The Students and Stats of the Class of 2016

Members of the freshman Class of 2016 have been in classes for a week now. We thought you might like to know a little something about them—both personally and numerically.

The MIT News Office profiled seven students, including Kulpreet Chilana from Franklin Lakes, NJ, who designed numerous mobile apps—such as a Punjabi-English dictionary—that were inspired by his Indian heritage. He donated the more than $15,000 in proceeds from his creations to two charities in India: a school for the handicapped and a small village school that his father attended as a child.

Eva-Lotta Käsper from Tartu, Estonia, has traveled the world participating in international Olympiads in linguistics and other subjects. She's visited South Korea, Spain, Poland, Sweden, the Ukraine, Turkey, Singapore, and the United States. She won a gold medal for linguistics last year, and this year, she earned silver medals in linguistics and biology and a bronze for chemistry.

Read about more first-year students.

Geographically speaking, more freshmen hail from Mid-Atlantic states (21%) than other regions of the country, though California is the most-represented state. And the most popular names are Eric, Matthew, and Katherine/Catherine.

Class of 2016 by the numbers

—Applications: 18,109 —Admits/admit rate: 1,620/8.9% —Female: 46% —Under-represented minorities: 24% —First generation to college: 13% —High schools represented: 848 —States represented: 46 —Countries represented: 54 —Yield rate (admitted students who chose to come to MIT): 70% (1,138 students enrolled)—the highest-ever yield rate.

See the class profile and admissions statistics for more fun numbers.