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Surely there would be some limitation to cross-registration. Will Harvard allow one of its students to take 15 credits at MIT? I think cross-registration is good for someone with a cursory interest in another subject, but not as a replacement for a major.
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<p>A Harvard student is allowed to cross-reg up to half of his total units in any given term, which is a significant amount of flexibility. Let's use the example of chemical engineering, since you brought it up. ChemE is, frankly, not so much different from ME such that you couldn't build a highly respectable program out of Harvard's ME program combined with half your units from the MIT chemical engineering program. In fact, I would venture to say that such a program would be at least as comprehensive as most other fully-fledged, single-school ChemE programs out there. </p>
<p>Nobody is arguing that cross-reg would be the same as just going to MIT in the first place. Obviously it is not. I am simply pointing out that the combined engineering pool of resources of both Harvard and MIT through cross-reg is arguably more extensive than that of most other engineering programs out there. That's because MIT's engineering resources are so vast that even if you are accorded only 'halfway' access to MIT, that's, frankly, still more than you would get at most other schools. </p>
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If this is something that is of great concern, a school like Brown may be best with its open curriculum. Or consider any other school with minimal barriers to transferring between its engineering school and its other schools.
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<p>I think there is no serious comparison to be made between the engineering resources you could get at Harvard (combined with the x-reg resources from MIT) and what you can get in the engineering program at Brown. Is this even a matter of serious dispute? </p>
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Interesting sakky, could an undergrad from Harvard who does that cross-register with MIT consider himself an alum of MIT as well? Just curious, I know it sounds a little silly.
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<p>As aibarr said, no brass-rat for you. But I hardly think that it matters. </p>
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You seem the bring this up everytime someone mentioned Harvard engineering. Someone going into engineering at MIT is probably not going to switch out to a humanities major...and if they do switch majors MIT actually offers many other great majors outside of engineering.
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<p>Almost all of MIT's (strong) majors are highly technical in nature. Hence, even if you're switching out of engineering, you're probably switching to something highly quantitative; it's not exactly the biggest switch in the world to move from EECS to, say, physics. </p>
<p>What is relevant is that somebody at MIT may want to switch to a purely non-technical curricula, which is impossible to do because, whether you like it or not, every student has to fulfill the General Institute Requirements which include a palette of technical courses. For example, even if you decide to major in humanities at MIT, you still have to pass multivariable calculus and 2 semesters of physics whether you like it or not (or else you are forced to transfer to another school). Harvard has no such restriction. You decide that you want to major in humanities? Harvard isn't going to force physics and multivar calculus upon you. </p>
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If someone could pick between MIT and Harvard for engineering and feels equal about the campuses then I would say go with MIT. You shouldn't go to a school assuming you will switch majors to something completely different. Yes a school with options is good but giving up engineering at MIT to leave the option of switching to a humanities major later on is just laughable.
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<p>Like I said, that's a big 'if'. Not everybody who gets into Harvard will get into MIT. I know plenty of people who didn't. </p>
<p>But secondly, I never disputed that just being at MIT is obviously better than having to cross-register at MIT through Harvard, if you already know you want to be an engineer. The real question then is really how sure do you feel about engineering? To that, I again would point to the national statistics that state that over half of all 'intended' incoming engineering students will not actually complete the engineering degree. Engineering attrition rates are high; many students will find engineering to be too hard, and/or find something else more interesting to do.</p>