Since they made the announcement this week that only seniors will be allowed on campus for the Fall, there are a couple of factors that play in the picture:
A) MIT will lose out on dormitory revenues and other income sources that they would have had if students were on campus and from a business point of view will need to minimize operating losses;
B) Trump F visa regulation will restrict international students outside the USA from entering and some may take gap year because of being not able to access internet as a result of bad online infrastructure, government restrictions or both;
Bottom line: MIT may offer everyone on the wait list a spot because of the above and the unpredictability of next year since there is no vaccine. At this stage, this is about
stopping the financial hemorhage and the more students, the lower the financial loss for MIT.
MIT would be justified to do this since everyone on the wait list is qualified to attend and this is an extraordinary situation.
Hi, MIT class of 2024 student here. There seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread as to what MIT’s situation is right now, so I’ll help clear up some stuff for those who do not have access to MIT’s information.
(1) Yes, MIT has over-enrolled approximately 50 students due to a record yield of 79% this year. Yes, MIT is online in the fall, but this does NOT mean that more students will be admitted off the waitlist. This is because…
(2) Due to social distancing regulations, MIT currently has a shortage in undergraduate housing. According to MIT’s administration, they can currently only house 30-40% of undergraduates in its current state (1 undergraduate per room). They currently trying to boost this above 50%, but even then, if they were to admit more students in the short term, the logistics of housing would be horrendous in the long term.
(3) International students are currently in an extremely tight situation, and this may prompt gap years from many of them. MIT/Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration is unlikely to be acted on quickly. However, given that the fall is online, international students don’t have an obvious incentive to gap year (besides the cons of virtual curriculum). Furthermore…
(4) The MIT admissions office has stated in MIT 24 communication mediums that they reserve the right to refuse deferral requests. This means, some students requesting deferrals may not be allowed to defer 1-2 years.
(5) Many students have also already started preparing for ASEs (Advanced Standing Exams). Furthermore, forms such as the advising application, medical form, and FPOP application are all due before the deadline of July 27th. This makes it less likely for students to defer a year, as they risk forgetting material for ASEs (as you can’t take ASEs before your gap year).
My personal prediction is that anywhere between 0-30 students will be admitted off the waitlist this year, and that this notification will be anytime between July 27th to August 3rd. However, this is mere speculation, and from my own quick analysis of the situation as a class of 2024 student.
Is anybody else in a situation where the deferral date for their school is coming up? Personally, I plan to go to Princeton if I do not get off of the wait list, but my date of deferral is in two days. Does anyone have any suggestions? Will some schools be more accepting towards extending deferrals due to the situation?
Honestly, at this point, I just need the wait to be over. Does anyone have any clue as to whether kids will actually be taken off the waitlist and/or when we will be notified of its closing? I wish they would update us.
I just wrote an email to mitwl yesterday. I get a reply saying that they do not have any updates about the waitlist but will be making decisions after July 27th
Every year we hope to take students off the wait list, and most years we do. However, this year we had a record number of admitted students enroll as members of the Class of 2024, and a lower-than-expected number of students choose to take a gap year. Unfortunately, this means that we will not be able to admit any students off the wait list. We know this may be disappointing to many of you, and it is never easy for us to turn away such amazing students. You can read more in this blog post.