.) Tell us more about why this field of study at MIT appeals to you. (100 words or fewer)

This is MIT’s version of a classic Why Essay . Even if you’re not completely sure what you want to major in yet, MIT wants to both learn about your academic interests, and see how their offerings will suit your passions. If you can build a bridge between your own interests and the resources available at MIT, you’ll be well on your way to demonstrating your fit. So set aside a few hours and commit to some hardcore research on the MIT website. (Sorry, there’s no way around this, folks!) Beyond the basic departmental listings, look up information about news and research coming out of your department of interest, the kinds of courses available, and the opportunities other undergrads have had studying in your area of choice. Even if you have a wide array of interests, consider explaining how two or three departments might complement each other or foster your interest in a larger theme or cross-pollinating kind of way. Your ultimate goal is to show that your interest in MIT (just like your intellectual curiosity) runs deep!

How has the world you come from—including your opportunities, experiences, and challenges—shaped your dreams and aspirations? (225 words or fewer)

Admissions wants to know how your background, whether it was full of opportunity or obstacles, has shaped your dreams and aspirations. So, tell them a story, the more specific the better, that demonstrates your journey to your current goals. Maybe you watched your parents struggle to make ends meet, which is why you hope to pursue a degree in Economics, so you can teach financial literacy to communities in need. Perhaps you grew up solving relational and logic puzzles with your grandpa every weekend, which led to a love of complex problem solving and a dream of a career in engineering. Whatever your story is, use this opportunity to give admissions a clearer picture of the goals you’re striving to achieve and how they came to be in the first place. 

MIT brings people with diverse backgrounds together to collaborate, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to lending a helping hand. Describe one way you have collaborated with others to learn from them, with them, or contribute to your community together. (225 words or fewer)

This question asks for a specific story: a collaborative one in which you either sought to learn from others or contributed to your community together. This is a great opportunity to write about a professional experience (your first time working in the kitchen as a line cook!) or community service (delivering meals to families in need!). Ideally, you should describe an experience that spans a decent amount of time—a few weeks or even months—so you can describe the phases of your collaboration and the end result. You should be driving at a lesson that you will be able to carry with you into the future (e.g., there’s something to learn from each person you meet or the power of local organizing). In other words: a takeaway that will positively impact your collaborative contributions at MIT. 

How did you manage a situation or challenge that you didn’t expect? What did you learn from it? (225 words or fewer)

We’ve all had curveballs thrown our way, and admissions wants to hear about a time when you adjusted your sails. The situation or challenge you discuss here can really run the gamut, from covering for a colleague and taking on new responsibilities at your after-school diner job to dealing with a serious injury, though you’ll want to avoid topics that may seem trite (a pop quiz you didn’t study for!). Once you explain the situation or challenge to admissions, focus on what you took away from your experience. Maybe you learned that you work well under pressure (and can hold three milkshake glasses in one hand!) or that you are more resilient than you realized and capable of the hard work required to heal and rehabilitate after surgery. Give yourself time to brainstorm for this prompt, because we’re willing to bet you have a few stories to choose from here.

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Graduate School Personal Statement

Criteria for success.

• Your personal statement convinces a faculty committee that you are qualified for their program.
• It convinces them that you are a good fit for their program’s focus and goals.
• You show a select group of skills and experiences that convey your scientific accomplishments and interests.
• Your experiences are concrete and quantitative.
• Your personal statement is no more than 2 pages.

Structure Diagram

The graduate school personal statement tells your story and demonstrates that you are a good match for a particular department or program. Matching goes both ways: they should be interested in you, and you should be interested in them. Your personal statement should make this match clear.

Analyze Your Audience

Your personal statement will be read by a graduate committee: a handful of faculty from the program. They’re trying to determine if you will be a successful graduate student in their department, a positive force in the department’s intellectual life, and a successful scientist after you graduate. They are therefore interested in your qualifications as a researcher, your career goals, and how your personality matches their labs and department.

The graduate committee probably reads hundreds of applications a year. To make it easy for them to figure out that you are a good fit, make direct, concrete statements about your accomplishments and qualifications. To make it easy for them to remember you, create a narrative that “brands” you.

Create a personal narrative

PhD programs invest in the professional and scientific growth of their students. Get the committee excited about investing in you by opening your essay with a brief portrait of what drives you as a scientist. What research directions are you passionate about, and why? What do you picture yourself doing in 10 years?

Close your essay with a 2-3 sentence discussion of your career interests. No one will hold you to this; this just helps your committee visualize your potential trajectory.

Describe your experiences

Experiences are the “what” of your essay. What experiences led you to develop your skill set and passions? Where have you demonstrated accomplishment, leadership, and collaboration? Include research, teaching, and relevant extracurriculars. State concrete achievements and outcomes like awards, discoveries, or publications.

Quantify your experiences to show concrete impact. How many people were on your team? How many protocols did you develop? How many people were in competition for an award? As a TA, how often did you meet with your students?

Describe actions, not just changes in your internal mental or emotional state. A personal statement is a way to make a narrative out of your CV. It is not a diary entry.

Explain the meaning of your experiences

Meaning is the “why” or “so what” of the document. Why was this experience important to your growth as a scientist? What does it say about your abilities and potential? It feels obvious to you, but you need to be explicit with your audience. Your descriptions of meaning should also act as transition statements between experiences: try to “wrap” meaning around your experiences.

Demonstrate match to your target program

Demonstrate an understanding of the program to which you’re applying and how you will be successful in that program. To do this:

• Read the program’s website. See what language they use to describe themselves, and echo that language in your essay. For example, MIT Biological Engineering’s website lists the department’s three objectives.
• Get in contact with faculty (or students) in your target program. If you have had a positive discussion with someone at the department, describe how those interactions made you think that you and the department may be well-matched.
• State which professors in the program you would plan to work with. Show how their research areas align with your background and your goals. You can even describe potential research directions or projects.

This content was adapted from from an article originally created by the  MIT Biological Engineering Communication Lab .

Resources and Annotated Examples

Annotated example 1.

Selected sections from the personal statement a graduate student wrote in a successful application to MIT BE. 536 KB

Annotated Example 2

Personal statement from a graduate student’s successful application to the MIT BE program. 9 MB

• College Application

MIT Supplemental Essay Examples

Knowing what to write for your MIT essays might be difficult, but the process is made much easier by reading over MIT supplemental essay examples.

Checking out sample college essays gives you a good grasp of what supplemental college application essays should look like.

It also helps to read up on how to write a college essay . However, while learning through instruction is good, pairing that instruction with examples lets you see the practical application of that knowledge before attempting your own essay.

This article contains sample essays for the current MIT supplemental essay prompts.

>> Want us to help you get accepted? Schedule a free initial consultation here <<

Article Contents 15 min read

Mit supplemental essay example #1:.

Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations.

Word Count: 250 words or fewer

Example Essay #1:

The place where I live isn’t the worst community in our city, and I’m thankful that crime is relatively low, but it’s still pretty run-down. If you want to find employment, our section of town is not for you – even more so if you’re looking for a good job; anything you’d think of as a “career” doesn’t exist here.

We couldn’t afford aspirations; we were too busy worrying about where the rent and grocery money was coming from.

One day, I started asking myself, “Why can’t our neighborhood have jobs and nice houses? Why can’t we have hope be something other than tomorrow’s disappointment?”

I’m dreaming big these days. I want to be a community leader – a local politician. I know this is strange, but I’m not worried about the national right now, I’m worried about the municipal – making sure that everybody gets enough in my city.

I got in touch with several alderpersons on my city’s council and asked how I could help my neighborhood. They spoke with me and one of them asked if I could address my city’s government at a meeting. I prepared a speech about my neighborhood’s poverty and delivered it. Then I volunteered with the reelection campaign for the alderperson who recommended me.

The place where I live is who I am, and who I am today will let me be somebody better tomorrow, if I choose to aspire to hope, and dream of every place being the nice part of town.

When you’re little, you don’t understand why your parents are getting divorced, you only know that they are. You beat yourself up over it, then you come to accept it, but it takes a while to see the silver lining.

I’m not saying it’s “good” that they split up, although I recognize that it’s at least better for them. After a while my mom and dad even got remarried. Then something weird happened: I didn’t have evil step-parents from fairy tales.

In fact, not only were my step-parents not evil, they were lovely people who really cared about me. My step-mom is a psychiatrist, and hearing about how she helps patients has inspired me to learn about therapy.

My step-dad works as a police officer. The world of law enforcement is a harsh one, especially on the psyches of law enforcement officers. Learning about that hardship from my step-father, and thinking about how my step-mother helps people, has led me to study psychology. I want to practice therapy for police officers and participate in research, looking for methods to keep stressors away and heal officers who have suffered as part of their “routine” jobs.

My family is big – four parents and eight grandparents, and a lot of love – and that largess has opened my eyes to a calling in the world that I otherwise might not have found. I think that’s most why I want to help find healing for others: I know the opportunities that healing can create.

Be sure to check out some MIT interview questions , too!

Example essay #3:.

We were moving away from my home of thirteen years to go miles and miles away, from my whole life. Worst of all: away from New York City – the only place in the world worth knowing – or so I thought.

The town might as well have been called “Miniscule Ville”. I resented every second of it. The real shocking thing to me was almost that anything existed outside of New York City. NYC is a world of its own, with its own pulses and lifeblood. I still think it’s a great place, and I’ll likely at least visit it someday, but right now, I want to visit everywhere.

My move humbled me. I began to love nature walks, the friendly camaraderie of the small town, and saw a world I never imagined. I thought I knew it all just because I lived in New York. Here was a great place, hidden from view. I loved experiencing that new world, learning local history, and most of all, learning the life stories of my new neighbors, each one of whom had a fascinating life.

My greatest dream is to be a journalist, covering other countries, and learning about new worlds and neighbors. My old perspective feels so limited. If I can share global stories, I can open up my perspective, and I can share those stories with a thousand homes so readers can learn about other perspectives as well. The world is full of different lives. Everywhere is somebody’s home.

Wondering how to write your supplemental college essays?

Pick what field of study at MIT appeals to you the most right now, and tell us more about why this field of study appeals to you.

Word Count: 100 words or fewer

My neighborhood is run-down and hangdog. Buildings are collapsing, practically on top of the homeless who could use a place to stay. I am sad for the people who have no place to go and for the beauty in design that is decaying all around.

I want to restore my neighborhood. Architecture and design are my academic interests, because they help restore neighborhoods and cities into communities where everybody has a place. I hope to redesign and give a new life to my neighborhood. With the help of MIT’s Architecture and Urbanism program, my dream is bound to come true.

Example Essay #2:

The current state of economics is more complicated than ever.

Hustle culture is burning people out. Job-seekers complain of a lack of good employment, while prospective employers complain of a lack of worthy candidates. We are abandoning traditional work models, payment models – even the concept of money is being tinkered with since the advent of cryptocurrencies.

These innovations require new technology, business models, and currencies; I will embrace this future at the Economics program at MIT, and help blaze the financial trails we will all someday walk.

We are meant to be a nation of liberty and unity, so much that we made it our motto: e pluribus unum. But tribalism and division have been on the rise – we are more divided as a nation than ever.

Recently I have seen people striving to start good-faith conversations. On a new political podcast, for instance, opposing politicians discuss instead of argue.

The arena of political science has never been more dangerous, divisive, or exciting. I need to help keep our nation of “many” as one nation. I will start my journey at the Political Science department at MIT.

We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it.

Word Count: 200-250 words

I take the path less travelled, if I may reference Frost for a moment. When it came to choosing a sport, I couldn’t just do any sport, so, I chose HEMA: Historical European Martial Arts.

This is the study of the longsword, the mace, the dagger, and the rapier. It is as much a study of history and anthropology as it is exercise. All of the moves and strategies come from old manuscripts, many of which need decoding to get into a recognizable language.

Connecting with the past in such a way is a fun, engaging way to learn history and get exercise – and it is considerable exercise! Swinging a longsword about, or fighting with shields and arming swords, often while wearing armor, is no easy task.

The community of HEMA is a welcoming and wonderful one. I found out about HEMA in a video somebody posted to my social media only to discover that there is a chapter near where I live. I went around to ask about classes, and they were very friendly and affirming.

There is always more to learn, too, whether knowledge of circumstances for the various manuals, different fighting styles, or a variety of weapons. Through HEMA, I fuel my mind, exercise my body, and am part of a friend-filled community of historical combat buffs.

When the wind is up, I cannot wait to go to the park with my latest kite.

As a kid, my mum and dad would take me kite-flying. I’d have done it every day, and no matter how old I got, I still wanted to fly.

Soon I was trying to do maneuvers too complicated for my dinky little kite, and I begged mum and dad for a better one. I got one for my birthday, but even that much more advanced model didn’t satiate my desire to vicariously soar above the park. I realized that the kites we bought from the store do not exactly meet my vision of how I wanted my kites to perform. This meant that I would need to start designing my own kites.

It took a lot of trial and error, and my father and I almost destroyed one of my special kites trying to improve it, but we eventually got the hang of it. After that, we started “modding” more kites, and I have now built three myself, special kites designed for specific maneuvers. It takes a lot of problem-solving to get there, but figuring it out and flying those kites is so rewarding.

It’s almost like I’m up there with the kite, floating on the wind. It’s relaxing, challenging, and a wonderful way to spend a day.

My love of poetry came from my love of hip-hop music. 

One evening, I found myself in a café in a basement – one of those places with steps leading below street-level, into a room that reminds you of how you think a speakeasy would look. It was slam-poetry night, and my friend Trisha was performing. He told me it was just like hip-hop.

I was in awe of my friend and his group, spitting lines that were fierce and which moved me deeply. I got involved with the group and was soon writing my own stuff. My verses were clunky at first, but they were mine; I was learning to express myself.

Every aspect of slam poetry fascinated me: rhythm, metaphor, stress, and the ever-elusive emotions between the lines.

Slam poetry is wonderful, but in my study of the art, I came to love other verse forms. The slam poet group’s leader told me to check out the Elizabethan sonnets for some tight beats – she was referring to the about iambic pentameter, which led me to a love of a form of poetry with one phrase – tight beats. Something that my English teacher didn’t accomplish with a whole class unit.

My favorite poems I have encountered are haikus. The all-encompassing focus on syllables makes the rhythms of masterfully-written haikus flow in my mind’s ear.

Poetry is my passion. I can’t wait to put down verses, whether for a slam poetry night, and some just for my journals at home.

At MIT, we bring people together to better the lives of others. MIT students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being a good friend. Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in your family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc.

My dad’s a smoker, and mom’s always on him to quit. I don’t mind too much – I understand that it’s hard to quit – but he chucks his cigarette butts everywhere, and I hate that.

One day I’d had enough of it, and when he whipped his cigarette butt out the car window, I actually spoke up and chewed him out for littering. He wasn’t happy about that, and it made the car ride home unpleasant.

But the next day, he came and apologized, saying I was right. That event inspired by responsibility to our community, and I decided to help gather up trash in our neighborhood. I volunteered with the city, got a little grabber and a garbage bag, and started picking up litter, including a bunch of cigarette butts, many of which were, statistically-speaking, my dad’s.

I felt good, and encouraged my family to come out with me. Dad was the first one to cave, and we actually had fun, talking and picking up litter. But we needed more help. I’m fourth out of five kids and I convinced most of my siblings to join in as well.

Dad and I wound up bonding a lot, chatting about life and sharing our news at the side of the road, plucking debris from the street. He doesn’t smoke as much, either, but I don’t know if that’s because of me or just that he hates picking up his old butts.

The bullying at our school, and in my class in-particular, had boiled up. It wasn’t uncommon to see one or more students in tears because of some cruelty or other, a lot online, but plenty of it live and in-person.

I stayed out of it as much as I could. I didn’t want to be a target.

My friend Mark got it bad one week. Somebody decided to start accusing him of being “the problem” whenever anything went wrong, calling him cursed. He lost a lot of friends that week, and though I didn’t abandon him, I didn’t stick up for him like I should have.

That festered in me. I hated feeling helpless, so, after the Christmas break, I came to school with a purpose. I went straight to our teacher and asked what I could do to help stop bullying, besides just not participating in it. We came up with an anti-bullying campaign. We knew posters wouldn’t do it alone, so we created a program where bullied students could come forward safely and anonymously. We put together a mechanism for dealing with accusations, and the school was very supportive.

It was slow going at first, but gradually we saw a lowering in the amount of bullying being done in our class and across the school. I might not have been able to stop Mark getting hurt, but I did my best to stop it happening again.

I’m a soup kitchen volunteer. My mom said it’d be good for me to volunteer and see what poverty did to people. I wasn't thrilled about it. I was fifteen and had better places to be, or so I thought.

What I found out was that there are people who need a lot of help, and it just took one shift for me to know that I was coming back. I needed to be there, helping people, because where else are they going to get help?

Community aid programs are often underfunded, and our community has a severe dearth of available funds to help people in need. Support for the local food banks and shelters is low in our municipality. Volunteering is an integral part to bring a little humanity into these people’s lives.

I’m not going to pretend it’s sunshiny, because it’s not: it’s harsh. But I can help make my neighborhood a better place. I can give people food and comfort.

What matters is making a difference. I can’t make a huge difference right now, unless you’re one of our customers – then I’m making up the difference between a night of comfort and one of despair. Small differences still make a difference, and I want to help my community however I can.

Tell us about a significant challenge you’ve faced or something that didn’t go according to plan that you feel comfortable sharing. How did you manage the situation?

The sixth letter in the alphabet shouldn’t make your stomach feel like a frozen stone is rolling around in there, but the F on my test paper was doing that. I was trying to envision a future I could actually look forward to.

Yes, that’s a bit dramatic, but I’d never gotten an F before, and my brain was panicking with the non-future into which I had cast myself. Chemistry had beaten me.

I kept that F from my parents as long as possible, assuming a furious volley of punishments and lectures would be my comeuppance. I couldn’t have anticipated the reaction.

“Hm.” A syllable which sat there for a long time before dad said, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

It hadn’t even occurred to me that there was a next. I was busy with melancholic despair; I forgot about “what next?”

My parents asked if I wanted to switch the course, but I want to study the sciences, my answer was no. Mom helped me put together a new rubric for studying and I stuck to it. My next text was a C+. After that? An A.

Failing a test taught me something more valuable than any class ever did: how to dust myself off, know what I really want, and try again with everything I have in me. Ultimately, my only failure was giving up on myself and focusing on one failure. My lesson is learned, and from now on, I will always focus on what I can do next.

I was unable to breathe, or even move, really, and covered in dust. I was one, big bruise all over my body. Samson was responsible, having thrown me to the ground for the seventh time that day.

Samson had come to the stables with a warning that this would happen. He was a problem horse, young, headstrong, and seemingly impossible to train. For days I tried the approaches that had worked on other horses, but worked on Samson.

The barn owner was in one day, watching me fail. She called me over and said, “He’s stressed because you’re stressed. Try to be calm. When you’re calm, go over there and don’t ask anything of him. Just be there with him. See what happens. Make some offers, but don’t do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

I went over to Samson and patted him, and he stepped in. Little by little, I’d make a move and he’d make a move. He got nervous when I tried to get on him, so I backed off. I didn’t ride him that day, but eventually, after a few days of just making friends, the good advice worked. Samson was soon a great riding horse, and one who had tremendous empathy with his rider.

Too often we go to people with our stresses, needing them to be something they aren’t. I try to remember to expect less and just be there. The results are great. When you don’t pile on, you never get thrown off.

I had said, “Yes,” because I always said, “Yes,” regardless of how busy I was. That was how I wound up on the track team, mathletes, and a dozen other things I had no time for. I was stressed out and in denial.

This time, I had said, “Yes,” to organizing a fundraising event to buy new instruments for the school’s music program. A variety show seemed like a good idea until it became clear that somebody would have to organize talent, balance schedules, as well as create decorations, and everything else for the event. Guess who this “somebody” was?

Mr. Kowalski had offered to help and I’d said, “No.” I should clarify that I always said, “Yes,” when taking on responsibility, but “No,” when it came to delegating. I felt I wouldn’t be pulling my weight.

My grades were slipping, I was losing sleep, and the fundraiser almost collapsed: no new instruments for the band. Mr. Kowalski came back, luckily for me, and offered his help again. Learning my lesson, this time I did not miss my chance for getting help. The fundraiser got back on track. He didn’t take over, but gave me the assistance I needed to get it done without punishing myself too much.

I learned how important it is to ask for help and delegate responsibility. I learned that being a good leader or project head doesn’t mean being a superhuman who handles it all.

And I learned how to better employ the word, “No”.

Want more tips?

Please note that the supplemental essay section has an additional-information text box within it. MIT suggests that students can use this box to tell them anything you think they really ought to know.

MIT says it is optional, but we would advise you to take advantage of the extra space; give yourself every opportunity to stand out as the perfect applicant and to be unforgettable to the admissions committee.

In MIT’s case, they are required for your application, but even if they weren’t, as with the additional-information box, we would still counsel you to take any option that can make your application soar.

No. In fact, MIT says specifically that this is not a writing test, and encourages applicants to, “Be honest, be open, be authentic – this is your opportunity to connect with us.”

That doesn’t mean you should use colloquialisms or ignore spelling and grammar, but it does mean that you won’t need to worry about a specific style, or avoid the use of the first-person – which you will be using most of the time – or cramming in citations.

However, remember that this is still an essay, so your submission must follow the academic essay style, with a strong introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

If they fit with your schedule, yes, but MIT doesn’t give preference to early applicants.

Check with other schools you would like to apply to, see what their application schedules are like, and build an application schedule that works best for you.

Do note that some schools don’t allow you to submit multiple early applications. MIT is not one of those schools, but they do specify that you must respect exclusivity rules from other schools.

There is a lot you can do, but starting with reading up on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a good start.

Beyond that, finding good mentors will benefit you tremendously, and using university and college admissions consulting will cover all angles and give you the best edge you can find.

Potentially, yes. How to get into college with a low GPA is harder, but not impossible.

Grades are only one puzzle piece that you’ll be sending to MIT, and their reviewing panels and admissions boards won’t just reject your application because of low grades. They provide an “additional information” section on the application which will allow you to provide insight into anything you need to explain on your transcript.

No. Don’t let the name fool you, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers a wide variety of courses across disciplines, and they have programs for all kinds of students.

Most students with family incomes below $140,000 (US) do not pay tuition. According to their website, 82% of MIT’s students graduate debt-free.

In short, MIT offers robust financial aid, and can be very affordable for students from all income brackets.

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Supplemental Essays Guide: 2021-2022

Not sure how to approach the MIT essay prompts? With tips from an Ivy League graduate, CollegeAdvisor.com’s guide to the MIT essay questions will show you exactly how to write engaging MIT essays and maximize your chances of admission. For more CollegeAdvisor.com resources on MIT,  click here . Want help crafting your MIT essays? Create your  free account  or  schedule a free consultation  by calling (844) 505-4682.

MIT  Essay Guide Quick Facts:

• MIT has an acceptance rate of 4%— U.S. News  ranks MIT as a  highly competitive  school.
• We recommend answering all MIT essays comprehensively and thoughtfully.

Does MIT require supplemental essays?

Yes. In addition to the Common App  personal statement , there are MIT essay  questions . Most of these MIT essays have 250-word requirements, but one of the MIT essays is limited to just 100 words.

Need tips on writing your Common App essay? Check out our blog  article .

How many supplemental essays does MIT require?

There are five total MIT essays: one MIT essay with a 100-word maximum, one MIT essay with a 250-word maximum, and three MIT essay prompts that are required to fall between 200 and 250 words. You’ll want to pay careful attention to word count when writing your MIT essays; it is likely admissions officers will be checking for your attention to detail in these MIT essay prompts.

What essays do you need to write for MIT?

All five MIT essay questions mentioned above are required—no shortcuts or optional MIT essay prompts here! You’ll find the MIT essay examples below.

What does MIT look for in essays?

This guide will break down exactly how to respond to each of the MIT essays. If you want to do additional research for the MIT essays (and you should!), we recommend that you visit the  MIT website  and observe the language they use when describing the type of student that they’re looking for. When you respond to the MIT essay prompts, keep this language in mind. How do you fit in with what they’re looking for in a student? These MIT essay questions are the place in your application to make that even clearer.

Of course, you will want to avoid any grammatical errors that could weaken your MIT essays. You should also strive for clarity of tone and phrasing in all of your MIT essay questions. Use all of your standard exemplary essay-writing practices! Read on for some MIT essay examples to guide your writing.

Does MIT have a main essay?

This is a great question, but no—none of the MIT essays are really the “main” essay you should focus on. We recommend paying equal attention to each of the five MIT essay prompts; just because they vary in length does not make one more or less important than another!

MIT Supplemental Essays – Question 1

Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations? (250 words or fewer)

How do you write an MIT essay?

By breaking down each of the MIT essay examples, this guide will explain how to write an MIT essay.

This first MIT essay is the classic “Tell us more about yourself” college essay question. MIT wants to learn what made you  you.  With this MIT essay, you should think first about your dreams and aspirations. Maybe you want to be a veterinarian; maybe you want to be an engineer.

Once you know how you want to answer the second half of this question, it will provide direction for the first half. Why do you want to be a veterinarian or an engineer? For instance, maybe your community has felt the increasing effects of climate change, which has made you passionate about environmental engineering.

The best way to answer this prompt is to be specific. Pick one aspect that has been influential in your youth, give a brief anecdote explaining it, and then turn to the  how.  For instance, you won’t want to use up too many words describing each and every detail of your school’s journalism club. Instead, succinctly paint a picture that provides insight into why journalism has become so important to you and what you feel you can do with the skills you have learned from it.

MIT  Essay Draft Key Questions :

• Do you use concise and descriptive words to depict your world?
• Do you focus on the  why  and not just the  what ?
• Does your response teach the reader something new about you?

MIT Supplemental Essays – Question 2

We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it. (200–250 words)

This MIT essay just asks what you do for fun! Don’t think your answer has to be scholarly; you don’t have to say that you read textbooks about quantum mechanics in this MIT essay for them to admit you. In all of the MIT essay questions, MIT wants you to be honest. This is a chance to discuss something you haven’t talked about in your other MIT essay questions or the rest of your application.

Out of all the MIT essay examples, this is the hobby question—maybe you’re an amateur magician, or you make short nature documentaries, or you love fishing. No matter what it is, MIT wants to hear about it. You would do best here to use descriptive language to briefly describe your activity of choice. Then, explain  why  it means so much to you. Why do you enjoy it? Maybe it’s the rush of knowing you have succeeded in bamboozling your friends and family with a difficult card trick it took weeks to master. Maybe capturing a snail’s slow journey across a beach reminds you to have patience and perseverance.

Any example like the ones above is great as—just make sure to talk about something you do purely for enjoyment. Most of the MIT essay questions do not ask you to talk about something that sparks joy for you. In this MIT essay, be sure to demonstrate how much you genuinely love the activity you discuss.

• Does your draft clearly communicate your chosen activity?
• Do you articulate why your chosen activity matters to you and how it has influenced your growth and identity?
• Does your supplement provide information not present in the rest of your application?

MIT Supplemental Essays – Question 3

At MIT, we bring people together to better the lives of others. MIT students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being a good friend. Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in your family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc. (200–250 words)

This MIT essay asks you to demonstrate your willingness to help others. The answer to this prompt does not have to be extreme; it can be as simple as watching, cooking for, and cleaning up after your younger siblings while your parents both work full-time, tutoring a friend who’s struggling in calculus, or starting a food pantry at your local library. The  scale  of the contribution is not as important as the  heart  behind it.

You can spend the first half of the essay discussing the activity, and then you should turn to an analysis of why or how it has an impact. It doesn’t have to be big; MIT isn’t expecting you to have saved hundreds of lives. Even an action that seems small can have a big impact—it’s your job to showcase this. And remember that a community can be anything; you just have to define what community means to you in the context of this MIT essay.

• Do you talk about a specific action you’ve done to improve your community?
• Does your essay focus on  how  the action was impactful, rather than just describing it?
• Do you address how you grew from this experience?

MIT Supplemental Essays – Question 4

Tell us about a significant challenge you’ve faced or something that didn’t go according to plan that you feel comfortable sharing. How did you manage the situation? (200-250 words)

Here, MIT asks how you manage failure. They want to see that one, or two, or however many setbacks will not prevent you from overcoming a challenge or an obstacle. For this essay, choose a time when you faced a challenge, then mention why the challenge was particularly important to you. Try to find an original example; a sports injury or getting a C on a test can sometimes seem cliché.

Try to pick something a little more outside the box. Think of a challenge that not many other people applying to MIT have likely faced. If you’re struggling to come up with an interesting challenge, try to put a unique spin on how you overcame the challenge.

Whatever you write, make it specific to  you.  You also want to make sure not to focus too much on describing the challenge itself. Rather, MIT wants to know how the challenge pushed you to grow as an individual. You should try to demonstrate what you learned from the experience. You can also be honest about how scary or frustrating the situation was at first. The important thing is to end with the confidence and knowledge you gained from an ability to adapt and be flexible.

• Do you explain why this challenge was so important to you?
• Does your draft demonstrate how you solved or addressed the challenge?
• Do you reflect on the impact of overcoming this challenge?

MIT Supplemental Essays – Question 5

Pick what field of study at MIT appeals to you the most right now, and tell us more about why this field of study appeals to you. (100 words or fewer)

This is MIT’s combination version of the “Why us?” and the “What do you want to study?” questions. It requires you to name a field of study, rather than discuss the college as a whole, but you’ll still want to make your answer MIT-specific. Start by looking through all of the undergraduate programs MIT offers. Once you list your desired major, jump straight into the  why .

This is the shortest MIT essay you’ll write, so concision is paramount. This is the space to show off your expert investigation and analytical skills: name-drop courses and professors and analyze why they would benefit your academic growth. You can also allude to your previous academic track record and how an MIT education would build on your past intellectual experiences.

• Did you pick a major that MIT definitely offers?
• Do you connect the specifics of this major directly to your own academic passions?
• Does your response supplement and/or complicate the other aspects of your application, with special regard to academic preferences?

MIT Supplemental Essays – Final Thoughts

The MIT essay prompts can seem daunting, but don’t let that discourage you from applying. The MIT essays are a great opportunity to demonstrate who you are for admissions officers reading your application. We hope the above MIT essay examples helped to jumpstart your thinking! These MIT essays can boost your application if you have a  lower than average SAT score  or GPA.

Use this guide as a step-by-step aid when approaching the MIT essay prompts, and start earlier than you think you should. You may believe it will be easy to answer the MIT essay prompts quickly, but it is always better to have more time to draft than less. Don’t be afraid to ask for revisions from someone; it’s helpful to have another set of eyes checking your MIT essays for grammatical errors, tone, and clarity. Good luck!

This essay guide on MIT was written by  Laura Frustaci , ‘21. For more CollegeAdvisor.com resources on MIT,  click here . Want help crafting your MIT essays? Create your  free account  or  schedule a free consultation  by calling (844) 505-4682.

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How to Write the MIT “Community” Essay

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Hale Jaeger in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered

What is a community.

• Impact and Personal Significance

Example #1: Tutoring a Friend

Example #2: managing food waste.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is consistently ranked as one of the top five universities in the nation, according to US News and World Report. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT is known for its rigorous STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), business, and entrepreneurship programs. It uses its own application system called MyMIT instead of Common Application, and applicants are required to submit five essays. The third essay prompt reads:

“At MIT, we bring people together to better the lives of others. MIT students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being a good friend. Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in your family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc. (225 words)”

In this article, we discuss how to approach the prompt and provide tips for writing your essay. For an overview of the five essay prompts and guidance on how to approach them, check out our post on how to write the MIT application essays .

This prompt asks you to reflect on the impact that you have had on your community and the specific ways that you have worked to improve the lives of others within it. A community is defined broadly and includes, but is not limited to, one or more of the following: 

• Your nuclear or extended family
• Clubs and teams that you are a member of
• The street or neighborhood where you live
• A place where you work
• A religious community or house of worship
• A racial or ethnic group

Impact and Personal Significance

The specific way that you have contributed to the community you choose to write about doesn’t need to be award winning or impressive. You could write about being a good friend, taking care of your neighbor’s pets, or hosting a weekly coffee hour for members of your church. Anything from your life is worth writing about as long as you have made a positive, measurable, and clear impact on the lives of others.

Beyond having concrete outcomes, you should also have gained something from this experience, such as a new perspective or understanding of yourself and the world around you. It’s important that you communicate how you have changed and grown as a result of this experience. By weaving together the impact of your contribution to others with its significance to you personally, you demonstrate that you not only know how to give of yourself but also that the act of giving is something from which you derive meaning.

Ultimately, this essay is used by MIT admissions officers to predict who you will be in the MIT community based on how you interact with and care for others and your ability to turn empathy into action and direct service. Admissions officers want to see that you are generous in spirit, eager to make a difference, and care deeply about adding value to your community.

For example, suppose an applicant writes about tutoring a friend on their varsity soccer team in mathematics. The person was struggling in math class, worried about failing, and feeling really demoralized. The applicant writes about offering to tutor that friend pro bono because they know that money is tight for the friend’s family. After working together five days a week for two months, the friend’s math test scores start improving, and they finally get their first A on a test. Beyond the improved test scores, the friend starts to really understand and internalize various mathematical concepts and problem-solving techniques to the point where math starts to become fun and interesting. 

The applicant should write not only about the positive impact (improved grades and outlook) on their friend but also how the experience was personally significant and illuminating. Perhaps this experience has inspired them to seriously consider a career in teaching because helping others understand difficult concepts is meaningful work to them.

Consider another example. An applicant is shocked to find out that their school generates a sizable amount of food waste. Instead of dumping the waste into the landfill, the applicant decides to use their position on the student council to liaise with a sustainability group to develop a two-pronged system of composting and donating leftover food. After this system is successful within the applicant’s school, the applicant works with administrators and students at schools across the school district to implement a similar system. 

The applicant could write about the experience of developing the food waste management system, the quantitative and qualitative benefits of such a program to the community and the environment, and the personal satisfaction that they derived from implementing such a program. Additionally, they may discuss their newfound interest in pursuing an academic and professional career at the intersection of agriculture, public policy, and environmental studies.

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

7 signs a job interview went well, according to an HR executive with over 35 years of experience

• Michael Doolin has worked in HR for 36 years at companies such as PwC, British Airways, and DPD.
• He said there are signs that can suggest an interview went well, but preparation is more important.
• Body language, length of the interview, and chemistry with the interviewer could all be clues.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Michael Doolin, CEO of Clover HR and former human resources director at PwC, British Airways, and DPD in Ireland. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

It's very common for job candidates to be uncertain about how a job interview has gone. People get nervous and unsure during interviews — and body language is not easy to read when meeting someone for the first time.

Preparing is the best way to mitigate the risk of an interview going poorly. Before entering the room, ensure you're confident in your preparation and yourself.

When you come out, ask yourself: Could I have done any better?

If you can answer "yes" to that question, your success landing the role will depend on your credibility and whether the interviewers relate to you.

You can't always trust your gut feeling on whether it went well. In my experience, I'd say it's right 50% of the time. Alongside your gut reaction, here are seven signs that an interview was successful.

You received a job offer

The ultimate sign that an interview went well — and this is very rare — is if you get offered the job or the opportunity at the conclusion of the meeting.

But don't worry if you haven't received an offer on the spot. I've once offered someone a part time PA role immediately. However, it didn't work out long term because I'd allowed my emotions in the interview to take over from an objective view of the candidate's work record.

Positive body language

Another subtle sign that an interview went well is the interviewers' body language and how they relate to you.

Related stories

The general tone and demeanor of your interviewers at the conclusion of the interview can sometimes give you clues.

During a successful interview in my career, I noticed the panel smiled and laughed collaboratively. They exchanged compliments openly and asked me questions about non-job-related areas.

Good body language includes smiling, laughing, making jokes, and being engaged and curious about what you're saying.

Body language isn't a definitive sign, however. People can be good actors. Don't read everything into it.

Having a good rapport with the interviewer

Having a good rapport with the interviewer does suggest that things have gone well. When I give interviews, I usually ask a fun first question to lighten the mood like "Which football team do you support?"

I immediately see people's faces light up or smile. They know I'm not interested in the football team, but it's a way of getting them talking, and it demystifies the process.

I always stress that you are being interviewed from the moment you step inside the building.

The security guard, the receptionist, the colleagues who meet and greet you. They speak to the people interviewing you, and if you come across well, they might pass that on.

If it's a virtual interview, your background tells a story, so keep it professional — never in a bedroom or kitchen.

The interview ran over time

If an interview lasts longer than anticipated, it's typically a good sign. It's the employer who controls how long an interview lasts.

A call running over can indicate genuine engagement, curiosity, and a desire to spend more time getting under a candidate's skin. But really, a good interview should not last more than 50 minutes. The interviewee should be talking 80% of the time, and the interviewer 20%.

You asked your interviewers good questions

Strong job applicants usually come prepared with questions. Every candidate should ask these two killer questions at an interview to help it go well.

Firstly, "If I were lucky enough to be offered this position, what advice would you give me on starting?"

That will get the individuals talking and give a better insight into the role.

The second question, which should already have come up, is: "How would I be measured in this job?"

I tell anybody who asks me for interview tips to ask those two questions. But more importantly, have your own answers ready for their response: be ready to offer examples of how you would work in the job, how you like to be measured at work, and how well you match the answers they give. This is another opportunity to promote your worth.

Being asked for your notice period

Being asked for your notice period or availability for another interview tends to indicate that they are considering employing you.

A good interviewer, however, should have this information before they interview you.

Your interviewers made a good impression on you

An interview works both ways. It's an equal chance to determine whether a workplace is right for you.

If you feel aligned with the workplace and interviewers, there is a higher chance the fit is seamless and the feeling is mutual.

You can ask questions that will help to work this out. I suggest asking questions like: "What three words would best describe this workplace, and why? Why did the last individual leave? I notice from LinkedIn that you've worked here for eight years—why have you stayed? Why should I join this business?"

Don't get too invested

An interview can still have gone well without resulting in a job offer.

Employers often get candidates of equal value and then, unfortunately, can make decisions based on more subjective factors, like who they like best.

Things happen for a reason. I always advise people not to get too emotionally involved in the interview process.

Correction: August 20, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated the percentage of time an interviewer and interviewee should speak. The interviewee should be talking 80% of the time and the interviewer 20%.

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Key things to know about U.S. election polling in 2024

Confidence in U.S. public opinion polling was shaken by errors in 2016 and 2020. In both years’ general elections, many polls underestimated the strength of Republican candidates, including Donald Trump. These errors laid bare some real limitations of polling.

In the midterms that followed those elections, polling performed better . But many Americans remain skeptical that it can paint an accurate portrait of the public’s political preferences.

Restoring people’s confidence in polling is an important goal, because robust and independent public polling has a critical role to play in a democratic society. It gathers and publishes information about the well-being of the public and about citizens’ views on major issues. And it provides an important counterweight to people in power, or those seeking power, when they make claims about “what the people want.”

The challenges facing polling are undeniable. In addition to the longstanding issues of rising nonresponse and cost, summer 2024 brought extraordinary events that transformed the presidential race . The good news is that people with deep knowledge of polling are working hard to fix the problems exposed in 2016 and 2020, experimenting with more data sources and interview approaches than ever before. Still, polls are more useful to the public if people have realistic expectations about what surveys can do well – and what they cannot.

With that in mind, here are some key points to know about polling heading into this year’s presidential election.

Probability sampling (or “random sampling”). This refers to a polling method in which survey participants are recruited using random sampling from a database or list that includes nearly everyone in the population. The pollster selects the sample. The survey is not open for anyone who wants to sign up.

Online opt-in polling (or “nonprobability sampling”). These polls are recruited using a variety of methods that are sometimes referred to as “convenience sampling.” Respondents come from a variety of online sources such as ads on social media or search engines, websites offering rewards in exchange for survey participation, or self-enrollment. Unlike surveys with probability samples, people can volunteer to participate in opt-in surveys.

Nonresponse and nonresponse bias. Nonresponse is when someone sampled for a survey does not participate. Nonresponse bias occurs when the pattern of nonresponse leads to error in a poll estimate. For example, college graduates are more likely than those without a degree to participate in surveys, leading to the potential that the share of college graduates in the resulting sample will be too high.

Mode of interview. This refers to the format in which respondents are presented with and respond to survey questions. The most common modes are online, live telephone, text message and paper. Some polls use more than one mode.

Weighting. This is a statistical procedure pollsters perform to make their survey align with the broader population on key characteristics like age, race, etc. For example, if a survey has too many college graduates compared with their share in the population, people without a college degree are “weighted up” to match the proper share.

How are election polls being conducted?

Pollsters are making changes in response to the problems in previous elections. As a result, polling is different today than in 2016. Most U.S. polling organizations that conducted and publicly released national surveys in both 2016 and 2022 (61%) used methods in 2022 that differed from what they used in 2016 . And change has continued since 2022.

One change is that the number of active polling organizations has grown significantly, indicating that there are fewer barriers to entry into the polling field. The number of organizations that conduct national election polls more than doubled between 2000 and 2022.

This growth has been driven largely by pollsters using inexpensive opt-in sampling methods. But previous Pew Research Center analyses have demonstrated how surveys that use nonprobability sampling may have errors twice as large , on average, as those that use probability sampling.

The second change is that many of the more prominent polling organizations that use probability sampling – including Pew Research Center – have shifted from conducting polls primarily by telephone to using online methods, or some combination of online, mail and telephone. The result is that polling methodologies are far more diverse now than in the past.

(For more about how public opinion polling works, including a chapter on election polls, read our short online course on public opinion polling basics .)

All good polling relies on statistical adjustment called “weighting,” which makes sure that the survey sample aligns with the broader population on key characteristics. Historically, public opinion researchers have adjusted their data using a core set of demographic variables to correct imbalances between the survey sample and the population.

But there is a growing realization among survey researchers that weighting a poll on just a few variables like age, race and gender is insufficient for getting accurate results. Some groups of people – such as older adults and college graduates – are more likely to take surveys, which can lead to errors that are too sizable for a simple three- or four-variable adjustment to work well. Adjusting on more variables produces more accurate results, according to Center studies in 2016 and 2018 .

A number of pollsters have taken this lesson to heart. For example, recent high-quality polls by Gallup and The New York Times/Siena College adjusted on eight and 12 variables, respectively. Our own polls typically adjust on 12 variables . In a perfect world, it wouldn’t be necessary to have that much intervention by the pollster. But the real world of survey research is not perfect.

Predicting who will vote is critical – and difficult. Preelection polls face one crucial challenge that routine opinion polls do not: determining who of the people surveyed will actually cast a ballot.

Roughly a third of eligible Americans do not vote in presidential elections , despite the enormous attention paid to these contests. Determining who will abstain is difficult because people can’t perfectly predict their future behavior – and because many people feel social pressure to say they’ll vote even if it’s unlikely.

No one knows the profile of voters ahead of Election Day. We can’t know for sure whether young people will turn out in greater numbers than usual, or whether key racial or ethnic groups will do so. This means pollsters are left to make educated guesses about turnout, often using a mix of historical data and current measures of voting enthusiasm. This is very different from routine opinion polls, which mostly do not ask about people’s future intentions.

When major news breaks, a poll’s timing can matter. Public opinion on most issues is remarkably stable, so you don’t necessarily need a recent poll about an issue to get a sense of what people think about it. But dramatic events can and do change public opinion , especially when people are first learning about a new topic. For example, polls this summer saw notable changes in voter attitudes following Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race. Polls taken immediately after a major event may pick up a shift in public opinion, but those shifts are sometimes short-lived. Polls fielded weeks or months later are what allow us to see whether an event has had a long-term impact on the public’s psyche.

How accurate are polls?

The answer to this question depends on what you want polls to do. Polls are used for all kinds of purposes in addition to showing who’s ahead and who’s behind in a campaign. Fair or not, however, the accuracy of election polling is usually judged by how closely the polls matched the outcome of the election.

By this standard, polling in 2016 and 2020 performed poorly. In both years, state polling was characterized by serious errors. National polling did reasonably well in 2016 but faltered in 2020.

In 2020, a post-election review of polling by the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) found that “the 2020 polls featured polling error of an unusual magnitude: It was the highest in 40 years for the national popular vote and the highest in at least 20 years for state-level estimates of the vote in presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial contests.”

How big were the errors? Polls conducted in the last two weeks before the election suggested that Biden’s margin over Trump was nearly twice as large as it ended up being in the final national vote tally.

Errors of this size make it difficult to be confident about who is leading if the election is closely contested, as many U.S. elections are .

Pollsters are rightly working to improve the accuracy of their polls. But even an error of 4 or 5 percentage points isn’t too concerning if the purpose of the poll is to describe whether the public has favorable or unfavorable opinions about candidates , or to show which issues matter to which voters. And on questions that gauge where people stand on issues, we usually want to know broadly where the public stands. We don’t necessarily need to know the precise share of Americans who say, for example, that climate change is mostly caused by human activity. Even judged by its performance in recent elections, polling can still provide a faithful picture of public sentiment on the important issues of the day.

The 2022 midterms saw generally accurate polling, despite a wave of partisan polls predicting a broad Republican victory. In fact, FiveThirtyEight found that “polls were more accurate in 2022 than in any cycle since at least 1998, with almost no bias toward either party.” Moreover, a handful of contrarian polls that predicted a 2022 “red wave” largely washed out when the votes were tallied. In sum, if we focus on polling in the most recent national election, there’s plenty of reason to be encouraged.

Compared with other elections in the past 20 years, polls have been less accurate when Donald Trump is on the ballot. Preelection surveys suffered from large errors – especially at the state level – in 2016 and 2020, when Trump was standing for election. But they performed reasonably well in the 2018 and 2022 midterms, when he was not.

During the 2016 campaign, observers speculated about the possibility that Trump supporters might be less willing to express their support to a pollster – a phenomenon sometimes described as the “shy Trump effect.” But a committee of polling experts evaluated five different tests of the “shy Trump” theory and turned up little to no evidence for each one . Later, Pew Research Center and, in a separate test, a researcher from Yale also found little to no evidence in support of the claim.

Instead, two other explanations are more likely. One is about the difficulty of estimating who will turn out to vote. Research has found that Trump is popular among people who tend to sit out midterms but turn out for him in presidential election years. Since pollsters often use past turnout to predict who will vote, it can be difficult to anticipate when irregular voters will actually show up.

The other explanation is that Republicans in the Trump era have become a little less likely than Democrats to participate in polls . Pollsters call this “partisan nonresponse bias.” Surprisingly, polls historically have not shown any particular pattern of favoring one side or the other. The errors that favored Democratic candidates in the past eight years may be a result of the growth of political polarization, along with declining trust among conservatives in news organizations and other institutions that conduct polls.

Whatever the cause, the fact that Trump is again the nominee of the Republican Party means that pollsters must be especially careful to make sure all segments of the population are properly represented in surveys.

The real margin of error is often about double the one reported. A typical election poll sample of about 1,000 people has a margin of sampling error that’s about plus or minus 3 percentage points. That number expresses the uncertainty that results from taking a sample of the population rather than interviewing everyone . Random samples are likely to differ a little from the population just by chance, in the same way that the quality of your hand in a card game varies from one deal to the next.

The problem is that sampling error is not the only kind of error that affects a poll. Those other kinds of error, in fact, can be as large or larger than sampling error. Consequently, the reported margin of error can lead people to think that polls are more accurate than they really are.

There are three other, equally important sources of error in polling: noncoverage error , where not all the target population has a chance of being sampled; nonresponse error, where certain groups of people may be less likely to participate; and measurement error, where people may not properly understand the questions or misreport their opinions. Not only does the margin of error fail to account for those other sources of potential error, putting a number only on sampling error implies to the public that other kinds of error do not exist.

Several recent studies show that the average total error in a poll estimate may be closer to twice as large as that implied by a typical margin of sampling error. This hidden error underscores the fact that polls may not be precise enough to call the winner in a close election.

Other important things to remember

Transparency in how a poll was conducted is associated with better accuracy . The polling industry has several platforms and initiatives aimed at promoting transparency in survey methodology. These include AAPOR’s transparency initiative and the Roper Center archive . Polling organizations that participate in these organizations have less error, on average, than those that don’t participate, an analysis by FiveThirtyEight found .

Participation in these transparency efforts does not guarantee that a poll is rigorous, but it is undoubtedly a positive signal. Transparency in polling means disclosing essential information, including the poll’s sponsor, the data collection firm, where and how participants were selected, modes of interview, field dates, sample size, question wording, and weighting procedures.

There is evidence that when the public is told that a candidate is extremely likely to win, some people may be less likely to vote . Following the 2016 election, many people wondered whether the pervasive forecasts that seemed to all but guarantee a Hillary Clinton victory – two modelers put her chances at 99% – led some would-be voters to conclude that the race was effectively over and that their vote would not make a difference. There is scientific research to back up that claim: A team of researchers found experimental evidence that when people have high confidence that one candidate will win, they are less likely to vote. This helps explain why some polling analysts say elections should be covered using traditional polling estimates and margins of error rather than speculative win probabilities (also known as “probabilistic forecasts”).

National polls tell us what the entire public thinks about the presidential candidates, but the outcome of the election is determined state by state in the Electoral College . The 2000 and 2016 presidential elections demonstrated a difficult truth: The candidate with the largest share of support among all voters in the United States sometimes loses the election. In those two elections, the national popular vote winners (Al Gore and Hillary Clinton) lost the election in the Electoral College (to George W. Bush and Donald Trump). In recent years, analysts have shown that Republican candidates do somewhat better in the Electoral College than in the popular vote because every state gets three electoral votes regardless of population – and many less-populated states are rural and more Republican.

For some, this raises the question: What is the use of national polls if they don’t tell us who is likely to win the presidency? In fact, national polls try to gauge the opinions of all Americans, regardless of whether they live in a battleground state like Pennsylvania, a reliably red state like Idaho or a reliably blue state like Rhode Island. In short, national polls tell us what the entire citizenry is thinking. Polls that focus only on the competitive states run the risk of giving too little attention to the needs and views of the vast majority of Americans who live in uncompetitive states – about 80%.

Fortunately, this is not how most pollsters view the world . As the noted political scientist Sidney Verba explained, “Surveys produce just what democracy is supposed to produce – equal representation of all citizens.”

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Scott Keeter is a senior survey advisor at Pew Research Center .

Courtney Kennedy is Vice President of Methods and Innovation at Pew Research Center .

How do people in the U.S. take Pew Research Center surveys, anyway?

How public polling has changed in the 21st century, what 2020’s election poll errors tell us about the accuracy of issue polling, a field guide to polling: election 2020 edition, methods 101: how is polling done around the world, most popular.

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ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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Please note: MIT and the admissions office will be closed Monday, September 2, in observance of Labor Day. On Tuesday, September 3, the admissions office will be closed from 11 AM–1 PM.

AOs write the “What do you do for fun?” essay by Jeremy W.

Ever wondered what admissions officers do when they're not reading applications?

July 9, 2021

• in Admissions ,
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We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do for the pleasure of it. (250 words maximum)

If you are familiar with the MIT application, you’ve likely encountered our short answer essay questions , including the one written above. Rather than asking applicants to write a long “personal statement,” we prefer asking a few short essay questions intentionally designed to help us get to know the student as a real person.

But this isn’t a blog about how to write a college essay. If you’re looking for that, we have plenty of great essay advice on our site already. Instead, this post is to help you get to know the Enigmatic Admissions Officers of MIT™ who are responsible for reading your applications. We get to learn so much about all of you, so I thought it was our turn to share a bit about ourselves.

While we share many of the same values, our admissions officers are remarkably different from one another. Our staff includes trained engineers, educators, performing artists, philosophers, writers, researchers, and more. Some of us listen to Bartók while others prefer BTS; some of us cultivate rare orchids while many of us desperately attempt to keep our succulents alive. And as you’ll see, some of us write carefully crafted prose, while others take a much more casual approach to writing.

We know from reading your applications each year that asking people what they like to do for fun is a fantastic window into their world. It’s a rare and wonderful thing to get to read about the joys of others—and best of all, there are no right or wrong answers. ⁠ 01 I regularly think about an applicant from years ago who wrote about his deep obsession with King's Hawaiian Rolls. I hope he's doing okay.

Every summer I receive a visit from a person I’ve never met, a person who technically doesn’t exist. Let me explain. When I took AP Literature (many moons ago) I encountered Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for the first time. I fell in love with Adichie’s detailed, perceptive prose, her humor, and most of all, Ifemelu—the confident, witty, blog-writing main character. The story follows Ifemelu as she grows up in Lagos, Nigeria and immigrates to the United States for university, eventually becoming a successful writer and moving back to Nigeria to rediscover home. It’s a coming-of-age tale, a love story, and a record of how we all evolve based on social context and age. I reread this book every June, and each time, something new resonates with me—the nerve-wracking freedom of moving to a new city, the overwhelming rush of first love, the difficulty of reconciling one’s childhood self with an emerging adult self. Rereading the book has become a means to measure how I’ve grown as a person—similar to how I marked my height in pencil on my doorframe each year as a kid. By now Ifemelu feels like a friend, and the week I spend with her each summer feels like a highly-anticipated visit during which I remember all the reasons I connected to her in the first place and discover new axes of connection (and new parts of myself). Back to reading now—Ifemelu’s only here for a few more days (246 more pages).

One word. Dance. I will dance anywhere at any time. Whether it’s at a party, a supermarket in line, my room at 3am, or even at work during selection committee (ask Kellen, he’ll vouch this), I absolutely love dancing. It’s one of the purest, most authentic ways for me to express my emotions. There’s just something about finding the rhythm in a song, and absolutely crushing the beat with movement that’s insatiable. Hip hop, afro beats, soca, bachata, dembow, kizomba, swing, I love so many different styles of dance. I come from a family of dancers, so I suppose it’s a bit of a hereditary trait. Regardless, I can guarantee you that if you see me on campus, at some point you will catch me subtly hitting a woah, woo walking across the street, or dougie-ing in line at Dunkin Donuts. Dance and pleasure go hand in hand for me, and it’s what I go to most often for fun.

I glide out on the ice in the 10-degree Vermont winter morning. I can see my breath and my fingers are already starting to go numb, but I have the biggest smile on my face. It’s the best weekend of the year—the Vermont Pond Hockey Championship. I’ve been playing hockey since I was about 4 years old; one of the very few skaters with a pony-tail sticking out of their helmet. Since then, I’ve developed friendships that have lasted well into my adult life, created memories I’ll never forget, and learned a lot about what it means to be a part of a team. This annual weekend in Vermont is the culmination of that—a chance to hang out with my best friends playing a sport that has given me so much. The joy isn’t always calculated by our win/loss record (like the year we went 0-4…ouch) but by the laughs we have and the minutes spent together. Being on the ice is an escape for me: there’s no school work, work, or personal commitments on my mind. It’s just me and the game, and the only thing on my mind is what the optimal position is to defend the net. Every time I’m on the ice I try to skate to my best ability, knowing that my hard work benefits everyone on the team and even if we lose, we’ve done our best. But I’ll be honest…it definitely feels better to win!

As I’ve grown older my interests have evolved and changed with every new fad and craze. I am what you call a “marketer’s dream”, who buys trinkets at the check-out line. From pop music, anime, cargo shorts, bowl cuts, and playing basketball at my local park, to scholarly research, work, and trying to fit a workout into my daily routine, one thing has remained constant since my childhood. While I still jam out to the top songs of the 1990s and 2000s on a weekly basis, I have never been able to say bye, bye, bye to that mouse-like critter with yellow fur, pointy ears, and red circular spots. From collecting cards, watching Ash Ketchum continually lose in big tournaments, and spending thousands of hours on their video games, Pokémon has always managed to keep my interest in one way or another since its 1996 debut. These days, you can find me out on runs and long walks while playing Pokémon Go on my way to catching them all, or on my Nintendo Switch trying to become the next Pokémon master. Now in my 30s, I get to share my love for Pokémon with my nieces who have jumped on the poke-express with open arms. At least they know what to expect to get for their birthdays and Christmas. It’s amazing to see how Pokémon has been able to captivate audiences of all ages for so many years, which is perfect for someone who is a kid at heart.

When I was recruited to do this post my first thought was, what is fun? Everyone characterizes it differently. A great example of this is SpongeBob’s idea of fun vs. Plankton’s idea of fun.*

*I mean, SpongeBob is iconic and if you haven’t applied SOME lesson from SpongeBob to your life—you’re doing it wrong.

Aside from learning life lessons through watching episodes of SpongeBob, having fun means to reach complete serenity. Activities that take my mind away from work, the news, media, etc. are things I have fun doing.

If I had to choose one that I’m loving at the moment…I’d choose walking on trails. In the Boston area, there are plenty of trails and parks to walk through on a nice day. Now, I’m not a hiker—I don’t do this on a consistent basis but it’s the perfect getaway for me.

One of my favorite trails overlooks the Neponset River. You can find people roller skating, biking, skateboarding, running or walking and taking in the scenery. I actually found this trail through one of our colleagues, Bintou (thanks Bintou!). It’s been a go-to spot whenever I need a breath of fresh air.

149 West Market St in Newark, New Jersey holds a secret gem. While Google will tell you this is the home of the local T-Mobile, I knew this as the best place to buy jewelry. In front of T-Mobile was a local vendor who sold the best fashion jewelry I know. Even when I moved out of state and went back to visit family, I always made sure I had time to find his stand. However, when I needed him most he vanished. I tried to find alternate earring vendors but they were more costly and not as stylishly captivating. Naturally, I would lose an earring here and there, so my collection continued to dwindle. At this point, I had no choice but to start learning how to make my own earrings. Part of the fun in learning to make my own earrings is that I get to express myself and my passions. One passion that I have is in sustainability. For one project, I decided to use a couple of old ripped jeans. With these jeans I made a large flower-esque pair of earrings. When I look around, all I see is inspiration for my next earring creation. So far, I have made earrings using Christmas ornaments, the book-bind of an old journal, extra braiding hair, and I even used the faux-fur pom-pom that attaches to purses. Being able to enhance my expressive style through my own earring creations has been one of my favorite pastimes.

All right, so let me set the scene. It’s like 3 am on some random Saturday during my junior year of college and I just bought two cheeseburgers from a local gas station called Sheetz (it was a thing that we did, no further questions). I came back to my dorm room, sat on the couch, and turned the TV to Cartoon Network. An episode of a show called Lupin the 3rd had just started, and everything just seemed to fall into place. I don’t think I’ve ever been that content in my life. Needless to say, I was hooked. Now, this wasn’t the first time I watched anime by any means. I grew up on Dragon Ball Z and watched a decent amount of Toonami in middle and high school. But, that was probably the moment I realized that this was my wave. From there, Adult Swim’s anime block became my nightly ritual. From Fullmetal Alchemist to Samurai Champloo , to Cowboy Bebop and Paranoia Agent , the time I would have normally dedicated to sleeping or homework, transitioned to strictly anime and homework (rip sleep). As time went on and graduation passed by, my friends all grew out of their anime phase, but I didn’t. I even wrote a blog about how binging Naruto at a nursing home got me through what could have been a really depressing part of my life. So, yea. Anime. That’s a thing I like. Now excuse me while I catch up on Tokyo Revengers .

I applied to only one college my senior year of high school. It was an art school and I wanted to go there because someone told me once that if I just focused on what I liked to do for fun, I’d always be able to find a job. I liked making art. I took oil painting lessons and painted a still life that still hangs in my grandparent’s house. I taught myself how to draw with charcoal and colored pencils. That summer, in order to put together a portfolio that would serve as my application, I would lug a big pad of paper and sit on top of the cars in the junk yard and draw them. I drew boulders in the quarry in my town with colored pencil. I opened the door of my closet and drew all the shoes on the floor. I drew the edge of my unmade bed. Once I got accepted, it turned out I didn’t like drawing or painting much anymore. Instead, I made super 8 films and wrote poems. But my friends and I had the most fun hosting dinner parties in our Brighton apartment. We’d make big trays of chicken enchiladas and homemade guacamole, we’d decorate and light candles, and pick out the perfect music soundtracks. Because we were art-school kids, these parties were visual and creative. To this day, I still have the most fun using my artistic skills to entertain friends and family, to garden, and to cook.

Still life painting by Kris Guay

In the heart of the Black Hills National Forest, South Dakota you will find a winding gravel road full of potholes that, if you’re not careful, will take the front end off your car. Cell phone reception drops immediately leaving you completely unplugged from the modern world.

A secret place awaits you there. A place where you step back in time to when people lived quieter, slower-paced lives. There, nestled back against Aspen and Pine trees sits a small, green cabin with a tin roof, an outhouse, a screened-in porch, and a babbling creek directly across the road. Electricity and running water don’t exist here. Oil lanterns and a big pot belly stove are your only sources of light and warmth. Water comes from hauling buckets from the creek and cooking is done on an original wood burning cookstove with cast iron skillets. When it rains, the water’s percussion against the tin roof instantly puts you to sleep. The swing on the porch invites voracious readers. We play board games, hike, go swimming, and sit on the porch listening to coyotes as the sun sets over the canyon.

This is my paradise, my favorite place on earth. This is where I unplug from the stresses of life and briefly forget my adulting responsibilities. The little green cabin in the middle of the forest is where I recharge, reset, and get back to the core of who I am and who I want to be.

I like to lift heavy things. For about 8 years now, I’ve been following a powerlifting program roughly similar to the publicly available StrongLifts 5×5 . What I like about lifting heavy things is that it is a combination of technical and creative, intense and enduring, and that it is both emotionally and physically exhausting. I feel more calmer, focused, and more levelheaded after lifting. I like that there is measurable progression: if you can lift more weight, or the same weight at more sets/reps, and even if I’m stalled in other parts of my personal or professional life, here I can (usually) move forward. As the essayist Alyssa Keiko wrote , “it never gets easier, you just get stronger.” Plus, I can easily pick up my mom and swing her around like a baby now, and she smiles and laughs, and that makes me happy.

I slowly make my way through the metal doors, moving slowly, as to not draw too much attention. Taking a deep breath, I remind myself of my goal—one that will involve patience and determination. With each step, I make my way toward the future and the past:

• Stonewashed denim, with frayed hems that catch in the breeze
• A sequined gown straight out of Studio 54… that would also make a splash in Dua Lipa’s latest music video
• Military inspired jackets with gleaming epaulets
• Battered concert tees of my favorite 80s bands

Suddenly, without any warning, my attention is drawn elsewhere—Italian loafers, chunky bangles, vibrant leather bags, with just a hint of irregular stitching. Then, out of nowhere, I spot her: hiding in an overstocked rolling rack, between a faux pas and my future self—the perfect dress. 50% off. In the cart she goes. Bargain shopping is not for the faint of heart, but for those willing to take the risk… the possibilities are endless.

Ever since Riley, now a 75-pound Golden Retriever puppy (see photo), arrived home on May 15, 2020, it has been full-fledged “Life with Riley” for my family and me. I am most focused on playing, training, and walking/jogging with her around Cambridge. On any morning, you can see us around Harvard Yard, Fresh Pond, or even occasionally MIT (~8 mile round trip walk). My immediate goal is to be able to get Riley to ride the Red Line and behave in the new MIT Admissions Office. Another goal is to have her certified as an MIT Puppy Lab dog.

Training Riley has not been easy as she normally has full freedom to roam in the house and yard. I have enough bite/scratch marks to prove it. I have witnessed her chase a wild turkey up Littauer Center’s roof (can provide video upon request). Some of Riley’s acquaintances almost got Riley into trouble. Cooper (a 90-pound Golden) stole a big juicy bagel sandwich from a surprised guy up the pedestal on Widener Library. Luckily Riley was too slow to follow the full operation.

While I have been training Riley (she understands “pre-flight check”, “get off me”, “sit” and “crate”), she has also been training me. I understand when she needs to go, when she is hungry, and when she doesn’t want to return home. An unexpected side effect of training Riley has been that she gained 10 extra pounds from all the rewards that I have to give her.

Note: while participants were required to adhere to the same word limit as the MIT application, I allowed them to submit photos along with their responses. On the actual MIT application, images cannot be included with short essay responses.

• I regularly think about an applicant from years ago who wrote about his deep obsession with King's Hawaiian Rolls. I hope he's doing okay. ⁠ back to text ↑

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