Quick answer: MIT enrolled 529 international undergraduates in fall 2025, about 12% of its 4,561 undergraduates and 55% more than in 1998. China sends the most students (65), followed by Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Canada, and Ukraine. Admission is narrower than MIT’s overall rate: 136 of 6,926 international applicants were admitted to the Class of 2029.
MIT international students make up about one in every eight undergraduates on campus. In fall 2025, MIT counted 529 international undergraduates out of 4,561 in total. [1] That number has grown steadily for nearly three decades. The countries behind it have changed far more than the total suggests.
MIT publishes a fall census of international students by country of citizenship every year, going back to 1998–99. We compiled every year of the undergraduate counts from the MIT International Students Office into a single table, with country name changes merged so each nation is counted once. [2] The result is one of the clearest long-run pictures available of who fills the international seats at a highly selective U.S. university, and it holds real lessons for families applying from outside the United States.
How Many International Students Does MIT Have?
The short version: a few more every year, and never many more at once.
MIT counted 341 international undergraduates in fall 1998. The total crossed 400 in 2002–03, reached 434 in 2008–09, and hit 470 in 2017–18. It passed 500 for the first time in 2022–23 and has held near 530 for the last two years.
That works out to roughly 190 additional seats over 28 academic years, or about seven a year. Even the pandemic barely moved it. In fall 2020, when travel restrictions kept many students abroad, MIT still counted 450 international undergraduates, only eight fewer than the year before.
For context, international students are a much larger share of MIT’s graduate programs than of its undergraduate class. Across the whole institute, MIT enrolled 3,437 international students in 2025–26, and most of them are graduate students. [1] At the undergraduate level, the share has stayed close to 12%.
The steady pace matters for applicants. MIT is not expanding its international class to meet rising demand. It is adding a handful of seats a year while the number of applicants from abroad keeps climbing.
MIT International Students by Country: Who Enrolls Now
Here are the 10 countries with the most MIT international undergraduates in fall 2025, compared with 20 and 12 years earlier.
| Country | 2005–06 | 2013–14 | 2025–26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 20 | 49 | 65 |
| Saudi Arabia | 2 | 7 | 23 |
| Thailand | 11 | 21 | 21 |
| Canada | 17 | 19 | 20 |
| Ukraine | 3 | 2 | 20 |
| India | 13 | 18 | 16 |
| Singapore | 8 | 9 | 15 |
| Brazil | 3 | 7 | 14 |
| South Korea | 18 | 27 | 13 |
| Mexico | 3 | 12 | 12 |
| All international undergraduates | 362 | 435 | 529 |
Two patterns are clear. First, no single country dominates. The top five countries together account for 149 students, or 28% of MIT’s international undergraduates. Second, the rest of the class is spread thin. Seventy countries had at least two MIT undergraduates enrolled in fall 2025, and many of those sent two or three students in total, across all four class years.
That spread reflects how selective universities read international files: each applicant is considered in the context of their country and school, and the admitted class is drawn from dozens of places rather than a few.
Which Countries Are Rising and Which Are Falling
China: Largest Group, Now Holding Steady
China’s growth is the biggest story in the data. MIT counted 3 undergraduates from China in 1998, 20 in 2005, and 49 in 2013. The count peaked at 69 in 2022–23 and has held in the mid-60s since. China now accounts for about 12% of MIT’s international undergraduates, which is roughly 1.4% of the full undergraduate class.
The flattening is worth noting. The number of highly qualified applicants from China has kept growing, while the number of enrolled students has not. Our analysis of where Chinese students enroll covers the broader pattern across U.S. universities.
Saudi Arabia and Ukraine: The Fastest Risers
Saudi Arabia sent 7 undergraduates in 2013–14 and 23 in fall 2025, more than tripling in 12 years. Most of that growth came after 2019, and Saudi Arabia is now MIT’s second-largest source of international undergraduates.
Ukraine’s rise has been just as large, and steadier. MIT counted 2 Ukrainian undergraduates in 2013–14. The number rose almost every year after 2015 and reached 20 in fall 2025.
South Korea and the United Kingdom: Long Declines
South Korea peaked at 29 students in 2011–12 and fell to 8 by 2023–24 before recovering to 13. The United Kingdom tells an older version of the same story: 41 students in 2002–03, and 8 today.
Canada and Thailand: The Steady Middle
Not every large sender has moved much. Canada has been one of MIT’s biggest sources of international undergraduates for the entire period, ranging from 12 to 33 students and landing at 20 in fall 2025. Its low point came in 2020–21, when the count dropped from 19 to 12. It has climbed back steadily since and passed its pre-pandemic level in fall 2025.
Thailand has been just as consistent. After a dip in the late 2000s, it has sent between 15 and 24 undergraduates every year since 2011, and it currently ranks third. For families from countries like these, the data suggests a stable number of seats that year-to-year headlines rarely change.
A Wider Map
Some of the most interesting movement is among smaller countries. Myanmar, Rwanda, and Mongolia each had one MIT undergraduate or none in the mid-2000s and have eight apiece now. Georgia went from none to seven. Jamaica now has seven.
Put the traditional Asian sending countries together (China, South Korea, India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore) and the total barely moved: 120 students in 2013–14, 121 in 2025–26. Over the same period, MIT added 94 international undergraduates. Nearly all of that growth came from outside the countries families usually think of first.
MIT Acceptance Rate for International Students
Enrollment counts tell you who is on campus. Admissions figures tell you how hard it was to get there.
For the Class of 2029, MIT received 29,281 applications and admitted 1,334 students, an overall admit rate of 4.6%. International applicants submitted 6,926 of those applications, and 136 international applicants were admitted, an admit rate of about 2%. [3]
Put another way, international students made up about 24% of MIT’s applicant pool and about 10% of its admitted class. The enrollment data lines up with that: 529 international undergraduates across four class years is about 130 per class.
MIT does not publish admit rates by country. For an applicant from China or India, though, the arithmetic is plain. A country that sends 15 or 16 students across four years is enrolling about four a year, from a large group of very capable applicants. Our comparison of international acceptance rates at top U.S. universities shows how this gap between overall and international admission plays out across 30 schools.
One caution when reading country counts: the numbers are small. A country moving from 11 to 14 students in a year is three people, spread across four classes. Trends over five or ten years are meaningful. Single-year changes usually are not.
What the Data Means for International Applicants
Plan against the pool, not the rate. MIT’s international class grows by a few seats a year. Each admitted student is chosen from a pool of thousands, so the question for an applicant is how their file reads next to other highly prepared students from their own country and school system.
Depth in STEM has to be visible early. MIT’s applicants from abroad tend to share top grades and test results. What separates files is evidence of work beyond the classroom: research, competitions, building something, or teaching others. That record takes years to develop, which is why ninth and tenth grade matter as much as senior year.
Context is part of the read. An application from a school that has sent students to MIT for years reads differently from one where the applicant is the first to apply. Neither is an advantage on its own. What matters is that the file explains the student’s opportunities clearly and shows what they did with them, especially when their school system grades or ranks students differently from a U.S. high school.
Know MIT’s process. MIT uses its own application rather than the Common App, and the Early Action deadline is November 1. Our guide to getting into MIT covers the full application, and our MyMIT portal guide walks through each section.
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Every InGenius Prep student works 2-on-1 with a Former Admissions Officer and a Graduate Coach, drawn from the world’s largest team of people who once made these decisions. The firm operates in 20+ cities across 8 countries, so international families work with counselors who know both the U.S. process and the school systems their students come from. Students in the Class of 2030 earned Ivy+ admission at 12.5x the national rate, independently verified.
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