Comparing the profiles of the people who got accepted and those that got rejected, the accepted are orders of magnitude underqualified. This school picks purely based on connections, other factors unrelated to aerospace engineering research, and mainly luck. Being rejected has nothing to do with qualifications at this point, and adding more experience, papers, and relevant research / work experience won't help you. Applying continuously and possibly getting MIT prof rec letters somehow is the only way. If you look on one of the MIT linkedin pages, they are actively promoting students that showed "resilience" by applying to AeroAstro more than 7 times... this is not normal

International applicant but did UG and MS in the US. Research directions are perception-planning for drones/robots. 1 first-authored pub at IROS; 1 first-authored pub at ECCV workshop; 1 first-authored submission to CVPR at the time of application

Generic email rejection, semi expected but still rough. Ivy undergrad, no research experience, 3 years in top industry. 1a/1r/1p

No GRE. Bioastronautics Track. Have two B.S. in Zoology and Biology and finishing 3rd B.S. degree in Engineering. Currently working in the commercial space industry.

Email to check the status in the portal. Bioastronautics focus area. Aerospace engineering undergrad with pre-med. No GRE. Certified nuclear engineer.

Got a general rejection email. Status still Awaiting Decision in the portal.

Had 2 years of research at a fluid dynamics lab, 2 summers of Samsung Electronics internship,

Stats: no publications or extracurriculars/1 semester of research experience (senior year). Did undergrad at Stony Brook (CIV major).

No departmental funding

Intl student, no Publications, 3 good projects - 2 of them were funded research work, 1 was related to the field/specialization I applied for.