Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

MIT sits at the top of the QS 2026 subject ranking for computer science, a position it has held for years. Founded in 1861 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it built its reputation on the idea that science and engineering should be learned by doing, and computer science became one of the fields where that approach paid off most.

Computer science at MIT lives inside the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, known on campus as Course 6, one of the largest departments in the institute. Much of its research runs through the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), formed in 2003 from the merger of two older labs whose work shaped early computing and artificial intelligence.

For applicants, MIT is as selective as its ranking suggests, and its computer science teaching is known for depth in theory as much as systems and machine learning. The department’s alumni and faculty include several Turing Award winners, the field’s highest honour.

Admissions

MIT admitted 1,334 of 29,281 applicants to the Class of 2029, an admit rate of 4.6 per cent across the whole institute. There is no separate computer science figure because MIT admits to the institute rather than to a major, so nothing stops an enrolled student choosing Course 6. The bar is set at entry instead: the middle half of admitted students scored 780 to 800 on SAT maths and 740 to 780 on reading and writing.