The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is looking to expand the size of its undergraduate class by 300 students. While an article by Bloomberg News last Thursday reported that the proposal was aimed at raising additional revenue, M.I.T. Dean of Admissions rejected the idea in a follow-up phone interview with the New York Times. He said that the undergraduate class size had fallen in the past two decades from around 4,500 to 4,200 due to housing shortages, a trend which M.I.T. hopes to rectify with additional student housing.
Last year, M.I.T. received more than 15,000 applications for a freshman class of 1,071 students. Even with these extra slots, high school hopefuls may wish to pause before celebrating: Schmill said that the university may expand its student body through increasing upperclassmen transfers as well as freshman admissions.