Massachusetts Institute of Technology

About Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was chartered in 1861 through the efforts of the natural scientist William Barton Rogers, who championed teaching laboratories and linking teaching with research on real-world problems. MIT admitted its first students in 1865, began in Boston and moved to Cambridge in 1916. It is organised into five schools, covering architecture and planning, engineering, humanities, arts and social sciences, management, and science, together with the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing. The 168-acre campus runs for more than a mile along the Charles River. In October 2025 MIT enrolled 11,816 students, 4,561 undergraduates and 7,255 graduate students, and had 1,087 faculty members. It awards bachelor's, master's, engineer and doctoral degrees.

Schools and faculties

• School of Architecture and Planning

  Covers architecture, media arts and sciences, and urban studies and planning.

• School of Engineering

  Brings together ten departments and institutes, from aeronautics and astronautics to nuclear science and engineering.

• School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

  Offers programmes including economics, history, music and theatre arts, and political science.

• MIT Sloan School of Management

  MIT's school of management and business education.

• School of Science

  Includes departments such as biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics.

• MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing

  Houses electrical engineering and computer science and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society.

Study options

• Undergraduate degrees (SB)
• Master's degrees (including MEng, MBA and SM)
• PhD and ScD research degrees
• Online and open learning

Research

MIT's research centres, labs and institutes include the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, the Plasma Science and Fusion Center and the MIT Media Lab. It also operates Lincoln Laboratory off campus and runs the MIT Energy Initiative.

Rank in United States

#5 of 25

Research works

410,909

Citations

80.1 million

h-index

2,540

Research figures from OpenAlex (October 2026). How the directory is made.

In WAC News

• March 28, 2022MIT reinstates SAT/ACT requirement for undergraduate applicants
• June 29, 20212U agrees to acquire edX from Harvard and MIT for $800 million

This profile was written by WAC from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s own website and checked in October 2026. It describes the institution and is not an endorsement or a ranking of teaching quality. Is this your institution? Send a correction.