<p>I'm interested in physical electronics. MIT, Illinois, Berkeley, and Michigan all have labs in this area, so getting into any of these graduate schools would be ideal.</p>
<p>There is no question about it. Statistically, graduating with good grades from MIT makes it three times more likely that you will get into a top graduate school. It would be very stupid to go to UMich on considerations of "diversity", since MIT has more diverse student body than UMich. And finally, if you think that you wouldn't find friends in MIT, but would find them in UMich, you're just fooling yourself.</p>
<p>The above^ is correct in that MIT has a very diverse student body. Read the MIT blogs and you'll see a bit of the student life.
MIT</a> Admissions: Meet The Bloggers</p>
<p>Which graduate school were you leaning towards?</p>
<p>@Lotus and l84ad8: by "diverse" I meant academically diverse. Michigan has a much higher proportion of liberal arts majors than MIT (duh). Oh, and for grad school MIT and Illinois have the best labs for what I want. To be honest, Stanford and Berkeley might also but I haven't researched this. </p>
<p>@l84ad8: where can i see that statistic about mit grads having 3x the admission rate as all others? if it's true, that's a huge item in the pros column. oh, and i think you misinterpreted my comment about the social life at these two unis. of course i'll make friends at either one, but Michigan might be the tiniest bit less demanding and thus allow for more socializing. </p>
<p>@everyone: i'm still waiting on the lonely dissenter who tells me I should go to Michigan/Illinois...</p>
<p>go to MIT. my top 50% friend at a good school got into better than my top 5% self honors at a regular university</p>
<p>Check out HASS (Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences) requirements at MIT. Since you're a transfer, I'm not sure how many more you would have to complete or if you've completed them already. Some of the classes are really interesting. Plus, you can cross register with universities in the area.</p>
<p>I know that Berkeley has a great grad school. You should definitely check it out. </p>
<p>Good luck with your decision.</p>
<p>Google WSJ study called feeder top 50 schools. They ranked UG programs on ratio of alums matriculating at "elite" business, law, and medical schools in a given year to the program class size. Per 100 students in a class, MIT sends almost three times more grads into Harvards, Stanfords, and Yales of the world than does UMich. The study did not review graduate programs (since, frankly, no competent white person would ever consider engineering or non-premed sciences), but if you assume that grad schools use the same criteria to evaluate applicants as do med schools and that the grade distributions in MIT and in Umich are at least somewhat similar, the results nicely translate into graduate programs as well.</p>
<p>If you're majoring in engineering or in sciences, MIT is the only way to go, really. So, congrats, and enjoy your time in Boston.</p>
<p>MIT is actually the most common graduate school destination of MIT alums -- about 20% of each class ends up at MIT for grad school. (MIT is also the most common undergraduate origin of MIT graduate students, I believe.) In addition, there is a graduate program in electrical engineering (MEng) which is only available to students who were MIT undergrads.</p>
<p>There is very little question that if you want to attend MIT as a graduate student in an engineering field, your best option is to go to MIT as an undergrad. The engineering departments are very keen on academic inbreeding, and it's considerably easier to get in if you already know the professors and they already know you. Graduate schools do not use the same criteria for admissions that professional schools do -- your GPA and GRE scores are much less important than your intended research area and letters of recommendation, and those aspects of your application are strengthened a great deal if you work with the best people in your field as an undergraduate.</p>