 MIT has been nominally co @-@ educational since admitting Ellen Swallow Richards in 1870 . Richards also became the first female member of MIT 's faculty , specializing in sanitary chemistry . Female students remained a minority prior to the completion of the first wing of a women 's dormitory , McCormick Hall , in 1963 . Between 1993 and 2009 , the proportion of women rose from 34 percent to 45 percent of undergraduates and from 20 percent to 31 percent of graduate students . Women currently outnumber men in Biology , Brain & Cognitive Sciences , Architecture , Urban Planning , and Biological Engineering . 
