<p>Not sure if this is the place for this, but I couldn't find a more appropriate one. So far MIT has been my dream school from the time I started thinking about college, so I think that I've become so biased that no other school seems even close. I've looked at the usual; Caltech (though the tiny population and 70% male demographic turns me off), Stanford, Carnegie-Mellon, Rice (so far my main secondary choice), and all the usuals. </p>
<p>Since most of us are probably in the same boat, or at least have been at one time or another, I thought you could make some suggestions as to other schools comparable to MIT I'd do good to research. By the way, I'm heavily leaning towards EE/CS.</p>
<p>Of course the answer to such a query would vary by individual: you may only want to consider certain parts of the country, or schools of a certain size, or etc... That said, several of my son's other schools under consideration (besides those you mention already) were Olin, Harvey Mudd, UC Berkeley, and Johns Hopkins. Other schools you may want to consider include RPI, WPI, Rose-Hulman... and many others!</p>
<p>Thanks, I definitively have to look into Harvey Mudd. About Olin, though, I thought they were a very specialized school, almost a college instead of a university, hence its size.</p>
<p>Olin is an engineering college. They are small intentionally, to keep the quality of education super-high and the interactions with faculty and colleagues personalized. Their mission is to change the way engineering is taught. Olin students seem to love their institution, their instructors, their community, and their college experience overall.</p>
<p>Wow, considering that I chose MIT, I feel like I'm becoming an unofficial spokeswoman for Olin anyway. It's very small and (in my opinion) somewhat limited socially, but tuition is ABSOLUTELY FREE(!!!) and it's of nearly the same caliber as the top tech schools. The only real drawback is that if you want to change out of EECS to say, Aero/Astro or a pure science, you can't do that at Olin. Also, purely because of size, the school doesn't have the extensive resources that MIT does. However, the personal attention might very well make up for that. I would say Olin is one of the most compelling schools around.</p>
<p>My son's top 3 were: 1. MIT 2. Stanford 3. Caltech (all three of which he was accepted at, MIT and Caltech early, and Stanford in the regular round, which made choosing a little tough, more for me (not like it was really my choice,than for him, since he had dreamed of attending MIT since he was about 9). Other schools on his long list were: Duke (bioengineering), Carnegie Mellon, U Penn, Cornell, Yale, Princeton, University of Washington (honors program), Washington University in St. Louis, and Dartmouth. Olin sounds very interesting to me--that probably should have been on his list. Harvey Mudd was almost on his list, and is also an excellent school, part of the Claremont colleges (5). Berkeley was once in his top five, but after a visit there, he decided that it was too big and anonymous-feeling, and would be better for graduate level study. He got mail from Rice and Harvard, but wasn't interested in either. I would think about which majors you are leaning towards and look at schools strong in those fields, and think about what other fields/subjects you'd like to study to see if those are offered at the different schools, think about what part of the country you'd like to be in, how far from home, extracurriculars, sports, and climate. Very hot climates, like Rice in Texas, did not appeal to my son, who prefers milder weather. Looking back, we would probably modify his original list a little.</p>
<p>That's ironic, because I live in Texas, and the triple digit weather doesn't really bother me much. I'd really rather go up north to the cool places, though. That's amazing, by the way, MIT, Caltech, and Stanford.... if only I were as lucky. You must be incredibly proud.</p>