Were you deferred by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Early Action round for the Class of 2030? If so, you’re likely not jumping for joy at this moment. But know that it’s not the end of the world either. You’ve still got a shot of earning admission to MIT in the Regular Decision round. So, what are your odds of earning admission to the MIT Class of 2030 after your deferral? And what options are on the table if you’ve been rejected? Let’s dive in!

MIT Early Action Admission Rates

Below are the Early Action acceptance rates for MIT over the last 12 years — from the Class of 2030 through the Class of 2018.

Admissions Cycle	MIT Graduating Year	MIT’s Early Action Admission Rate
2025-2026	Class of 2030	Not Yet Published
2024-2025	Class of 2029	5.98%
2023-2024	Class of 2028	5.26%
2022-2023	Class of 2027	5.74%
2021-2022	Class of 2026	4.72%
2020-2021	Class of 2025	4.78%
2019-2020	Class of 2024	7.4%
2018-2019	Class of 2023	7.36%
2017-2018	Class of 2022	6.95%
2016-2017	Class of 2021	7.83%
2015-2016	Class of 2020	8.45%
2014-2015	Class of 2019	9.59%
2013-2014	Class of 2018	8.97%

MIT Early Action Deferral Rates

Unlike many of its peer institutions, MIT often releases the percentage of its Early Action applicants who are deferred admission. Those figures are included below for the Classes of 2029 through 2022, except for the Class of 2025 (the numbers were not published that year).

Admissions Cycle	MIT Graduating Year	MIT’s Early Action Deferral Rate
2025-2026	Class of 2030	Not Yet Published
2024-2025	Class of 2029	66.8%
2023-2024	Class of 2028	64.09%
2022-2023	Class of 2027	66.19%
2021-2022	Class of 2026	64.2%
2020-2021	Class of 2025	Not Released
2019-2020	Class of 2024	73.1%
2018-2019	Class of 2023	64.4%
2017-2018	Class of 2022	64.98%

5 Steps to Take After Being Deferred by MIT

After being deferred by MIT, a school which typically fills a little over half of its incoming class with Early Action admits, your game plan should be as follows:

1. Meditate or do yoga for a few hours. It’s not the outcome you want. Thus, before you begin taking proactive steps to optimize your chances of Regular Decision admission to MIT and the other schools to which you’ll submit applications in a couple of weeks, clear your head. You need a clear head before you wage a winning attack.
2. Hop on a call with Ivy Coach for a complimentary consultation to learn about our services for deferred MIT applicants. Each year, we help students turn their deferrals into offers of admission (even for those who have all but given up hope!). Just don’t burn days before enlisting our help because you’re going to need all of the available days before Regular Decision deadlines to reposition your case for admission based on our feedback.
3. Complete a PostMortem application review with Ivy Coach. We’ll go through every section of your MIT application so you know what went wrong. This way, you can correct some of these mistakes for the other schools to which you apply in Regular Decision since many of the same questions on The Common Application are on the MIT application. Besides, we have to go through the full MIT application anyway to help students prepare Letters of Continued Interest that will wow MIT’s admissions committee. After all, the narrative a deferred candidate presents in their letter can’t be out of left field. But in addition to the MIT application, we’ll have time to go through and offer feedback on the full Common Application as well as a school’s unique supplement.
4. Submit a Letter of Continued Interestthat wows with Ivy Coach’s assistance. Most students are inclined to brag and update MIT on all they’ve achieved in the six weeks since they applied. It’s certainly not the approach Ivy Coach’s students take — and it’s a big reason why our students have the success they do. In a word, Ivy Coach’s students’ letters are weird. They showcase how a student will contribute to MIT through the Institute’s unique programs, research, activities, traditions, and more. Notice we didn’t suggest that students should name-drop professors or list classes. Let our students’ competitors do that. Admissions officers weren’t born yesterday. They know applicants can replace one school’s professor name for another school’s professor name and one school’s class for another school’s class, like in a game of Mad Libs. Successful Letters of Continued Interest are filled with genuine specifics. One comment we often hear after reading aloud Ivy Coach’s students’ past successful letters? “That is not at all what I thought should be in a Letter of Continued Interest, but it totally makes sense!”
5. Bring the Letter of Continued Interest to your school counselor in the hope that they’ll make an advocacy call to MIT’s admissions committee on your behalf, armed with how you positioned yourself in your letter. While some school counselors will decline to make an advocacy call on a student’s behalf — often citing issues like equity or fairness — good school counselors will pick up the phone and call. It’s their job!

What Not to Do If You’ve Been Deferred by MIT

After being deferred by MIT, we at Ivy Coach urge you to avoid doing any of the following (or anything like it!):

1. Call the MIT admissions office to find out why you didn’t get in. First, an MIT admissions officer will never tell you the real reason why you didn’t get in. If they thought you were arrogant, do you think they’ll tell you as much? Of course not. Second, you’ll present to them as annoying. They don’t wish to speak with you, so why are you calling? Are you trying to be a Karen? That’s not a good idea!
2.  Encourage your parents to call the MIT admissions office. MIT’s admissions committee doesn’t wish to hear from deferred students. So, it should go without saying, but we’re saying it anyway, they certainly don’t want to hear from these students’ parents. Who is driving this admissions process: the student or parent? A call from the parent signals it’s the parent in the driver’s seat.
3. Try to sabotage your peers’ cases for admission to MIT. Do you think you’re the first high school student who ever thought of sending a little note about a peer to a college admissions committee? That’s cute. You’re not! Such a move is wrong and will come back to haunt you. Don’t even consider it for a second!
4. Ridicule your high school counselor for your MIT deferral. It’s not your counselor’s fault you didn’t get in. It’s yours. Hurting the feelings of your school counselor or irritating them in any way is an unwise move. After all, your school counselor can be your greatest advocate post-deferral and with your Regular Decision schools.
5. Send in weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, or any other updates beyond your initial Letter of Continued Interest after your deferral. While many students are inclined to bombard MIT with calls, emails, and snail mail, it’s the wrong approach. Such an approach will only serve to drown out the power of your Letter of Continued Interest and render you a gadfly in the eyes of MIT’s admissions committee.

MIT Early Action Rejection Rates

Below are the Early Action outright rejection rates for MIT over the last six years — for the Classes of 2029 through 2022, except for the Class of 2025 (the numbers were not published that year).

Admissions Cycle	MIT Class Year	MIT’s Early Action Rejection Rate
2025-2026	Class of 2030	Not Yet Released
2024-2025	Class of 2029	27.21%
2023-2024	Class of 2028	30.65%
2022-2023	Class of 2027	28.07%
2021-2022	Class of 2026	31.08%
2020-2021	Class of 2025	Not Published
2019-2020	Class of 2024	19.5%
2018-2019	Class of 2023	28.24%
2017-2018	Class of 2022	28.07%

What To Do After Being Rejected By MIT

Now that the worst has passed, take a deep breath and shift your focus to crafting strong Regular Decision applications (with Ivy Coach’s help)! MIT typically rejects far more applicants than it defers, which might not be the news you want to hear right now. But instead of getting down on yourself, consider springing into action. You’ll stand the best chance of turning your applications around and securing admission to a highly selective school the sooner you face the music and turn to Ivy Coach for help.

So what are the first steps to take? Consider Ivy Coach’s PostMortem session designed for rejected students. This is your chance to pivot to a new strategy informed by our team of former elite college admissions officers. We will instruct you in the power of a singular hook to instill faith in your Regular Decision schools. 

Think of your singular hook as an insurance policy: it relieves colleges of their doubts that you won’t make the most of your time on campus. With a singular hook, you will show admissions officers that, this time around, you have a game plan for engaging with all that your future campus has to offer. But time is of the essence here, so act now!

PostMortem

During our PostMortem, we:

• Equip you with the tools to pivot to Regular Decision. After taking a fine tooth comb to every last part of your MIT application, we’ll assemble a clearer picture of what went wrong and where your strengths and weaknesses lie. And yes, our feedback will require you to rethink and retool your remaining Regular Decision applications (even if you think they’re nearly finished!). Perhaps you fell for the misconception that well-rounded students succeed in elite college admissions. We’ll give your approach a makeover with the power of the singular hook.
• Focus on the small stuff, like the little errors you may have made that accumulated and contributed to your rejection. Did you brag and boast when you should have come across as likeable and down-to-earth? Did you fail to meet MIT’s rigorous academic standards? Did you fail to provide a roadmap for how you will engage with everything MIT has to offer?
• Rework your Regular Decision list of schools. You may have to reassess your admissions prospects now that you have a rejection letter in hand, and Ivy Coach will help you do just that by identifying other top schools you should be applying to (along with a couple of safety schools). There have been many times that we at Ivy Coach have helped students who first come to us after being rejected pick a school that hits the sweet spot between admissions feasibility and prestige, and earn admission. 

Application Assistance

Following your PostMortem, which is the jumping off point for understanding what went wrong and how to pivot, we will:

• Revamp your Regular Decision applications with Ivy Coach’s help. It all starts with your game plan, A.K.A. your singular hook. But now that we’ve shown you the ropes, it’s time to put the pedal to the metal. We may not be able to fix every mistake made in your coursework or extracurricular commitments, but we can help you optimize how you present yourself to make you enticing in the eyes of your Regular Decision admissions officers.

What Not to Do After Being Rejected by MIT

What you do right is just as important as what you do wrong when it comes to navigating a rejection. Avoid the following in Regular Decision:

1. Doubling down on your initial approach. Your rejection is useful data suggesting something went wrong with your application strategy, so now is the time to pivot to something new and informed by an approach that actually works.
2. Avoid contacting the MIT admissions office. Does it sound crazy? Well, admissions officers see this kind of behavior every year. And guess what? You’ll never get the response you’re looking for when haranguing MIT admissions officers. Avoid it altogether! Your decision is final. MIT does not allow appeals.
3. Do not have only Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford on your Regular Decision list. You were rejected by MIT. Shall we repeat this line again? So you can’t just stick to the cream of the crop schools for Regular Decision. You should have other top schools on your list (along with a necessary safety school). Why not Brown or Dartmouth? It’s time for some creative thinking informed by Ivy Coach’s knack for assembling a Regular Decision school list in times of crisis. So often, students who first come to us post-MIT rejection end up attending the school that we deemed a glaring omission on their college list.
4. Don’t blame your school counselor when your admissions fate is your responsibility alone. While high school counselors may not always perform their duties perfectly, like when they refuse or hesitate to advocate for students during calls with college admissions officers, there’s no sense in pushing away the one person in your corner. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Deferral and Rejection FAQ

Are more MIT Early Action applicants accepted, deferred, or denied?

Most students who apply Early Action to MIT are deferred admission. Why the school chooses to defer most applicants has long confounded us since most will never earn admission, but the Institute does it to keep its options open. After all, it’s always possible their Regular Decision pool will be smaller and/or weaker than anticipated.

Because such a large swath of MIT’s Early Action pool is deferred, does a deferral mean less than at some of MIT’s peer institutions?

Yes, since MIT’s Early Action deferral rate has been between 64% and 73% over the last several years, a figure that is higher than many of MIT’s Ivy League peers, there’s no beating around the bush that an MIT deferral doesn’t carry quite as much weight as another school, such as Cornell, that truly opts solely to defer students it is genuinely considering admitting. 

Does MIT typically defer fewer students than Harvard?

Yes, MIT tends to defer a somewhat smaller chunk of Early Action applicants than Harvard. But both schools defer many more EA applicants than they either accept or deny admission. At Harvard University, for the Class of 2028, 83.06% of Early Action applicants were deferred. For the MIT Class of 2029, that same figure stood at 66.8%.

Beyond submitting a Letter of Continued Interest, what else can a student do to make their case to MIT?

Students can bring their Letter of Continued Interest, once completed, to their school counselor and ask them to make an advocacy call to MIT’s admissions committee. This way, the counselor can present the applicant as they presented themselves. While not all school counselors will make advocacy calls, good ones will.

Does a deferred student really have a shot of earning Regular Decision admission to MIT?

Yes, over the last 30 years, 28% of students who first come to Ivy Coach after being deferred by MIT have earned admission in Regular Decision, compared to less than 10% of overall deferred MIT applicants.

Is it possible to appeal an MIT rejection?

No, very few schools actually allow for rejected applicants to appeal the decision. If you call MIT’s admissions office brandishing such a question, you won’t receive the answer you’re looking for. Nonetheless, every year we come across families intent on doing just this. Instead of wasting your time on a lost dream, avoid repeating the mistakes you made on your MIT application and get excited about the Regular Decision schools you’re applying to.

Ivy Coach’s Assistance with Your MIT Deferral or Rejection

If you’re interested in optimizing your chances of admission to MIT after a deferral (or pivoting your focus to Regular Decision schools after a deferral or rejection), fill out Ivy Coach’s complimentary consultation form, and we’ll be in touch to outline our go-forward services.