Since 2005, 39 Lafayette students have applied to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and three have gotten accepted, with a total of eight students accepted in all Rockwood high schools. This year, senior Nassim Oufattole was accepted and will be attending MIT in the fall.

Q: What has MIT meant to you? Was it your top university choice?

A: Oh, it was number one.

Q: What was your reaction when you found out you were accepted?

A: I was jumping in the house, and my mom was jumping. We yelled a lot.

Q: How did you prepare for getting into MIT?

A: I never really did things specifically for college. I like doing community service stuff cause my sister showed it to me and it was fun doing events like Key Club and NHS, I bet that helped. I contacted the [cross country and track] coach over the summer and I was talking to him to see if I would be a good fit for the team. I even did an official visit with the team. And [the coach] talked to admissions on my behalf, which was really helpful and awesome. And also just getting good grades, challenging yourself in school, those are the types of things that are important.

Q: What are you going to major in?

A: What I want to do is biochemical engineering and bio-medical. I want to make technologies for the medical field. I also want to do computer science because that is up and coming.

Q: What are you most excited about?

A: The great education, running in college and research. There is so much awesome research I want to do there. I’m going to try to get an internship or research help over the summer. [I’m excited about] just everything.