A Day in The Life at MIT’s MITES Summer Program
MIT’S MITES Summer Program (MIT Introduction to Technology, Engineering, and Sciences), formerly known as OEOP, encourages high school juniors/rising seniors from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds to test their limits of academic excellence through hands-on STEM experiences. The program aims to empower its students to address urgent global issues that communities are currently facing.
Furthermore, the program actively seeks applicants who are underrepresented in STEM fields, including those from minority backgrounds, low socioeconomic means, or whose families lack a history of higher education. These students are not only encouraged but celebrated for their unique perspectives and potential contributions to the program. The program is free of cost, with the only payment being transportation to and from MIT. Applicants must be US citizens or permanent residents.
MIT MITES is very, very prestigious, with estimated acceptance rates of 3%-10%. Therefore, having this experience on your resume would undoubtedly make you stand out.
MIT MITES Program Overview
The MITEs Summer Program offers a holistic experience unlike any other, encompassing a curriculum of 5 courses. Students are required to take 1 math, physics, life sciences and humanities course. Participants are allowed 1 STEM Project course, ranging from machine learning and genomics to architecture, which exceeds the boundaries of traditional high school curricula. They present students with invaluable and specialized knowledge and skills.
The daily schedules at MIT MITEs are an engaging blend of academic, exploration and community-building activities. On weekdays from 9:00 am-5:00 pm, students attend their classes, recitations, workshops and lab tours.
Evenings and weekends are dedicated to a multitude of experiences, such as engaging in social events, exploring the vibrant Greater Boston area, and utilizing office hours to seek guidance or delve deeper into coursework. This balance between academics and extracurricular activities fosters a well-rounded educational experience.
They also offer college admissions counseling, which equips students with invaluable insights and guidance for higher education.
Moreover, rooms and boards are provided free of charge, ensuring accessibility to students from varied socioeconomic backgrounds.
Undoubtedly, this program is rigorous and demands dedication. You will be investing approximately seven hours each weekday into coursework and activities. Past MIT MITEs students have an average of approximately 6 hours per weekday, outside of class hours, working on homework during evenings and weekends. Midterms (Week 3), finals (week 6), and final projects and presentations (week 5) are significantly busy weeks.
A Typical Day at MIT MITEs Summer Program
Let’s say you’re a student in MIT MITEs Summer program and it’s Monday morning of Week 2. This snapshot provides a glimpse into the rigorous schedule of a typical day in the life of a student at MIT’s MITEs Summer Program. (This is a very broad example and everyone’s experience will differ)
7:30am - 9:00am:
The day begins with excitement as students gather for breakfast for a quick breakfast, fueling up for the day, or reviewing notes or work on assignments from the previous week. Conversations range from last night’s discoveries in Boston to the upcoming challenges in class.
9:00am - 10:30am:
Your morning classes begin with Life Sciences! Today, you learn cellular biology, a concept that you hadn’t learned before in your high school curriculum.
10:30am-10:45am:
During your short break, you exchange thoughts with your peers during the morning lecture while grabbing a quick snack before the next class.
10:45am-12:15pm:
Calculus! You immerse yourself into the world of derivatives and integrals as your notebook fills up with complex equations. Your mind is challenged and you’ve asked a multitude of questions, working together with your peers and TAs to develop program-solving strategies.
12:15pm-1:15pm:
Lunchtime! A much-needed pause for socializing and refueling for the afternoon sessions.
1:15pm-2:45pm:
You explore mechanics and motion during physics class with Newton’s laws of gravitational forces. Hands-on experiments and demonstrations add to your learning.
2:45-3:00pm:
Another short break for recharging and preparation for the final academic session of the day.
3:00pm-5:00pm
The STEM project course you are taking is machine learning, where you explore algorithms, data analysis and discuss the future of artificial intelligence. The classroom starts buzzing with excitement as you all learn the real-world applications and go through programming exercises.
5:00pm-7:00pm:
As the day ends, you head to office hours to seek clarifications from instructors. After, you join your friends in a study group to find a quiet corner to begin tackling homework assignments and review the day’s material.
7:00pm-8:00pm:
Dinner! You unwind and socialize once again over a meal. Conversation topics range from what you did in class, to weekend plans.
8:00pm-11:00pm:
As the day winds down, you return to your dorm and continue working on assignments or projects and prepare for the next day’s challenges
Sample Weekly Schedule (provided by the MIT MITEs website):
How Can I Apply For MIT MITEs Summer Program?
Applications open in November and are due on February 1 at 11:59pm PST. This includes all sections of the application (including the academic information section and requests for recommendations). Recommenders have until February 15 at 11:59pm PST to submit their recommendations. Apply here.
Decisions are released in mid-April and applicants will receive an email when decisions have been posted. In order to view the decision, applicants must log into their account as the results will not be shared via phone or mailed out to applicants.
MIT MITEs Summer has a waitlist and applicants will be notified when they receive their initial decisions.
Do I need to provide my GPA and test scores in the MIT MITEs application?
Yes and no! While test scores are not mandatory, they highly recommend students to provide them if available, including SAT I, PSAT, ACT, AP, OR ACT Aspire/PLAn. To submit scores, applicants must include them in their application and upload an unofficial score report before the application deadline. Also, test scores sent via email after the deadline will not be accepted or considered.
The MITEs application process takes a holistic approach, assessing candidates based on diverse criteria. The most important factors for being accepted are your passion and motivation for science and engineering, having strong academic achievements, diligence, and focus on intellectual growth. No specific minimum GPA is necessary to apply.
What else is required for the MIT MITEs application?
You must answer 5 short-answer questions to showcase your individuality. Make sure to start brainstorming as early as possible! There are 5 prompts with a 300-word limit to each. Past prompts include:
Share with us how aspects of your lived experience and/or identify have shaped your aspirations
What are you passionate about? How have you spent time exploring this passion?
Tell us of a time you experienced a challenge or obstacle. How did you navigate the challenge and what did you learn?
What subject or field of study are you most interested in right now? Why?
The STEM field uses science, technology, engineering, and/or math to understand more about the world around us and to solve problems. If you could develop, invent, or innovate anything to change the world for the better using STEM, what would it be and why?
Furthermore, you will be asked to elaborate on your extracurricular activities, which gives the admissions officers a sense of your passions and interests outside of the classroom.
Lastly, you need 3 recommendations (not recommendation letters). They must be submitted by the recommenders via their online portal by February 15. Each applicant will be asked to identify one recommender from each of the categories:
Math or science teacher (from courses such as Algebra, Calculus, Trigonometry, Geometry, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Anatomy & Physiology, Engineering, Earth Science, Computer Science, etc.)
Humanities teacher (from courses such as History, English/Literature, Art, Foreign language, Classics, Economics, Government, Music, Psychology, Sociology, Geography, etc.)
School counselor or administrator Note: this recommender will be asked to upload a school profile (document that overviews the school’s demographics, curriculum, and grading scheme) and unofficial transcript, including 11th grade first semester grades on behalf of the student.
Applicants must list their recommenders by February 1, triggering automated emails with unique recommendation links sent to each recommender via their application portal. It is advised that applicants communicate with their recommenders proactively and ensure timely submission through the online portal. An application will be incomplete if recommendations are not received by the February 15 deadline!
How can I stand out in my MIT MITES application?
Detailing about your experiences in other programs might be useful in helping you stand out in your MIT MITEs Summer application, especially those related to your area of interest for the STEM project course. The elective that I utilized as an example for the daily timeline above is artificial intelligence. To show my passion for such a topic, I could write about my experiences in Inspirit’s AI Scholars Program where I created an AI model to detect pneumonia in patient scans with the help of a mentor from Stanford University, for example. It is a 10-session (25-hour) artificial intelligence boot camp that exposes high school students. This is an example of how I put my passions and ideas into action. If you are also interested in applying for the artificial intelligence, the AI scholars program will help you work on a passion project that encompasses AI with another area of interest. Past projects include:
AI + Healthcare
COVID-19 Genomics
Mental Health Chatbots
Pneumonia Detection
AI + Journalism
Fake News Detection
Refugee Tweet Analysis
Safe ChatGPT (a truthful chatbot to avoid “fake-proofing”)
AI + mobility
Object detection for self-driving cars
Distracted driver detection
AI + arts and music
Music recommendations
Sketch recognition
Hacking Siri and Alexa
AI + government and law
Algorithmic Justice
Disaster Relief Improvement
News Reporting and Bias
AI + finance
Algorithmic trading
Cybersecurity and Business
Conclusion
MIT MITEs Summer program is an invaluable opportunity for you to engage deeply in STEM education for 6 weeks. Beyond its hands-on STEM courses, the program fosters a vibrant community that encourages academic excellence and empowers students to confront real-world issues. You will likely keep in contact with the friends you meet during your experiences, whether in real life or through social media contacts, creating life-long relationships. If you’re lucky, you might encounter the same people when you head on to university as 20% of MITEs students do attend MIT the following year. Even though this program is prestigious, do not self-select out of applying! Don't let fear or hesitation hold you back from reaching your full potential by not applying. Make sure to use this opportunity to your advantage to explore your limits and make meaningful contributions to science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
About Inspirit AI
AI Scholars Live Online is a 10 session (25-hour) program that exposes high school students to fundamental AI concepts and guides them to build a socially impactful project. Taught by our team of graduate students from Stanford, MIT, and more, students receive a personalized learning experience in small groups with a student-teacher ratio of 5:1.
