MIT --- weird admission numbers!

vn1997
Tue, 17 Feb 2015 12:27:11 +0000

I wanted to know how many students get into MIT from India each year.
So I came across these numbers on the MIT Registrar website about “number of students from each country”.

http://web.mit.edu/registrar/stats/geo/geo1314.html

This is basically the total number of students from India on campus (as an undergrad) over the 4 years.

From 1998-99 to 2013-14, they are:
12,13,13,13,11,10,13,10,16,19,31,28,29,33,30,21

How do you explain the strange rise from 07-08 to 08-09 (19 to 31)? Or the drop from 12-13 to 13-14 (30 to 21)?

Also, I tried to find the number of students admitted each year from this.
I began by assuming that in 98-99, there were 3 students in each year, for a total of 12. So then I can recreate the steps using an Excel sheet. Eg: 3,3,3,3 becomes 3,3,3,4 because it goes from 12 to 13. (3,3,3,3 means that there are 3 students in each year)

These is what I got. (From 99-00 to 13-14)
4,3,3,1,3,6,0,7,6,18,-3,8,10,15,-12

WHAT?? What’s with the negative numbers? Or the zero?

So I tried varying my initial assumption, like 4,2,2,4 or 1,3,5,3. Any way I tried, I ended up with these mysterious negatives.

I know that a few people drop out (internationals? unlikely) and a few others complete over 5 years, but -12 is still WAY too large.

On another note, does anyone have stats as to how many people get in from India every year? I heard that in each of the last 2 years, 7 people got in.

Good luck to all of you who’ve applied, and Happy Pi Day in advance!