Skip to Content
MIT News magazine

MIT Index

Facts about first-years. Everything you need to know about the Class of 2022.

From its laid-back hackers to its rigorous academics, MIT can be a bewildering place for the uninitiated. From 1925 to the 1940s, a multi-day “Freshman Camp” was held at Lake Massapoag, featuring talks, sports, and traditions like dunking the sophomore class president. Today, first-years learn about campus culture during Orientation/Residence Exploration (REX) week. Find out a bit more about the Class of 2022 and the experiences of previous generations with this compilation of first-year facts. 

Map of the world. Text reads
Illustration of male/female icons. Text reads:
21,706 applied to the class of 2022. 1,464 were accepted. 1,122 first years enrolled as of July 15.
Image of pie chart. Text reads:
Text reads:
Text reads: Kevin, Daniel, and Emily: The most popular names in the Class  of 2022.
Photo of a banner that reads
Photo of students participating in a water balloon fight in front of the MIT dome. Text reads: 3000 - Estimated number of water balloons thrown at the 2017 REX water war between East and West Campus.
Illustration of hand tools. Text reads :
Illustration of striped tie. Text reads: In the late 1920s, first-years had to wear neckties in the school colors at all times. When the practice was abolished in 1931, students held a tie funeral.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it

Exclusive conversations that take us behind the scenes of a cultural phenomenon.

ChatGPT is about to revolutionize the economy. We need to decide what that looks like.

New large language models will transform many jobs. Whether they will lead to widespread prosperity or not is up to us.

Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death

Can anti-aging breakthroughs add 10 healthy years to the human life span? The CEO of OpenAI is paying to find out.

GPT-4 is bigger and better than ChatGPT—but OpenAI won’t say why

We got a first look at the much-anticipated big new language model from OpenAI. But this time how it works is even more deeply under wraps.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.