GAC Policies

The roles of the GAC

The roles of the GAC are as follows:

• manage the large number of applicants to the department and identify a smaller pool of applicants that should be read by the sectors;
• provide uniform initial evaluation of all candidates;
• assist Headquarters with sizing the number of admissions decisions in order to ensure a small but high quality group of incoming students that is commensurate with our funding and advising capacity.

From the 2008-2009 final report of the GAC:

• "The graduate admissions committee (GAC) was formed in order to more effectively manage the number of admitted students. "
• "[The] Graduate Admissions Committee (GAC) is responsible for sizing the number of admits, admitting new students, and recruiting. The GAC is composed of a chair, and co-chair, student services staff as well as two faculty representatives from each of the sectors."
• The GAC is "the central coordinating and decision making body for graduate admissions."

GAC review

• No faculty on the GAC should have a folder assigned to them for GAC review if they also provided a letter of recommendation. Once a folder has been deemed admissible by the GAC and is sent to the sector, any and all faculty can provide a review.
• Fast-track criteria (abandoned in 2011-2012 see below):
  • A folder will be fast-tracked if both initial reviewers give the folder a '4', or if two of three reviewers give the folder a '4' and GAC discussion indicates a fast-track is warranted. ** A candidate admitted as a fast-track will receive an early admission letter and individual faculty can begin contacting the student, but the student will be invited to attend the open house with regular admits. As of 2010, we no longer invite fast-track students to visit early as our success rate with students visiting outside the open house has not been high.
• See notes on main page for interpretation of scores at GAC level
• Faculty suggestions in the "Other AA faculty who should review this application?" field are supposed to contain only one entry. If GAC Members suggest more than one faculty reader, only the first will be utilized when sending to Sector if the review is a 3 or less. When the review is a 4, the first two suggestions may be utilized.

Additional guidelines for GAC review:

• GAC reviews are guidance to the faculty, not absolute decisions, and represent the best effort to determine if a student is worth considering further. During the sector admissions meetings, faculty may request to consider a student previously deemed inadmissible if there is additional information. However, faculty may be asked to make a case for recommending admission for someone previously deemed inadmissible by the GAC.
• We discourage re-accepting students who previously failed the qualifying exam. Previous failures when taking the qual should be taken into account by the sector when making admissions decisions, as our qualifying exam is a pretty good indicator of success or failure as a doctoral student. But, each such applicant should be judged on their merits separately, keeping in mind both the department's goal of getting the strongest candidates and also the support of potential advisors.

Fast-tracks (abandoned in 2011-2012)

For 2011-2012, and 2012-2013, we will not admit fast-track applicants. This is a trial period to see if fast-tracks have any effect on our yield. The analysis in the 2010-2011 final report indicated a trend that there was no effect and Fast Tracks were abandoned.

• We give early admission (fast-track) applicants who are so strong that we want to send a signal to them that they are highly desired, in order to improve the yield of these applicants. There should be no questions about the applicants we fast-track, and there needs to be an obvious choice for an advisor who strongly supports immediate admission and who very much wants to work with them.
• The cost of a fast-track is that:
  • these applicants will be admitted without explicitly being compared against the other applicants in the sector meeting;
  • other faculty have one fewer chance to give an opinion;
  • by allocating one of our slots to a fast-track student, we lose a slot for the other students at the sector admissions meeting.
  • One other small (~neglible) cost for the department is that we do offer all fast-tracks (as well as minority and women admits) travel support to visit MIT prior to deciding (targeting the Open House, but flexible if that is not possible).
• So, the bar for the fast-track students is extremely high.
• If multiple faculty are interested in a fast-track student, then all interested advisors will appear in the admission letter to the student. With respect to funding, what the department has often done in the past is utilize department funding in some manner to make the offer while giving the student some flexibility to choose. We have done other things as well, in particular say if there are a couple of students where the same two faculty are interested in funding. In that case, what has been done is an agreement between the faculty and the department about how funding will be handled (there are lots of permutations possible, with lots of flexibility on the department side... the goal is to maximize our resources to get funding to all admits while maintaining healthy department fellowship/underwriting for the future years).
• The GAC tries to avoid fast-tracks becoming a way to cherry-pick the best students in advance of the sector admissions meetings. However, there is currently no policy in place for checking that all relevant faculty have had a chance to view an applicant's folder and express interest, and needs to be addressed.

Deferment

• The departmental guidelines to students admitted to the graduate program are that admissions cannot be deferred. (These guidelines are not posted anywhere.) The reason is that students who used to defer would arrive on campus a year later without an advisor or funding, and would take a long time to engage. Deferments also make sizing decisions difficult.
• Advisors can ask for a deferment for an accepted student, but this is not recommended and not advertised. Semester-long deferments (maximum is 1 year) have only been granted in recent years when the decision was made by both the advisor and student together AND funding was known to be in place, i.e., the advisor knows they will fund the student when they arrive.

The Sector Admissions Meetings

• The sector admissions meetings are run by the Sector Heads
• It is the Sectors responsibility to ensure Sector Reads of the Folders (non-GAC Reads) are completed, or not, in preparation for the Sector Admissions Meetings
• All decisions are recommendations made to the GAC. The admissions decisions will be reviewed and finalized by the Associate Department head in conjunction with the GAC after the sector admissions meetings. In some cases, the Associate Department head may ask for additional information regarding availability of funding to support a student or regarding the student's qualifications, before admissions decisions are finalized.
• Each sector admissions meeting should be attended by at least one member of the GAC. The GAC roles in the sector admissions meeting are:
  • enforce the requirement that NO student can be admitted without a signed statement of support from a faculty member. The admissions decisions are recorded by the Graduate Program Administrator along with the signed statements, but this requirement is enforced by the GAC, not the Graduate Program Administrator.
  • enforce the requirement that admitted students CANNOT be contacted by faculty until the Graduate Program Administrator has sent an official letter of admission to the student.
  • enforce the requirement that wait-listed applicants CANNOT be contacted by faculty unless they are admitted.
• and the following advisory roles:
  • advise the sector on typical yield, the targeted number of admits, and the maximum number of admitted and wait-listed applicants. Specifically, remind faculty of their stated advising and funding availability. This is an advisory role since the faculty who sign letters to advise and, if applicable, financially support applicants are ultimately responsible to the Department and Associate Department Head;
  • advise the sector on the calibre of students in a given year and assist in maintaining a high level of quality of admitted students;
  • advise the sector on wait-listed applicants; Specifically, remind faculty that wait-listed students are high-quality, admissible candidates that cannot be admitted immediately because of capacity. If there is any doubt about the student for any reason, they should not be put on the Wait List but rather should be rejected. Additional rationale for this policy is here;
  • bring advice from the sector back to the GAC in terms of process and issues.
  • if a faculty member is absent and sends a proxy to represent them, the Graduate Program Administrator makes sure (via email or otherwise written) that the admit decisions made by that proxy are double-checked with the absent faculty member before made official.

External reviewers/external advisors

We sometimes might want a candidate's folder to be looked at by someone outside the department, either for a second opinion or perhaps because the candidate might be relevant to an advisor outside the department. If we either want someone outside the department to look at a folder, or think they might be interested in a candidate, our current policy is to have Beth give them an ApplyWeb ID and assign the folder to them. They may choose to enter a formal review and can express interest in advising the candidate. However, to admit the student, someone in the department needs to agree be the academic advisor of record and must sign the support letter for that student during the sector admission meeting. If the support from outside the department disappears, the person who signs the support letter will be responsible for supporting the student. 

Open house

All admitted students are welcome and encouraged to come to the open house.

There is a $500 stipend available for fast tracked students, women and under-represented minorities.

Combined 5 year SB/SB Program

In 2016, the department started inviting our best undergraduates to apply to the SM program in the summer between their junior and senior years. The decision of who to invite is currently made in HQ. The review process is identical to the regular application process, but allows our best undergraduates to start working towards their SM degree at the beginning of their senior year, allowing them to complete the SM in a single fifth year more easily. 

The history and rationale of this process is described in this document.

Out of cycle (Off Cycle) Admissions

A student can only apply for off-cycle admission with very strong support from a faculty member in the form of guaranteed funding and guaranteed advising support. If no faculty member can formally guarantee funding in writing, the student cannot be considered for off-cycle admissions.

Reasons for Off-cycle Admission: In a very few number of cases, it may be desirable to allow a student to apply to the department outside the normal admissions cycle. The primary reason for this is:

• the student is completing an SM in another department at MIT, and wishes to continue with his or her doctoral studies in Aero. The student may want to apply for early admission to be allowed to take the Qualifying exam. For example, CDO students may want to continue on to a PhD in Aero, and would need off-cycle admission to be allowed to take the Qualifying exam. (In 2010, the Graduate Committee determined that only students admitted to the department would be allowed to take the Qualifying exam. Citation needed.)

In previous years, a faculty member could request an out-of-cycle application for a student if the faculty had a pressing research need. This led to the problem of students persistently contacting faculty and the administration to find funding and create out-of-cycle opportunities. To stop this behaviour by the students, we no longer allow out-of-cycle applications of this kind. 

Process for Off-cycle Admission: The process is the following:

1. The sponsoring faculty writes to the Graduate Program Administrator, sponsoring the student and providing a formal guarantee of funding and advising support. This letter must explicitly state: "I will advise XX and have funding for {him|her}."
2. The Graduate Program Administrator records the guarantee of funding and support, and approves the student to apply for off-cycle admission.
3. The student replies with admissions material.
4. The GAC chair and co-chair both read the folder. If, in the judgement of the GAC chair and co-chair, the folder would be accepted by the sector during the normal admissions process (i.e., with strong support from the advisor and guaranteed funding), then the applicant will be admitted.
5. If, in the judgement of the GAC chair and co-chair, it is not clear that the folder would be accepted by the sector, the folder will be sent to 3 members of the GAC for a full review, and the admission decision will be made by a simple majority.
6. The admissions decision will be communicated by the Graduate Program Administrator to the applicant and sponsoring advisor.

Relationship to Draper Labs

Draper Labs has a number of fellowships that they use to support students on campus, to work on projects at Draper. These students are known as Draper Lab Fellows (DLFs). DLFs work on projects at Draper, and are typically not given desk-space on campus because DLF stipends do not bear the same indirect costs as a conventional RA (citation needed). In previous years, representatives from Draper would be given admissions folders to read, and would come to the sector admissions meetings with the names of students to whom they wished to offer fellowships. In this process, students would occasionally be admitted without very strong support from the faculty or an on-campus advisor able to advise the student. To ensure strong faculty engagement with the DLFs and their research, the process now is as follows:

1. Well before the sector admissions meeting (i.e, 3-4 weeks), individual faculty meet with Draper project managers to discuss possible projects that could support a DLF, typically for the two years of masters-level project or multiple years for a doctoral-level project.
2. If there is agreement between the faculty member and the Draper project manager, then Draper provides an email to the faculty member and HQ confirming DLF support for a named project.
3. The faculty member then identifies a student during the sector admissions meeting, who will be admitted as a DLF.
4. The name and qualifications of the student are provided to Draper. If the student accepts the offer of admission, Draper contacts the student awarding them the DLF, which the student can then choose to accept or decline.

Relationship to professional programs (e.g., LGO)

There have historically been professional programs at MIT (some in the School of Engineering) that require students to first be admitted by a home department before being admitted to the professional program. At the time of this writing (Fall 2014), LGO (Leaders for Global Operations) is the only such program. LGO students must be accepted by all of Sloan, an SoE department, and the LGO program. (A no-bid by any one of the 3 programs means the student will not be admitted to LGO.) However, in XVI, the LGO Dept. Rep (Fall 2014 is Oli de Weck, Fall 2011-2013 was Debbie Nightingale) can directly accept/admit students on behalf of XVI that have already been admitted by Sloan & LGO. Note that many LGO applicants, while otherwise excellent students, do not match the profile of the traditional XVI Grad student. They may not have strong research credentials or even strong research interests, but have very strong leadership credentials and very strong interests in global operations. 

Students in the LGO program are primarily LGO students, but those with a home department in XVI are part of the larger XVI community. They must follow our departmental course requirements (with the exception of the writing requirement) which means they will typically take some of our courses, and also that their progress through the graduate program is audited by the XVI Graduate Program Administrator. LGO students in XVI therefore interact with our other graduate students during their coursework, attending seminars, etc. However, LGO students have no expectation of funding from XVI, are advised by the LGO faculty, and are not discussed at the XVI grades meetings each semester. The LGO program specifies how the LGO funding model works, so if there were questions, the student should be referred to the LGO documentation.

Our XVI faculty who are LGO Advisors bear some load in terms of advising, so LGO works with them before each admissions cycle to determine how many LGO students can be advised by XVI. The number of students has been very small in past years (1-2 per year). GAC is not involved in this aspect.

Admissions notes:

• All students applying to LGO through XVI will be told that because of their application to a joint program, we cannot guarantee a decision before March 1, which is our notification date for our own program.
  
  
• LGO folders will be read by the GAC and also be sent to the LGO Dept. Rep (as of Fall 2014, Oli de Weck).
  • If the student is selected for admission by the GAC and also by a sector, they will receive a standard offer of admission from our department, specifying their advisor and source of funding, and be told that their LGO specific decision is forthcoming, since their process ends later than ours.
  • If the student is not selected for admission by XVI, they will still be evaluated by the LGO Dept. Rep. as well as the LGO admissions committee.
    • If the student is selected for admission by LGO, they will receive an LGO offer letter. Since the student was not selected for admission by XVI, but is selected for admission by LGO, they get an LGO offer letter and a letter from XVI welcoming them to the XVI community as part of the LGO program. I.e., the LGO Dept. Rep admits them to XVI.
    • If the student is not selected for admission by LGO (therefore by neither LGO or XVI), then they will receive an offer declining admission from XVI.
• If a student applies through the Sloan school, they must choose an engineering home as well. In that case, we may receive some application folders from Sloan for students who wish to be part of XVI as part of LGO. These folders will be sent to the LGO Dept. Rep., and will be treated as if they applied to XVI but were declined by the GAC.
• LGO is interested in maintaining diversity in their student population, so they may ask that a student who originally applied to another engineering department be admitted to XVI to ensure an LGO presence in the XVI community (and vice versa). These folders will also be sent to the LGO Dept Rep, and will be treated as if they applied to XVI but were declined by the GAC. I.e., the LGO Dept. Rep can admit them to XVI.