source: Horton, Jennifer. "Can I become an expert in my field using MIT OpenCourseWare?" 27 May 2008. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://people.howstuffworks.com/mit-opencourseware.htm> 21 September 2015.
Last year, 12,445 high school students applied to the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology, the No. 7-ranked U.S. university by U.S. News and World Report. Almost 11,000 of those students received slim, devastating rejection letters a few months later. The selective school admits a mere 12.5 percent of applicants each year, shattering the dreams of thousands of young brainiacs .
MIT's OpenCourseWare initiative, however, may soften the blow for those crestfallen students by allowing them to access many of the school's class materials online free. The university's high standards and high tuition ($45,000, if you include room and board) have precluded many people from studying there, but MIT OpenCourseWare is less discriminating, putting boundless knowledge at the fingertips of anyone with an Internet connection.
Launched in September 2002, MIT OpenCourseWare gives people free access to practically all of the content of the 1,800 graduate and undergraduate courses from all five of MIT's schools. Class syllabi, lecture notes, problem sets, exams, reading lists and video lectures are all available. In addition, MIT has partnered with four other schools that are officially translating the materials into Spanish, Portuguese, simplified and traditional Chinese, and Thai for their own Web sites.