Admissions

Please visit MIT Grad Admissions for an overview of DUSP:

• graduate application requirements,
• standardized test requirements,
• areas of research,
• terms of enrollment,
• and additional details

Core criteria and guidelines for doctoral admission decisions:

• Application strength: cohesiveness of statement, compelling research topics, preparedness for doctoral level work.
• Alignment with Departmental research priorities: achieving racial justice, tackling the climate change, enhancing democratic governance, and closing the wealth gap
• Advisor-Advising Committee Match
  • Could an applicant work with more than one DUSP faculty on their committee?
  • Does applicant have a strong match with at least one lead faculty?
• Instructorship match
  • What core classes might applicant be able to TA within DUSP?
    • 11.001   Introduction to Urban Design & Development
    • 11.002    Making Public Policy
    • 11.005    Introduction to International Development
    • 11.200    Gateway I
    • 11.202/203    Microeconomics
    • 11.205/11.188    Introduction to Spatial Analysis
    • 11. 220   Quantitative Reasoning  
    • 11.222    Introduction to Critical Qualitative Methods
• Cross-cutting substantive areas – research of interest to multiple DUSP program groups and strategic priorities

Process:

• In statements of purpose, applicants are welcome to name faculty members, in DUSP, with whom they wish to: collaborate, seek as an advisor, or under whom they wish to work. We encourage applicants to consider the ecosystem of faculty advisors they might work with if admitted to DUSP.
  • If you reach out to a faculty member directly and they have not responded before you complete your application, please note that no response does not reflect a judgement. Faculty have many time commitments and may be unable to answer your request quickly.
• Please do not expect detailed feedback on your statements of purpose or your CVs from faculty in advance of your application submission.
  • Please do note DUSP students offer Peer Application Support Services (PASS), supporting students who may face structural barriers in applying, including (but not limited to) international applicants, first generation college students, and applicants who identify as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, queer, disabled, and/or a person of color.
• DUSP doctoral admissions is run by committee, not by individual faculty members. In short, this means that no one faculty member independently decides to admit a student.
  • Faculty members do on occasion recruit students for their externally funded research, but those student's admission is still decided by committee.  

Please visit MIT Grad Admissions for an overview of DUSP:

• graduate degree programs,
• graduate application requirements,
• standardized test requirements,
• areas of research,
• terms of enrollment,
• and additional details

Students who wish to study urban planning at MIT at the undergraduate level must first be accepted to MIT. At the end of the first year MIT students decide which course of study they wish to pursue. Undergraduate applicants do not apply directly to the Department.

Additional information and instructions for undergraduate applicants are available in the MIT Admissions website: http://mitadmissions.org/

Five to seven PhD students are admitted with complete financial support packages for five years, including optional summer work funding. A typical funding package consists of a first-year fellowship with no work requirements, followed by four years of department funding with research or teaching requirements. This covers full tuition, a monthly stipend, and student health insurance. Optional summer work funding is available in the form of research assistantships or curriculum development teaching assistantships for four summers. PhD students admitted with faculty-sponsored research or external funding must also be financially supported for five academic years. 

Tuition and the estimated living expenses for a MIT graduate student are available via the MIT Graduate Admissions Office. 

Applicants to the MCP program who are accepted are offered a minimum financial aid package of 80% tuition and student health insurance. In addition, some Master's students are also offered a research assistantship covering a monthly salary in exchange for ten hours per week of work for a faculty member throughout the nine-month academic year. 

Tuition and the estimated living expenses for a MIT graduate student are available via the MIT Graduate Admissions Office. 

Unfortunately, there is no departmental funding available to support the SM program a this time. 

SM students may seek additional financial aid through opportunities such as faculty sponsored research grants. 

Tuition and the estimated living expenses for a MIT graduate student are available via the MIT Graduate Admissions Office. 

MIT Student Financial Services provides financial aid and customer service to all MIT students by helping students understand their financial options and select the best ones for them and their family. They award need-based financial aid from MIT and coordinate the receipt of aid from other sources. Learn more via their site: https://sfs.mit.edu/

For undergraduate students, MIT Admissions provides an online calculator to estimate what it will cost to attend MIT.  

For more detailed information regarding the cost of attendance, including specific costs for tuition and fees, books and supplies, housing and food as well as transportation, please visit the SFS website.

Yes. Our students come from a variety of academic and professional backgrounds, including but not limited to public policy, urban design & planning, architecture, economics, political science and engineering.

Please refer to DUSP's MIT Grad Admissions page for complete information on application deadlines.

Yes, all materials in an application are due at the application deadline, except official copies of your transcript and official language test scores. This includes letters of recommendation, so please inform your recommenders. Unofficial copies of your transcript may be included with the application in order to meet the deadline. Official transcripts must be received if you are admitted. Unofficial language scores may be self-reported as long as they match the official score when received.

No, you do not gain anything by submitting early. We have one admissions deadline for the year. We can't reopen your application once you submit it so please make sure that it is complete and final before you submit.

No, you may self-report your score if you know it and are simply waiting on the official score to be received by MIT. Language test scores are received and attached centrally at MIT. This process can take weeks during the busiest months and we won't be able to give you a status update during the attachment process. As long as the score you self-reported on the application matches the official score when it is finally attached, you are all set.

No, review begins immediately after the deadline and so we cannot offer exceptions. Please inform your recommenders that letters are due with the rest of your application materials because this varies from institution to institution. If you learn that a recommender will not be able to meet this deadline, you may substitute them for someone else, as long as you have not yet submitted your application. After you have submitted your application you can no longer make any changes.

Letters or recommendation do not need to be from faculty, they may be from practitioners or professionals in other fields. A specific letter from someone who has worked with you and knows you well is generally preferable to a more general letter from someone with more notoriety.

No, we will not review more than three letters of recommendation.

Because of the large volume of applications we receive, we can not confirm receipt materials.

It is recommended that applicants who select the CDD program group submit a portfolio, however; it is not required.

We have approximately 400 applicants to our MCP program each year, and of those we accept 55-60 students. For the PhD program we have approximately 260 applicants and accept 5-7 doctoral candidates.

We cannot provide preliminary evaluations of chances for admissions based on any one or two qualifications. The Graduate Admissions Committee carefully reviews the entire application package (statement of intent, recommendation letters, transcripts, etc.) to determine admission decisions.

If you would like to re-apply to the program, you must follow the same steps as a new applicant. We do not keep application materials on file from previous years.

ELP Requirement Policy
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology requires all international applicants to demonstrate a minimum English language proficiency needed to succeed in graduate school. Nearly all international applicants will be required to submit English Proficiency Test scores in order to complete their MIT graduate application(s).

ELP Exemption Policy
Some applicants may be eligible to receive an automatic exemption from this requirement. For more information about automatic ELP exemptions, visit our English language proficiency test exemptions page. Eligible applicants will be notified directly in their application(s). For more information, please visit: standardized tests requirements and policies page. 

If you are ineligible for an automatic ELP exemption, you will be notified of your test requirement in your application(s). 

Tuition fellowship financial aid decisions are made at the same time as the admission decisions. 

We do not conduct interviews as part of the admissions process but we encourage you to attend an Information Session in the fall or reach out to duspapply@mit.edu with questions.

No, it is the applicants responsibility to have an application and all its contents translated to English before it is submitted. If a college or university does not issue transcripts, a certified letter must be provided. It should list courses, grades, and degrees and date received.

Admission decision letters will be sent by early March.

No, we do not defer admissions. You may re-apply the following year by following the same steps as a new applicant.

The Students of Color Committee at DUSP have created the "Peer Application Support Service" (SCC PASS) to provide assistance to prospective Masters in City Planning students in the application process. SCC PASS is intended to support student of color applicants through individual application advising, proofreading final drafts of essays, and answering questions about the program.

Students may pursue dual degrees in virtually any other department at MIT, provided they are accepted for admission and complete degree requirements in each department. Some common dual degrees completed by planning students are with architecture, real estate development, and transportation. Students who have been admitted to study for the Master in City Planning may apply to the other program during their first year of study at MIT and propose a program of joint work in the two fields that will lead to the simultaneous awarding of two degrees. Please be aware that pursuing a dual degree will add at least a year to your studies. MIT students are not eligible to complete a degrees at both Harvard and MIT simultaneously.

No, DUSP does not have any remote degree options. Students should expect to be in-person at MIT for the duration of their degree program.

No, DUSP only accepts one application per applicant, per year. Although we can shift applications between program groups within a degree, we cannot shift an application from one degree to another so make your degree choice carefully and prepare your application for this specific degree.

No. Due to the large number of applications we receive we cannot provide individual feedback on applications.

The MIT communications lab has written this general guidance on a graduate school statement of purpose: https://mitcommlab.mit.edu/eecs/commkit/graduate-school-personal-statement/

No but aim to keep the statement of purpose to 1-2 pages. There is no limit on the length of the writing sample but consider submitting shorter published works if you would like reviewers to read the entire piece.

No, none of DUSP's degrees are STEM-certified.