The deadline for application is January 15 for admission the following September, and the Admissions Committee makes its decision by April 1. The program does not admit students in the spring term. The MIT Application for Graduate Admission is available after August 1 of the year before prospective admission at http://web.mit.edu/admissions/graduate/. You may apply to the Graduate Program in Science Writing in one of three ways.
- Apply on-line. (The on-line application feature of the MIT Graduate Admissions web site will be electronically blocked shortly after our January 15 deadline; plan to submit on time.)
- If you prefer to work from a paper version, download and print out the application on your computer.
- We strongly encourage you to use one of the two methods above. However, paper applications may also be available. Please write to us at the Graduate Program.
To apply to the Graduate Program, you must supply
1) The MIT Application for Graduate Admission
- This includes the MIT essay referred to as a “Statement of Objectives.”
- You need not fill out the “Record of Subjects Taken” section of the MIT application.
2) Graduate Record Examination: General Test Score
- Please note that scores from tests taken after mid-December of the current year may not reach our office by the admissions deadline of January 15, and plan accordingly.
- The school code to use for filling out the GRE form is 3514. The departmental code is 4599. In the new online score request, you’ll have to search for the department. It will appear as “Department: Communications – Communications — Other – 4599″.
3) Official transcripts of previous academic study, including study abroad. These may be sent electronically. If a recipient email address is required, please use slarkin@mit.edu.
4) Three letters of recommendation from those in a position to evaluate your likelihood to prosper in the literary and scientific environment of this program. The program will accept electronic evaluations, as part of the online application.
5) Resume or curriculum vitae.
6) Graduate Application Supplement, consisting of:
(a) A statement or essay , normally from 500 to 1500 words, addressing your ability to confront scientific and technical complexity in your writing.
You might start out by telling the admissions committee of your five years’ experience as a bench scientist. Or you might recount how as a writer you have addressed comparable complexity in other, non-scientific fields. You might discuss your reading habits, hobbies, and interests insofar as they bear on your relationship to science and technology. Indeed, you may take any approach that leaves us better able to evaluate your likely success in writing about science.
As part of, or appended to, your essay, please also briefly describe one or two early tentative ideas for a thesis topic; no one will hold you to them but we would like to get some inkling of your interests and how you think about writing. We encourage you to visit our website to get a sense of past years’ thesis topics.
(b) Writing samples , arranged as you choose, that represent your writing at its best. These might be work done in school or on the job, published or not, in a good many shorter pieces or a few longer ones. Where the context is not clear, please add a few words of explanation; if the work has benefited from an editor’s or teacher’s hand, or represents a collaboration, please say so.
In selecting your samples, please be aware that journal articles or other purely scientific publications tell us little about your ability to write for general audiences and should not be included. However, you may, if you wish, include as one of your samples a 500-word general interest article, written for the occasion, that explains, distills, or otherwise builds upon a scientific or technical article that has appeared in a specialized publication. These samples may be uploaded with the application as PDF files.
To reiterate, please note that our application calls for two essays, in addition to your writing samples;
- The first is part of the regular MIT application (item 1) and is referred to there as a “Statement of Objectives.” We encourage you to use this essay in whatever way you feel will best illuminate your background, your goals for graduate study, your intellectual and professional interests, or your long-term goals.
- The second or “supplemental” essay is part of the Graduate Application Supplement (item 6a) and described above.
Foreign applicants must satisfy all the same criteria as U.S. citizens. Applicants whose first language is not English must take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). We accept the IELTS test in lieu of TOEFL. The MIT graduate admissions office is currently working with IELTS to accept score downloads.
If you are completing any part of your application hard copy, please record your name on each page of the application and supplementary materials, and send to the department at:
Graduate Program in Science Writing
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 14N-108
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307