Women's Technology Program

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The MIT Women's Technology Program (WTP) is a rigorous four-week summer academic experience to introduce high school students to engineering through hands-on classes, labs, and team-based projects in the summer after 11th grade.

WTP is designed for students who are excited about learning, have demonstrated their ability to excel at math and science in their high school classes, and who have no prior background (or very little) in engineering or computer science, with few opportunities to explore these fields.

WTP is a women-focused, collaborative community aimed at empowering students from groups historically underrepresented and underserved in engineering. We especially encourage students to apply who will be the first family member to attend college, who come from high schools with limited access to STEM classes and activities, or who are African American, Hispanic, or Native American. 

Students attend WTP in either:

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)
or
Mechanical Engineering (ME).

Please explore our web site by clicking on the links to the left. The Application page has details about who should apply and how to apply. Calendar contains program dates and deadlines. Please check out our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page before contacting us by email.

We accept students for whom our curriculum will be a new experience. The WTP-EECS computer science class is an introductory class designed for students with no prior programming background; we do not accept students to the EECS track who have already covered our CS curriculum. The WTP-ME curriculum focuses on the engineering design process as used in mechanical engineering, so if you have taken an engineering class or had extensive experience with engineering design, you will not be considered for the ME curriculum track. Please refer to our FAQ questions on prior experience for more details.

MIT graduate students design and teach the classes, assisted by MIT undergraduate students. WTP is not a "summer camp" but an intense academic experience; however, WTP classes do not earn academic credit from MIT.

The daily required schedule for Virtual WTP 2021 will include live, synchronous interactive classes, group and individual homework, and hands on activities using kits that will be mailed to participants. We anticipate some evening and weekend activities. More details on the Calendar page.

In order to ensure that admitted students are able to fully participate in Virtual WTP, we will be exploring options for aiding students with limited internet and computer access.

We expect to select up to forty participants for Virtual WTP 2021 (20 for EECS and 20 for ME) from a nationwide applicant pool of the top 11th grade math and science students. We historically receive 380-650 applications each year.

We encourage students to apply who are not yet certain about their future college majors, who may have felt discouraged from STEM activities, and who would like to explore engineering and computer science to determine whether these fields might be of interest.

NOTE: WTP is not connected in any way to MIT undergraduate admissions. WTP has very different acceptance criteria than MIT. Acceptance or non-acceptance to WTP has no bearing whatsoever on a student's chances of future acceptance by MIT.