Appropriate "Safety" Colleges for an MIT Applicant?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
41

<p>State university, state university, state university.</p>

<p>If you don't even apply to your state university (if you have one), you're just shooting yourself in the foot, and denying yourself a safety net. And that's just silly. Even if you "know" you'll get in somewhere, apply anyway. It. Cannot. Hurt.</p>

<p>As for just plain "other schools", it depends on everything you've been looking at MIT for to begin with. I'm looking at Princeton because I'm going math and their department chair is basically a rock-star (Wiles, Fermat, etc.), as well as being one of the epicenters of modern mathematics, so I know I'd be in good hands, but that's just me and my field. Also, I'm applying to Columbia because I'm a New York kid and NYC is my second home, as well as knowing I should be in good hands there, but that's just me and where I'm from. As for other schools that put their emphasis on sciences, I'll be looking at all the other same-tiers already mentioned: Cornell, Carnegie, Caltech, Mudd, and so on. But NONE of these, in ANY WAY, are even REMOTELY safe.</p>

<p>Technically, if someone wants to play the odds game, applying to 7 reach schools with 10% admission each is "safe". (The odds of getting turned down are 90%, .9 ^ 7 is around .47, which is under half.) But again, this is the real world, so that's just plain dumb.</p>

<p>The entire point of a safety school is to shoot low while still looking for somewhere you'll be happy. Of course, shooting low is the defining part of that. Do not use probabilities and percentiles to gamble away YOUR FUTURE; common sense is what will save your skin if things go sour.</p>

42

<p>For those interested in an emphasis on science, McGill's Faculty of Science.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.mcgill.ca/researchoffice/quickfacts/recognition/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.mcgill.ca/researchoffice/quickfacts/recognition/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>McGill is a top research university (ranked 24th globally and number one in Canada) on par with Michigan for selectivity (as they admit 6000 to the freshman class with a lot of weeding out). The Science faculty has competitive premed-type students, about 50 percent Asian. It is also recognized for its mechanical engineering department.</p>

43

<p>
[quote]
For those interested in an emphasis on science, McGill's Faculty of Science.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.mcgill.ca/researchoffice/...s/recognition/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.mcgill.ca/researchoffice/...s/recognition/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>McGill is a top research university (ranked 24th globally and number one in Canada) on par with Michigan for selectivity (as they admit 6000 to the freshman class with a lot of weeding out). The Science faculty has competitive premed-type students, about 50 percent Asian. It is also recognized for its mechanical engineering department.

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</p>

<p>Except MIT's greatest emphasis is on engineering and McGill isn't that great for engineering. McGill is good for graduate school, but it is no where near a lot of places listed in this thread such as Cornell, Caltech, Chicago, Mudd, Rose for undergraduate. However, it would be safer than most of the schools listed in this thread.</p>

<p>And by the way, saying your school is "on par with Michigan for selectivity" is kind of shooting yourself in the foot. Michigan is not that selective, especially considering most of the applicants come from Michigan and have instate admission. This makes it a safer school to get into, but it makes you really wonder about student quality.</p>

<p>And most of that research you cited comes from graduates... wait actually 99% of it.</p>

44

<p>McGill is just another state school. IT WOULDN'T HURT TO APPLY BUT IT IS A SAFETY, especially if you're considering MIT and Caltech.</p>

<p>Most science students at McGill claim to be pre-med, while they just blindly memorize biological terms and hope to do well on MCAT. Little do they realize the required disciplines of doctors.</p>

<p>As for research...there are basically two types: 1, students take the 396 research course, only with permission of instructor. This opportunity is extremely competitive, as in out of the thousands of students in science faculty, I'd estimate around 5% get that opportunity every year. 2, getting hired by labs through the work study program, majority of them end up being laboratory cleaning clerks and excel robots.</p>

45

<p>Time for you to transfer to MIT, 13, since you are doing nothing where you are except sitting at your computer instead of having a life.</p>

<p>ATOMICFUSION, yeah, it's on par with Michigan, that's why it's a SAFETY. Did not say it was particularly difficult to get into.</p>

46

<p>
[quote]
Time for you to transfer to MIT, 13, since you are doing nothing where you are except sitting at your computer instead of having a life.</p>

<p>ATOMICFUSION, yeah, it's on par with Michigan, that's why it's a SAFETY. Did not say it was particularly difficult to get into.

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</p>

<p>Not that good for engineering, though. It's not even the best undergraduate engineering program in Canada. Michigan, Texas, Purdue, etc etc etc would all be better safeties with better engineering programs. Hard sciences is a different story, but engineering is by far the biggest department at MIT, so most applicants generally want to go into that or related fields.</p>

<p>You are saying McGill is a safety, but also that it has a 24th ranked undergraduate program in the world. That does not make sense. McGill wouldn't even be ranked 24th in America so give me a break.</p>

47

<p>There are several international UNIVERSITY rankings. McGill is about 24th by London Times, which is the most frequently cited ranking.
21st on this ranking:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2006/top_200_universities/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2006/top_200_universities/&lt;/a> </p>

<p>There are 35,000 undergrads at McGill so admission will not be as competitive, and 50 percent of the spots are guaranteed to students from Quebec. But 90 percent of students overall graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school class.</p>

48

<p>
[quote]
There are several international UNIVERSITY rankings. McGill is about 24th by London Times, which is the most frequently cited ranking.
21st on this ranking:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.topuniversities.com/world..._universities/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.topuniversities.com/world..._universities/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>There are 35,000 undergrads at McGill so admission will not be as competitive, and 50 percent of the spots are guaranteed to students from Quebec. But 90 percent of students overall graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school class.

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</p>

<p>If you look at the USNWR rankings you can see that McGill would not be ranked 24th or 21st there. That would put McGill at the level of Berkeley (ranked 21st) and Georgetown (ranked 24th). McGill's undergraduate program is not even close to Berkeley's. First off, that international ranking is basically biased to favor the schools with good graduate programs. Graduate programs are what gives a university prestige, not undergraduate. McGill's graduate program is much better than it's undergrad, so it gets a huge boost. Also those international rankings are biased because they don't want to just fill it up with American schools, since it has to be a true international ranking. </p>

<p>If you look at the stats of the schools on the USNWR rankings you will see that McGill undergrad is quite comparable to UT Austin undergrad, which is ranked 44th. So stop saying McGill is ranked 21st on a biased ranking that no one really cares about, has no formula, and is pretty much solely based on graduate school prestige.</p>

<p>Also there are 35,000 undergrads at many American schools, yet they manage to still be more competitive than McGill. Berkeley and UCLA are huge and more competitive. They also have to have spots basically guaranteed to Californians too yet they still manage to have way more selective out-of-state admissions than McGill.</p>

49

<p>That would make sense if Mcgill guaratees admitance to Quebec citizens. Nothing against the wine drinkers, mind you.
My uncle is French-Canadian and he is very intelligent(let me see I believe he's at english, french, russian, and latin and was moving into greek last I checked and very astute to the last two thousand years of history) and well travelled. Big guy too.
But to guarantee 50% of your admissions to the province(state) your located in requires certain comprimises on admission.</p>

50

<p>Nice little lie there, boysofwinter. You might want to not be off by 10,000 students when you estimate the size of your own university.</p>

<p>McGill only has 23,559 (not 35,000) undergraduates (see wikipedia). Berkeley has 23,482 (see wikipedia). Pretty much the exact same, right? So Berkeley should be equally compromised? Except Berkeley's out of state admissions are extremely competitive and on an entire different level than McGill's. </p>

<p>But yeah, you're right, McGill is ranked 21st in the world by writers without using formulas and just going on prestige. It's totally valid even though Berkeley is ranked 21st in just the US based on a formula that tries to limit bias from prestige, is the same size, and has much better students and much better undergraduate programs.</p>

51

<p>BOYSOFWINTER, your other thread showed that you're a father of a mcgill student. Everything you know about the McGill undergraduate and student life would be through hearsay from your son and maybe his peers, various publications and perhaps a few campus visits (unless you attended mcgill also). Publications can be very biased I'm sure, and you cannot consult the statistics from just London Times. Besides London Times' international university rankings, several other publications also ranked McGill on their lists, unfortunately placing McGill nowhere near the top 30 schools in the world. If you calculate an average of those rankings to minimize bias, the average ranking score would put McGill way below 21st. Just because it is the most frequent cited ranking (according to you), it doesn't reflect that its statistics are the most accurate. You should also check out which parties cited London Times' university rankings for any bias.</p>

<p>As for the advice to transfer, let me remind you of the common tragedy of international admission rates for competitive schools in the US. This year spring I actually called the admissions office of a few schools and they gave me the same answer in several different ways, that if I were a domestic student I would be considered as a strong applicant, instead of being international, which is a straight ticket to being denied or waitlisted unless my achievements as a high schooler equates to those of Yo-Yo Ma. An international student from China would have to be 300% overqualified to earn a spot at an outstanding school in the US, such as MIT ( and I'm not going to bother mentioning scholarships and financial aid). Btw, international students who attend high school in the US are still not eligible for things like National Merit, National Chem/Physics/Math Olympiad....</p>

<p>Seriously, you're the one who posted in this thread at 10 pm on a Saturday night advising a stranger, whom you know every little about, to get a life. Not to mention that your #of posts are twice as mine, it'd make more sense that you are wasting more time sitting in front of your computer attacking some kid who's probably more than half your age.</p>

52

<p>I'm sorry you're not able to be happy in your situation; my response was out of frustration with several negative posts I've read of yours. I don't think you've written one positive thing anywhere. Parents who cherished their college years want nothing less for their children and their friends; witness the many parents participating in these forums. Isn't being very bright in a very good school good fortune enough?</p>

53

<p>My son didn't get into MIT last year. RPI and WPI were his safeties. (RPI is less safe since it got named one of the 25 new Ivies by Newsweek - I think they went from accepting 75% to 45% in one year. He got into both with merit money. He ended up choosing Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science and seems very happy there.</p>

<p>With a 30% acceptance rate Harvey Mudd is at best a match for most MIT hopefuls.</p>

<p>I consider Troy and Worcester to be about the same on the desirability index of towns. WPI as a school is smaller than RPI.</p>

54

<p>
[quote]
With a 30% acceptance rate Harvey Mudd is at best a match for most MIT hopefuls.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Totally false. Mudd's acceptance rate is lower than 30% first of all. Also, Mudd's applicant pool is ridiculously self-selecting. MIT is a huge name and people will apply just for that fact (even though they have no chance in hell). In order to know about Mudd, you really have to do some research and be sure you want to go there. A 1300ish SAT student is very unlikely to apply to Mudd, but might apply to MIT. </p>

<p>Think of how many under qualified applicants apply to the ivy league and MIT every year. I knew so many people back in my high school that would apply to the ivy league "just to see what happens" when they had about a .1% chance of getting in. </p>

<p>The average MIT applicant IS the average Harvey Mudd applicant. There really is no difference. We just let in a little more of applicants, so I will admit that MIT's student body is a little bit more qualified.</p>

<p>Seriously for being a mathmom you should be able to look deeper into numbers than just "omg this is a 30% accept rate... MATCH.. MIT is 15% accept rate... REACH!"</p>

<p>Harvey Mudd is ranked #1 for LAC selectivity ahead of williams, amherst, swarthmore, pomona, etc even though they all have much lower acceptance rates. Would you consider Williams a match for your son? If you son got rejected from MIT then there is no way that Mudd was a match.</p>

55

<p>Mathmom's son was accepted at Harvard. Her story is a very good illustration of how admissions are not completely deterministic based on test scores. Mathmom's son, very interested in computer science, decided that Carnegie-Mellon is a better fit for him than Harvard, and I think that makes sense in his context. </p>

<p>I opened this thread to remind everyone to apply to a SURE-BET safety college, and I'm not sure enough of those have been mentioned in this thread yet. It's October; class of 2008 students who want to apply to MIT should know their safety college by now. Have you all applied to a safety college?</p>

56

<p>UT Austin (out of state)
Michigan (out of state)
Case
UCLA (out of state)</p>

<p>All pretty much low matches for the average MIT applicant. You can't get much safer than those if you still want amazing engineering programs. Always apply to the local flagship state school as a total safety.</p>

57

<p>
[quote]
Seriously for being a mathmom you should be able to look deeper into numbers than just "omg this is a 30% accept rate... MATCH.. MIT is 15% accept rate... REACH!"

[/quote]
</p>

<p>She said "at best" Mudd was a match, meaning that it really should be considered a reach for most. Your tone seems out of place.</p>

58

<p>Atomicfusion,
It strikes me that there is more internal consistency to Mudd admits than to MIT's. If one has demonstrated interest to Mudd, has done one's research, presents the skills/talents Mudd values, and has a really decent set of numbers to boot, one might sense that one's chances were a bit more predictable at Mudd vs. MIT, where, as you admit, there's the "let's throw an app and see if it sticks" mentality. </p>

<p>There is nothing wrong with a hghly self-selected pool! Chicago benefits (or suffers) from the same thing, depending on how one looks at self-selection in entering the applicant pool, their "high" acceptance rate and whether one uses that rate as a blanket criteria for "selectivity" in terms of perceived prestige.</p>

<p>I would also posit that those who talk about reach/match/safety may not be laying all their cards on the table here in a public forum. Certainly for some, not wanting to be "outed" is a factor. There's also the smackdown factor I see when students with excellent stats/ECs/grades post a chances thread and get bashed about the head for having the audacity to wonder "is this enough in this admissions environment?" (This is why I stay away from chances forums. I whipsaw between wanting to commiserate and shaking sense into some posters and shouting "GET A LIFE!" ;))</p>

<p>Mathmom knows wherof she speaks. Your tone struck me as a bit harsh, too. She and her son did their homework last year.</p>

59

<p>Wait, what is it with MIT and engineers? Why do the posters in this thread seem to assume that simply because you're an MIT hopeful you're definitely doing something engineering related? </p>

<p>No suggestions for perhaps the other departments that probably attract a good deal of others, like linguistics? (Well I want to double-major in something physics or biology related too. I'm into calculus and stuff but I don't dig engineering at all, uless they involve cell biology or public transport systems.)</p>

60

<p>Well, ~50% of the student body does major in engineering. </p>

<p>Last year 578 students graduated with degrees in engineering, while only 79 graduated with degrees in the humanities, arts, and social sciences (and many of those students were double-majors with a technical field). Two people graduated with degrees in linguistics and philosophy. (Stats here</a>.)</p>