An alumnus of the class of 1973 writes, "This annual guide to life at MIT, though written primarily by undergrads, is eagerly consulted by a broad cross-section of the MIT community. Started around 1970, the book expanded rapidly in the first few years, adding coverage of hacking, history, campus geography and jargon, nearby colleges, other MIT publications, and MIT culture at large. Always editorially independent, the publication had its ups and downs over the years, failing to publish in the mid-1990s, then staggering back toward financial independence in recent years.

In 1972, a single copy of HowToGAMIT IV was mailed to each of over 125 colleges and universities throughout North America, "to share ideas about student life". Most disappeared without a visible trace, but a few copies did influence other school guides, and perhaps student life on other campuses. In one strange case, a certain Ivy League university plagiarized extensive passages verbatim, proudly presenting a copy of their "new" student guide to the younger sibling of a former HowToGAMIT Editor-in-Chief! The importance of HowToGAMIT for introducing and documenting MIT culture seems self-evident."