Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts;  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is the elite east coast engineering school, known for its high academic standard and lengthy history.   Founded in 1861, MIT stresses scientific research and close cooperation with industry.  It boasts over 80 Nobel laureates and is one of the most selective institutes of higher education, with nearly 20,000 applicants per year and an acceptance rate of 8%.  It’s current campus covers 168 acres along the north bank of the Charles River.

The open source movement has spawned the now infamous MIT OpenCourseWare, an initiative to put all of MIT’s educational materials from its undergraduate and graduate level courses online, free and available to anyone, anywhere.  Now in its 11th year, with over 2,000 courses available online, the initiative has inspired more than 250 other institutions to make their course materials available as open educational resources through the OpenCourseWare Consortium.  MIT is truly the leader in Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).

MIT is the one of the only institutions of higher education with its own on-campus nuclear reactor.  It is one of the most powerful university-based nuclear reactors in the United States. The prominence of the reactor's containment building in a densely populated area has been controversial, but MIT maintains that it is well-secured.  Other notable campus facilities include a pressurized wind tunnel and a towing tank for testing ship and ocean structure designs.  We were not allowed access to the reactor on our admission tour.

What we did find most interesting is the grading system for freshmen known as the “Pass/No-Record”.  The system relieves some of the pressure for freshmen to achieve, resulting in a grade of “Pass” or “No Record” for each class taken in the fall term of their first year.  In the spring term, passing grades (A, B, C) appear on the transcript while non-passing grades are again not recorded.  There are also alternative learning communities for freshmen such as Experimental Study Group, Concourse, or Terrascope.  One can’t help but wonder when the “kid gloves” will come off and students will actually be accountable for the amount of effort they put into each course.  Nevertheless, we were very impressed with the rigor and reputation of MIT’s curriculum.  MIT is ranked first in the world for its School of Engineering by U.S. News and World Report.  MIT counts astronaut Buzz Aldrin and architect I.M. Pei among its most famous alumni.

Students who applied to MIT, also looked at Harvard University, Stanford University and California Institute of Technology.  

For more information on Massachusetts Institute of Technology, visit  http://web.mit.edu/

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is located at 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139  (617) 253-1000