Thriving Stars helps answer the question, “What is a PhD degree and why do you want one?” Check out this story for a number of perspectives from EECS faculty leaders, EECS alumni and current graduate students working on their PhD degree: Thriving Stars tackles the question—what’s a PhD degree all about anyway??
The EECS Department is the largest in the School of Engineering with about 700 graduate students in the doctoral program. [Application is for the doctoral program only — there is no terminal masters degree, but all PhD students earn a masters degree as they work towards PhD. A Masters of Engineering is only available for qualified MIT EECS undergraduates.]
The application website (see link below) is available on September 15, 2025, for students who wish to apply for graduate admission in September 2026. The deadline for submitting completed applications is December 1, 2025.
Applicants to the MIT EECS graduate program should apply using the EECS online admissions site: GradApply.
Admissions decisions will be sent by the Office of Graduate Education using a new “MIT Application Management” system. When an admissions decision is posted to the “MIT Application Management” system, you will be notified of an update to your application via email, and directed to log in to the “MIT Application Management” system to view the update. All decisions related to your submitted application will be posted in the “MIT Application Management” system.
Questions not answered by the FAQs? Please send inquiries not already addressed by the previous link to grad-ap@eecs.mit.edu. Any inquiries regarding the MIT Application Management platform should be sent to gradadmissions@mit.edu.
Questions about general MIT Graduate Admissions? Please see the Office of Graduate Education’s Frequently Asked Questions.
For information on our faculty and what they’re currently working on, take a look at our Faculty Interests Guide.
For more information about answering the essay questions, see this article from the MIT EECS Communication Lab.