MITES Essays Guide 2026

MITES, along with RSI and SSP, is one of the premier feeder programs for MIT. As a result, admission to MITES, as well as to the other two programs, is highly sought after by students aspiring to apply to MIT. One major distinction is that MITES is specifically designed for students who are underrepresented in STEM or come from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. If you’re someone who hasn’t been dealt an easy hand in life but has pushed yourself as far as possible in pursuit of excellence in STEM, then this article is for you. We will explain how to approach the MITES essay prompts so you can maximize your chances of gaining admission to the program, and, in turn, to your dream college.

1. Share with us how aspects of your lived experience and/or identity have shaped your aspirations. (Maximum 1805 characters)

Don’t try to tell your entire life story, and more, in just ~300 words. Instead, focus on one or two meaningful events. I recommend opening the essay with a vivid, first-person depiction of one of these moments. The event could be a loved one falling ill, a natural phenomenon that sparked your curiosity, an experience that made you question the natural order of the world, a reaction to learning something in class, a moment when your life intersected with a real-world problem that science can help solve, etc.

The key is to demonstrate agency. After introducing the event, show the reader how this experience led you to pursue science, especially science beyond your school’s standard curriculum. Describe, in the first person and with specific details, how your pursuit of science deepened your understanding of your chosen field and how you handled challenges along the way.

After describing how fully you have pursued every STEM opportunity available to you, explain how that experience, combined with the formative moment you used as your essay’s hook, has shaped your aspirations. To conclude the essay, give the reader a vivid picture of how, by realizing those aspirations, you will tangibly make the world a better place and improve the lives of real people.

2. What are you passionate about? How have you spent time exploring this passion? (Maximum 1805 characters)

There’s no need for an origin story. Instead, open by showing the reader you, fully immersed in this passion, and having the time of your life. This moment can take place inside or outside the classroom. Give them a front-row seat to your mind as you engage in this passion.

Then explain why doing this passion is so meaningful to you right now. From there, describe how you deepen your interest in this passion. Illustrate how your personal way of approaching this passion, grounded in your lived experiences, pushes you to pursue certain avenues of growth both inside and outside the classroom.

Show how you go above and beyond in pursuing this passion. Show the reader how you discuss this passion with others, and how those conversations, or your involvement in communities centered around it, have sharpened your understanding.

Make sure this essay includes the favorite thing you have learned while pursuing this passion. To conclude, show how this passion has fostered your growth, sense of identity, or what it means to you personally today.

3. Tell us of a time you experienced a challenge or obstacle. How did you navigate the challenge and what did you learn? (Maximum 1805 characters)

For this essay, don't talk about struggling in classes. MITES expects its students to find coursework easy so they have plenty of time to pursue extracurricular activities and make their campus vibrant. You might describe the fallout of disagreeing with someone from the previous question and how you navigated that. You might discuss any generational differences between you and your parents. You might discuss doing the right thing and being punished for it. Perhaps you had difficulty making friends in high school. If you experienced any illnesses, talk about overcoming those illnesses or how you balanced that illness or injury with schoolwork. If you are a researcher, you can talk about when something went wrong in the lab, when a machine broke, your data was corrupted, or you thought you had made significant progress, but one small error invalidated all of your work. The key with this essay is to create some type of metaphorical dragon that you slayed.

4. What subject or field of study are you most interested in right now? Why?(Maximum 1805 characters)

I would start this essay with a strong personal anecdote that enables you to establish an emotional connection to this topic. Then introduce the topic and explain how this anecdote gives you a personal connection to it. From there, nerd out about the topic and explain, without directly addressing the reader, why they should care about it as well. You want to make the reader believe we need more people studying this topic and why you should be one of them. Finally, conclude by discussing what it would mean personally for you to further explore this topic in college or to use the knowledge from studying this topic to tangibly improve the world in some way.

5. The STEM field uses science, technology, engineering and/or math to understand more about the world around us and to solve problems. If you could develop, invent, or innovate anything to change the world for the better using STEM, what would it be and why? (Maximum 1805 characters)

Remember, every essay you write, whether for a summer research program or a college applications, is ultimately about you. The reader wants to understand who you are as an applicant. That means you should not spend the entire essay describing what you want to invent. Instead, begin with a personal experience from your life that was shaped by a real-world problem affecting others.

Then show how your experiences since that moment have influenced the solution or treatment you hope to create. You are not trying to sell the reader on the technical merits of your product. Rather, you are helping them understand the personal reasons behind the design choices you envision, and the deeper motivations, beyond your own self-interest, that drive you to care about solving this problem in the first place.

To conclude the essay, give the reader a vivid picture of how the solution you hope to invent will tangibly improve the lives of real people, and explain why creating that impact matters so profoundly to you.

6. OPTIONAL - Is there additional information you'd like to share? If you feel there is important information you'd like to share with us that is not already included elsewhere in the application, you may include it here. (Maximum 1805 characters)

There is a lot of confusion surrounding this question. Many mistakenly assume it functions like the Additional Information section of the Common App, something you should leave blank unless you have an extraordinary circumstance, such as publishing a paper in Nature or battling cancer in high school and explaining how it affected your academic performance. That is not the case here. Unlike the Common App’s Additional Information section, MITEs expects most students to write a response to this open-ended prompt. They genuinely want to learn more about you and don’t want the rigidity of a narrowly defined question to limit what you can share.

Take time to reflect on what MITES actually values. They value intellectual curiosity. They value team players. They value applicants who elevate the social and academic experience of their peers. They value students who hold well-thought-out, compelling perspectives that enrich classroom discussions. And they care deeply about your character, social skills, and willingness to learn by doing. MITES favors people who like to get their hands dirty, literally, when creating, building, or understanding something.

Once you identify the moments and experiences in your life that align with one or more of these qualities, choose the trait you haven’t yet highlighted in your other essays. Then write a vivid, first-person narrative that shows how your actions and experiences demonstrate that quality.

If you want help applying to MITES or any other summer research program, or would just like someone to help you strengthen your overall extracurriculars, schedule a free consultation with an admissions expert today.