<p>For someone who is interested in MIT engineering and is MIT qualified, which of course does not mean likely to be admitted, GaTech would be a reasonable safety. As others have pointed out, MIT and GaTech are the only schools where all engineering departments rank in the top ten. The physical resources at GaTech are also second to none.</p>
<p>The primary difference in educational philosophy appears to be that MIT more actively pre-selects for success whereas GaTech has a tendency to sort them out after they enroll. This makes GT, with its 4 or 5 years of C curve, appear to be the most Darwinian of the top engineering programs. In reality, MIT and GT differ primarily in the timing of their natural selection.</p>
<p>If you are looking for a safety and want MIT I would choose a school that is sinking big dollars into bricks and mortar engineering programs. They need to fill up the buildings with top students and presumably the best will be taken at MIT, CalTech and Stanford which leaves Ivys and other engineering schools. Just another way to look at it thats all.</p>
<p>To re-iterate from my post back at #32, GaTech, UIUC, and Case Western are solid safeties for MIT-level applicants, based on my experience. Also, these schools do not reject highly qualified applicants, in my experience, as you hear at some schools (because they are concerned with yield). </p>
<p>MIT-level applicants should also be considering other schools with highly respected programs including Carnegie Mellon, UChicago, Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd, Rose Hulman, and Michigan. I do not consider these to be safeties.</p>
<p>MIT's early admission round is nonrestrictive, so you can apply elsewhere. Here's one more reminder to apply to a safety college as well as to MIT. Good luck to everyone applying to the Institute this year.</p>
<p>"MIT-level applicants should also be considering other schools with highly respected programs including Carnegie Mellon, UChicago, Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd, Rose Hulman, and Michigan."</p>
<p>I would think the bolded schools would be safeties for Caltech admits or people with a similar record.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"MIT-level applicants should also be considering other schools with highly respected programs including Carnegie Mellon, UChicago, Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd, Rose Hulman, and Michigan."</p>
<p>I would think the bolded schools would be safeties for Caltech admits or people with a similar record.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I would think you are totally wrong. There is no way that UChicago and HMC are safeties for the average Caltech admit. Caltech accepts some females that might be rejected at UChicago.</p>
<p>I love how Mudd is in 3 "appropriate safety colleges for _____" threads when it is the most selective LAC in the country. CC is becoming overrun by ignorant posters.</p>
<p>Don't post unless you know what you're talking about.</p>
<p>schools i am applying other than MIT are:
Berk, UCLA, UCSD,Cornell, CMU, HMC, Caltech
yay for in-state UCs!</p>
<p>Berkeley can be considered safety if you are a very competitive applicant and are in-state. They place a lot of weight on scores and yay for the same essay topic as MIT!!!</p>
<p>"Caltech accepts some females that might be rejected at UChicago."</p>
<p>Why are you bringing gender into it? Caltech doesn't have any kind of affirmative action for females.</p>
<p>I understand you're offended, but there is a reason why I said Caltech and not MIT, Harvard, Princeton, etc...I would have never said that if you could get into MIT or Harvard, that Harvey Mudd would be a gimme.</p>
<p>Frankly, it used to be that a Caltech admit was nearly a lock at MIT too. When I applied, MIT was practically a safety for me. That was because they looked for the same things, and they based their decisions on measurables, not on personality or the essay or "passion." So even though MIT and Caltech were close in selectivity, the Caltech admit pool tended to be a smaller subset of the MIT admit pool (for people that applied to both.) Frankly, I think Harvey Mudd and Caltech should be accepting the same kind of people. It's a testament to the fact that Harvey Mudd's admissions makes sense that if a candidate that is outstanding enough to get into Caltech, then they would almost definitely get into Harvey Mudd. And yes, I am making the assertion that Caltech is more selective. If you have a problem with that I don't know what to say.</p>
<p>And btw, what in my head I think the worst Caltech admit would have:
straight A's (A+'s) in math/science
at least AIME qualifer
1500+/1600 on the SAT, 760+ on math, 800 on Math SATII, 770+ on all the SATII's
some state-level math/science awards
recs that say they are the best student they ever had.
very intense personality, and clearly driven
And people who deviated below these minimums would be for people that were really outstanding in some other well-established competition (i.e., made USAMO but got some "B"s in English, got phenomenal recs at Bronx Science, etc.)</p>
<p>And if a person with that profile didn't get into Harvey Mudd also, then I would think their admissions staff would be full of it.</p>
<p>My standard for colleges on my list is University of Wisconsin-Madison. If a university can not offer something compelling to me in the Bio-Eng regard that is better than this I won't bother applying. Madison is a very safe safety and very well ranked. Besides, Wisconsin rocks! :P</p>
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[quote]
And if a person with that profile didn't get into Harvey Mudd also, then I would think their admissions staff would be full of it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What are you talking about? People like that are rejected from Harvey Mudd all the time. I more or less fit that profile and I definitely considered Mudd a reach. I was very surprised when I got accepted. Mudd also has unique admissions because it is a LAC. It weights the essay and looks for well-rounded students (on top of scientific abilities) more than Caltech does.</p>
<p>College admissions at these top schools are a crapshoot. Harvard and Columbia look for very similar things but you wouldn't say that if someone gets into Harvard then Columbia is a safety. There are many examples of people getting accepted by Harvard, but rejected by Columbia. </p>
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Why are you bringing gender into it? Caltech doesn't have any kind of affirmative action for females.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Of course they do. It's easier to get in as a female. Same thing at Harvey Mudd and MIT.</p>
<p>Also, are you trying to say that Caltech is more selective than MIT?</p>
<p>"And if a person with that profile didn't get into Harvey Mudd also, then I would think their admissions staff would be full of it."</p>
<p>Are you kidding me? Numbers depicting admission? I don't think so. There is a reason why every applicant is STRONGLY encouraged to interview at Mudd. It is because we don't want robots walking around our campus. We don't want test-taking machines because THAT IS NOT HOW THE WORLD REALLY WORKS!</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that Mudd seeks those who are at the top, intellectually. This transcends being able to memorize stuff or do well on the SATs or ACME. Intellectuallity is a multidimensional parameter that you can't just say "being really good at math" makes me a smart person. NO! Innovation and ingenuity make you smart. Mudd is looking for THAT and THAT is why numerous people each year are rejected with near-perfect stats like you mentioned.</p>
<p>It annoys me that our society thinks that being successful in school really means ANYTHING. Some of the most advancing work in the history of man has been done as a hobby of some eager person.</p>
<p>Ideally, being truly smart would correlate directly over to having good grads and good test scores. However, to a certain point, I don't believe this to be the case as REALLY smart people see that all this **** is a load of ****. When one makes school their obsession they lose grip on the things that actually matter or what the bigger picture is. This is the case 99.9999% of the time.</p>
<p>(I put those " * " in there for you to use your imagination)</p>
<p>"Why are you bringing gender into it? Caltech doesn't have any kind of affirmative action for females."</p>
<p>Because in-as-much as I would like to say this is not the case, Mudd is being retarded with their admissions policy try to "diversify" the campus. This has resulted in male acceptance rates of 17% and female acceptance rates of 47%. Keep in mind, with those numbers, that we are already talking about a pre-selection pool of applicants since "Harvey Mudd" is not exactly a common phrase on the streets around the US. </p>
<p>I'd venture to say that "dreamers" of Mudd are better qualified than the "dreamers" of MIT. Almost everyone I knew in high school interested in math/science dreamt of MIT... they didn't know about Mudd. To know about Mudd you typically need to be "in the know" which basically means the math/science/engineering community, which means you probably already have a leg-up.</p>
<p>In short, the average person who applies to Mudd is better qualified than the average person of MIT. Perhaps the admissions is a different story but this is based on the concept of artificial selection.</p>
<p>rocket: The fact of the matter is that Mudd seeks those who are at the top, intellectually. This transcends being able to memorize stuff or do well on the SATs or ACME</p>
<p>Well, I agree with you there. Perhaps I have an inflated view of Caltech admits, but I thought they only selected people who were truly at the top intellectually (not just perfect stat-wise). In other words, it is necessary to have the near-perfect stats/grades/competition scores, but not sufficient.</p>
<p>me: "Why are you bringing gender into it? Caltech doesn't have any kind of affirmative action for females."</p>
<h2>rocket: Because in-as-much as I would like to say this is not the case, Mudd is being retarded with their admissions policy try to "diversify" the campus.</h2>
<p>well, ok, I don't know what that has to do with what I said about Caltech. According to Ben Golub, a former undergrad who worked in the Caltech admissions, there is no affirmative action at Caltech. If two applicants are judged to be exactly equally qualified and they are of different race or gender, the policy is to flip a coin to make the decision.</p>