<p>Today is the day to hear from the Ivies on acceptances...is there an Ivy out there that would make you decline your admission to MIT?</p>
<p>I'm actually wondering if MIT is even competing for the same group of students, as it is such a heavy weight in the tech school category...I think for many MIT trumps all Ivies...so for many it might relate to the strength of the math/science and engineering department at a particular Ivy...</p>
<p>No, but Stanford did. ;)</p>
<p>Son only applied to Cornell, and that school was his fifth choice, at most. </p>
<p>(He actually stated "no ivy league schools" at the outset, but a friend is in Cornell's engineering school and made a case for it.)</p>
<p>Harvard and Princeton have strong math departments ,as does Stanford. So for "technical school" students who are more interested in math than engineeriing, any of thse could be strong competitors to Caltech and MIT.</p>
<p>Of the 30% of accepted students who choose not to come to MIT, very few of them choose a state school or an LAC over MIT. The majority of admits who choose to go elsewhere go to Harvard, Stanford, Yale, or Princeton.</p>
<p>princeton used to be my dream school, but if i had applied to princeton and been accepted, i think that i would still choose mit or caltech. i just don't like handling a difficult core in subjects outside of math and science.</p>
<p>MIT is different from the the ivies (I know only about HYP) in the way students are housed and fed. </p>
<p>My friends at HYP love the residential college system in which students eat and live with the same assigned group of classmates for three or four years. My friends love the ease with which they were a part of a social group and the sense of security this gave them. </p>
<p>I chose MIT because I was willing to sacrifice the security of an assigned residential group for the freedom to choose my housing, to move if my housing no longer suited me (I have lived in three different dorms) and to eat what, where, when and with whom I chose. I think this flexibility may have resulted in more lonely periods for me than for my friends at HYP, but it also has given me the freedom to grow in ways I might not have had I known I would live with the same students for several years.</p>
<p>Initially I had MIT as my fourth choice college. I got waitlisted at Harvard so I ended up applying to Princeton, Columbia, MIT, CMU, and NYU (in order of preference). When I finally did get into MIT, I was also accepted at Columbia and Princeton and then deferred at Harvard.</p>
<p>When I finally sat down to decide what I wanted to do in life, I realized engineering was a fit, and so suddenly MIT was number one and I even told Harvard not to even bother giving me a decision. I never regret coming to MIT, but IF I had wanted to do pure math I would have gone to Princeton (like my brother), if I wanted something else I would have been deciding between Harvard and Columbia pending the Harvard decision.</p>
<p>Basically what I'm saying is it depends what you priorities were, the way I looked at it is MIT trumped any other school, and 30% of people who apply to MIT feel the exact opposite, that the Ivys trump any other school.</p>
<p>I actually withdrew my only Ivy app- Dartmouth- after hearing from MIT. Stanford (SCEA) may still beat out MIT, but it'd have to do something really amazing to achieve it.</p>
<p>princeton and columbia both gave me really tempting financial aid, all in grants, so i don't know yet!</p>
<p>MIT would have trumped Harvard, but he got into Harvard and not MIT. At least there was a soft landing!</p>
<p>At the moment my son is intending to turn down Harvard and Penn for MIT, but we are still waiting to hear about finanical aid to see if there are any big differences.</p>
<p>^MIT is sooo much better than Harvard or Penn. I didn't apply to MIT but I shamelessly plug it with every chance I get :)</p>
<p>I'm going to either HYP over MIT. sorry guys.</p>
<p>Sorry? Psh don't be sorry :) That's awesome.</p>
<p>I'm leaning towards MIT over Princeton and Stanford -- I know I want to do engineering, but I don't know what branch, i know I want to go far away from home (I live in San Francisco bay area)... and I don't know, I just don't think i'll click with Princeton as well because I won't get the nerd environment I thrivei n. nerd != cutthroat competition, so yeah.</p>