Housing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) consists of eleven undergraduate dormitories and nine graduate dorms. All undergraduate students are required to live in an MIT residence during their first year of study. Undergraduate dorms are usually divided into suites or floors, and usually have Graduate Resident Assistants (GRA), graduate students living among the undergraduates who help support student morale and social activities. Many MIT undergraduate dorms are known for their distinctive student cultures and traditions.
Both undergraduate and graduate dorms have a resident Head of House, usually a member of the MIT faculty, living in a special apartment suite within the building. Some larger dorms have multiple Heads of House, each responsible for a section of the building, who consult together on building-wide issues.
McCormick Hall is a women-only dorm; all other dorms are coeducational. Westgate and the Graduate Tower at Site 4 are designated for graduate student family housing, and all other dorms are reserved for single students.
In addition, a portion of MIT undergraduate upperclassmen live in MIT Fraternities, Sororities, and Independent Living Groups (FSILGs), either on campus or nearby in Cambridge, Boston, or Brookline, Massachusetts.
Overview
Dormitory cultures
Over the years, MIT undergrad dormitories have developed a diverse range of cultures and traditions. With occasional local exceptions, the West Campus dorms (Maseeh, McCormick, Baker, Burton-Conner, MacGregor, New House, Next House, Simmons, New Vassar) have tended to be more mainstream in their outlook, while the East Side dorms (East Campus, Senior House, Random, Bexley) have been the home of many different subcultures, such as LGBTQ, Goth, counterculture, and anarchist. Since 2002, MIT has required all first-year undergrads to reside in dormitories, partly to control irresponsible abuse of alcohol in some fraternities, which had resulted in the death of a freshman. Since then, the total undergraduate enrollment at MIT has been partially constrained by the number of dormitory spaces available.
There are also specialized subgroups of students within some of the larger dormitories, usually based on shared interests, language, or culture. Examples include French House, German House, La Casa, Chocolate City, Juniper, and iHouse.
Upon arrival, first-year students are temporarily assigned to on-campus dormitory housing, based on a preliminary application and a lottery. They occupy this room as a homebase while they participate in Orientation and Residence Exploration (REX, also informally called "Dorm Rush") week, when the upper-class residents of various dorms offer special events to highlight their individual cultures and amenities. Students who wish to switch residences apply for the First Year Residence Exchange (FYRE) program, subject to availability of spaces. If they cannot move immediately, they can apply to move at the start of the next semester.
In years when there is a shortage of undergrad housing (historically caused by scheduled major renovations, unexpected building system failures, or unanticipated peaks in admissions yield rates), a "temporary overflow housing" program is declared. Extra spaces are found by measures such as placing more students in rooms, using suite lounge spaces, renting hotel rooms, and other temporary expedients.
"New Vassar", a 450-bed undergrad dormitory at 189 Vassar Street (Building W46), was completed in the fall of 2020 and opened for students in the spring semester of 2021. East Campus is scheduled to be closed for renovation starting in June 2023.
Design goals
In 2016, the MIT administration published its guidelines for design of new and renovation of older undergraduate dormitories. An ideal size of 350 students per dormitory, organized into "clusters" of 30 students was proposed, consisting of 30-40% singles and the remainder double-occupancy rooms. Each room is to be equipped with furniture made of durable oak wood, designed to be modular and somewhat reconfigurable by the residents. Three bathrooms (allowing flexible gender designation) would be shared by each cluster of rooms, equipped with shared sinks and individually enclosed toilets and showers.