New Info for Fall 2025 Application Cycle:
- The Grad Admissions Chair for AY25 is Luca Carlone.
- The Graduate Program Staff includes Rachael Draper and Erinn Taylor Barroso.
- (Completed) The early admissions process for the 5-year combined SB/SM program opens on June 1, 2024. Review will run through mid-August, with decisions being sent by September 1, 2024.
- Our current process flowchart can be found here. This is a detailed step-by-step explanation of the graduate admissions review process. Note that the threshold for a candidate to advance to Round 2 is currently set to 2.5, but an increase of this threshold is being discussed as a potential change for this year.
- Starting Fall 2025, all faculty are member of the Graduate Admissions Committee (GAC).
Useful Information for Reviewers:
- The main application review site is here https://apply.mit.edu/manage/reader/ (SLATE)
- Navigate to "Queue" to view your unread assigned applications for review
- Overview of the Grad Admissions process and information for new faculty
- Have a look at our suggested Scoring Guidelines here. Feel free to use these guidelines if needed, when you are choosing the numerical score of an applicant you are reviewing.
- Intended meaning of review scores:
- 4: Definitely Admit
- 3.5: Admit
- 3: Admissible
- 2: Probably Admissible
- 1: Reject
- All official decisions from the department will not be sent until end of February
- For any difficulties, please mail Luca Carlone (lcarlone@mit.edu) or Rachael Draper (rdraper@mit.edu)
- Further information:
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Admissions
- Departmental Fellowships
- USAF and USSF Applicant Data forthcoming
- Council of Graduate Schools Publication Resource: April 15 Resolution
(The April 15 resolution is an agreement among the signatory graduate schools to provide applicants until April 15 to consider offers of admission that also include financial support.)
Resources on Rankings:
- US News and Reports (Best Global Universities): https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings
- US News and Reports (Best Engineering Schools): https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/eng-rankings
- QS World University Rankings: https://www.topuniversities.com/qs-world-university-rankings
GAC 2024-2025 Schedule:
- December 1, 2024: Grad applications website closes.
- December 2-8, 2024: Triaging by Graduate Program Staff and GAC Chair.
- December 9, 2024: Round 1 Folder Reviews begin.
- January 10, 2025: Round 1 completed. All Round 1 folders have two GAC reads.
- February 1, 2025: All Round 2 reviews completed.
- February 5-7, 2025: Sector Admissions Meetings
- All decisions released morning of February 21, 2025.
- March 12-13, 2025: AeroAstro Open House
- April 15, 2025: Reply to Offer deadline
- May 30, 2025: Wait List is released.
General Admissions Information (not updated in AY25):
GAC Status
1/17/2012
463 complete and assigned, 16 never completed, 23 rejected due to low TOEFL.
4 processed as off-cycle
137 Admissible, sent for sector review
87 Inadmissible, no further action.
Of the remaining 239:
2 ready for decision
27 Pending GAC 3rd review
210 Pending initial GAC review
IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES THIS YEAR
- For the next two years, we won't fast-track candidates. Please check out the GAC 2011 Final Report for why we did this.
- Some students have radically different GRE scores, out of 1.63E2. It may be best from now on to stick to the percentiles (which apparently are still out of 1E2). Please see the New GRE score explanations.
Useful information
- New GRE Quantitative and Verbal Scoring band, conversations and explanations are here: New GRE
- Average AA test scores of admitted students from Fall 2011 are here: 2011 Average Test Scores (also gives TOEFL information).
- The 2010 US News and World Report Rankings for Engineering Schools are here: USN&WR Rankings
- Rankings on Indian engineering schools here
- Fulbright Fellowships
- 2011 US Air Force Academy Statistics
Other information
- How to review
- How to get all of the folders assigned to you that you have not read yet:
- Click on "Search"
- Enter in the search box "reader:yourname & !reviewer:yourname". For instance, I do "reader:nickroy & !reviewer:nickroy".
- The main application review site is here https://gradapply.mit.edu/aeroastro/review/
- You can send mail to the entire GAC via aa-gac@mit.edu.
- Any difficulties, please mail me (Nick) at nickroy@csail.mit.edu or call my cell at 617-875-2506.
- The 2011-2012 GAC members are here: Aero Astro Grad Admissions Committee Members
GAC Specific Info
- Intended meanings of scores:
- 4: Definite admit
- 3: Admissible
- 2: Possibly admissible (unlikely to be admitted – probably shouldn't be read by sector)
- 1: Probable reject (not worth sending to sector)
- 0: Definite reject (consider summary rejection by GAC chair)
(This interpretation of the scores is at the GAC level. The scores at the sector level are purely for ranking candidates, and don't have a specific interpretation.)
- As of 2011, we no longer fast-track students.
- Send to sector criterion:
- A folder will be sent to the sectors for additional reviews if it receives no more than one score of 2 or lower.
- Under-represented groups will be sent to the sector for additional reviews if it receives two scores of 2 or higher.
- Reject criterion:
- A folder will most likely not receive additional reviews from the sector if it receives 2 or more scores of 2 or lower.
GAC Schedule
- December 15, 2011: Grad applications website closes
- January 9, 2012: All folders have two reads
- January 12, 2012: Initial review meeting Agenda and Minutes
- January 23, 2012: All folders completed
- January 27, 2012: Final review meeting
- March 1, 2012: Students notified of admissions decisions
- March 16, 2012: Open house
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