Physics GRE Discussion Forums

Hi all. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I just heard some pretty bad news from a reliable source (physics prof at MIT, not on the committee, but in regular contact with those on it).

Due to a glut of astrophysics theory grad students (especially from last years class), MIT is not accepting *any* prospective students who want to do astro theory. All accepted were applying in experiment.

Just thought you'd want to know.

thats very kind of them to collect people's application fees without any hope of being accepted

Don't they post news of that before the application season??
When I was looking at schools to apply, a couple of them weren't accepting students this year.... did MIT forget to tell everybody? I'd go postal if the application fee wasn't returned...

Ouch! That's gotta hurt.

... is this for just astrophysics theory or does this mean that even in the rest of Physics they'll be taking a much smaller number of people than is usual?

I heard from a physics prof at MIT that they had more student accept their admissions offers last year than normal, so the admissions pool this year might be a little smaller than normal...last year they admitted 116 out of 699 apps (not a bad percentage to be honest), so there still should be a fair number of admissions letters sent out.

MIT has finally distinguished themselves as the most selective university in the world with a 0% acceptance rate.

Haha, I think someone was joking about that earlier in that thread about the guy who was worried about getting into MIT due to an A- in Quantum. Funny times

Heheh ... I think it was this post. That whole thread was hilarious, now it's just ironic that what we guys said humorously in that thread turns out to be the case. Who'd've thunk that ?!!??

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mathlete wrote:I've heard that MIT has now begun preemptively rejecting everyone. Nobody else will be allowed into MIT again. Part of the problem stems from the the fact that the admissions committed at MIT rejected themselves from admitting anyone into the school because they found out they admitted non-perfect students in the past. It must be true, I heard it from a good source.

Do you have what it takes to go to MIT? Do you fit in the 0% elite?! Ha!

Are you 100th percentile? Are you better than everyone, including yourself? If so, then you might be accepted into the final round of rejections at MIT. Welcome to the best of the best of the still not good enough!

MIT - such a good graduate program that no one is good enough to be a part of it.

In all fairness to MIT, you have to grant that this embargo on intake of fresh grad slaves, is restricted to Theoretical Astrophysics (and that is a pretty small fraction of the applicant pool)

But hey, go on with the jokes, they're pretty funny.

MIT's cafeteria sucks. When I was in high school I had a project at the MIT science fair, and there was a short lunch break. I had a disgusting cheeseburger, probably the worse I've ever had.

Within an hour I had to give a presentation, and in the middle of it I could no longer hold in the beasts that wanted to be released. Long story short, I had to tell a professor that I would be back in a few minutes, and I unleashed the gates of hell in that bathroom. That pretty much turned me off from ever wanting to go to MIT.

yes, this only applies to astro theory.

i don't know if they realized the extent of the problem before the fellowship meeting. I know understand that a combination of two factors was at play. (1) huge surplus of theory grad students from the previous year, and (2) tight funding. money apparently just wasnt there for theory.

oh well.