<p>Still, 56% is quite a lot for one of the top schools… it is not much lower than some second tier schools, to which international students do not apply at all.</p>
<p>Yeah, its higher for domestics than internationals, by a lot. However, looking at that dataset, it seems that last year was a fluke.
1998-99 38%
1999-00 29%
2000-01 39%
2001-02 68%
2002-03 47%
2003-04 64%
2004-05 42%
2005-06 32%
2006-07 35%
2007-08 56%</p>
<p>its within the standard deviation of this dataset. </p>
<p>And yes, of course it is tougher for international students. What I am surprised about is that for US citizens there is not much difference in selectivity between first and second tier schools.</p>
<p>Ummmm… they aren’t just going to let any average Joe into the Biochemistry program.
There is a lot to worry about. You have to work hard in the field to be admitted.</p>
<p>The admit rate for MIT aero/astro is also around 50%. The reason for this is that the admit rate for the department’s own undergrads is <em>extremely</em> high, and a lot of the department’s own undergrads apply. You can’t always tell what is going into an admit rate.</p>
<p>I think they are considered a hybrid, but funding source is a deal breaker.</p>
<p>International students have two problems:
Their schools, programs, and classes they took tell admission officers very little. So it is hard to compare, and select the best candidate. Thus it is safer to choose someone from US who is known to be good - even if there is small chance that international student would be better.</p>
<p>One of the postdocs in my lab told me, that they were choosing applicants from China almost randomly. She is chinese, and some professors asked her to help her choose, and gave her list of schools, GRE’s and GPA’s. She told me that this information was not sufficient and she chose the best schools, best GRE’s and GPA’s and once those values were no longer discriminating – those that had interesting names :P.</p>
<p>2) Their funding must come from private sources, so they are more expensive for the university.</p>
<p>MIT admission rates are all irrelevant, because they include students in MEng program, for which MIT undergrads only have to have certain GPA… Similarly at other programs, where masters students are pooled togather with Phd students, admission rates are visibly higher.</p>
<p>I doubt that if any average Joe applied for the program, he would have over 70% chance of getting in. In my graduate program, many students are “rejected” even before they apply, so only the really qualified students end up even bothering to waste their time to apply. For one, there’s that minimum GPA requirement which many students can’t make. Then they are also strongly encouraged to find a graduate advisor and a research topic before they start the paperwork.</p>