Is UVA harder to get into than MIT?

The biggest practical difference is that MIT is one of the most selective schools in the country for all applicants, while UVA’s selectivity depends a lot on whether you are in-state or out-of-state. For a Virginia resident, UVA is still very competitive but meaningfully more attainable than MIT. For an out-of-state applicant, UVA can also be quite difficult, though MIT is still typically viewed as the tougher admit overall.

MIT is the harder school to get into in the broad national sense. Its applicant pool is extremely self-selecting, with many students presenting top grades, the highest level coursework, and unusually strong math, science, or research backgrounds. UVA is also highly selective, but it operates more like a flagship public university, including a clear admissions advantage for Virginia residents.

That residency piece matters a lot in this comparison. UVA can feel almost like two different admissions landscapes: very competitive for in-state students and often even tighter for out-of-state students because public universities prioritize residents. MIT does not have that in-state versus out-of-state distinction.

So if you are asking for the simplest overall answer, MIT is harder to get into than UVA. The one important nuance is that out-of-state UVA should still be treated as a serious reach for many strong applicants, while in-state UVA may be somewhat less extreme depending on your academic profile.