<p>I was accepted to MIT via early action and also received a likely letter from Columbia College. I'm having difficulty choosing between the two. I'm mainly a math/science guy but also love writing and analyzing texts. I will definitely major in a math/science subject though. I'll be brief.</p>
<p>Columbia:
-Love the access to NYC
-Love the Core and strong humanities in comparison to MIT
-Campus seems nice and contained</p>
<p>-Don't like how NYC can dilute school spirit and sense of community
-Don't like reports of undergraduate education not getting as much attention as graduate</p>
<p>MIT:
-Love the locale. Great college town.
-Can cross-register with Harvard
-Love the perceived sense of community and geekiness of everyone. I feel like I'd fit in.
-Best math/science education in the country?
-Strong computer science department (potential major) and new biological engineering department (also potential major)</p>
<p>-Don't like the dispersed campus</p>
<p>What are some other information I should consider when choosing between these two schools? Thanks.</p>
<p>I also got a likely letter from Columbia, but got deferred from MIT EA. If I do somehow get into MIT, I think that I would choose MIT over Columbia! I’m just kind of iffy about the Columbia environment (only after reading threads on CC, which could be wrong!). Of course, I could be completely wrong and will probably visit Columbia before making any decisions.</p>
<p>On another note- last year, my friend who got a likely from Columbia and got into MIT EA chose to go to MIT.</p>
<p>I neither got into MIT EA (did not apply) nor got a likely letter from Columbia, but this thread is great and provides a lot of insight into Columbia, both positive and negative. I can’t imagine MIT not having a thread like this, so you might do a search there too.</p>
<p>if you are math/sci focused, i will be brief too:</p>
<p>the information regarding columbia’s focus toward grads is false overall, but it is especially false for math/sci majors. student to faculty ratio is very low, ability to work directly with professors is very strong, and professors often let your lab work count for class credit (which means you finish your major faster). i’d say for someone purely interested in math/sci columbia is surprisingly a great place because of the close connection you can make with faculty members.</p>
<p>for most serious math/sci folks the idea of the core is the biggest detractor, the fact that it is not for you suggests to me it might be an ideal fit. and a place like MIT is always available to you for graduate school, whereas the opportunity to enjoy college and the nyc really is only available to you as a precocious undergraduate (to invert your fear of nyc a bit).</p>
<p>and to the OP there is a difference between being math/sci focused in the college and some grumblings you may read on here about engineers on here. so read between the lines. beyond that i’d reach out to columbia undergraduates either on here directly, or maybe through the admissions office.</p>
<p>Congrats anonymousapp! I would not hesitate to choose MIT over Columbia. MIT attracts some of the world’s best students and is renowned and respected worldwide. Columbia simply cannot live up to that caliber (no offense). I would go on about how MIT is better, but I hope you get the point :)</p>
<p>iceui - please actually explain. details are highly encouraged.</p>
<p>are you telling me that columbia is not one of the most respected institutions in the world? ultimately the OP will have to decide between the schools that offer VERY different undergraduate experiences, though undoubtedly the quality of students and the quality of the education is very high at both. MIT will overall be slightly geekier, columbia will be far more diverse (especially in terms of academic interests).</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>i actually am a huge fan of SEAS, breakdown, but there is some grumblign on here, mostly by beardtax (who wants to do finance and is not a true and true engineer) that is partly founded. namely that if you don’t want to be an engineer and are in SEAS, it can be a drag because transferring out of SEAS to the college is not guaranteed. but when comparing it to MIT (even though it has some humanities departments), this disadvantage of SEAS is not really as stark. it is mostly considered a disadvantage for cross-admits to engineering schools that are not separate schools - usually duke, princeton (to an extent harvard, yale) and jhu. where students will at times during the process of deciding where to go have to sit down and not just a) believe columbia is right for them, b) affirm that they think engineering education (if even engineering itself is not the career path) is what they want.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the responses! I’d like to underscore the fact that I got a likely letter from the college not from SEAS, so yes, I suppose accentuates the difference in undergraduate experience at the two colleges. Like most of you pointed out however, the difference is not so much in caliber but style. I hope to get a chance to visit both schools more than for the duration of the “prospective student visiting days” to see where I feel at home.</p>
<p>MIT. No question. It’s definitely more widely-recognized, it has cross-trains with Harvard, and it offers you truly the best math/science education in the country. I’m sure you’ll be able to read/analyze texts to a sufficient extent there as well. Oh, and congrats!</p>
<p>@admissionsgeek: No doubt Columbia is well-respected. But you cannot argue with the fact that MIT is the MOST renowned school for engineering and science in the entire country, if not the entire world. Also, they focus a lot more on theory, while Columbia SEAS students tend to stay near the surface and study the applications. I think Columbia students are more likely to receive a so-called “liberal arts education”, while you are really drilled in the math/sciences while you are at MIT.</p>
<p>liv4: more widely-recognized for what, to whom? details if you are going to lodge a vague claim. “truly the best math/sci education” i am sure caltech might disagree, but at a certain level when you are as smart as the OP it is not so much about having the best training, but now it is about other things - a) quality of life, b) ability to work with professors, c) sometimes being a huge fish in a smaller pond is better for the ego. </p>
<p>anon: you sound like you have a good head on your shoulders. in the end it is will be about where feels most at home. good luck there. kind of crazy you have more than a month to go. if you have any further questions, feel free to PM me.</p>
<p>i am not doubting that the average MIT student doesn’t receive a more rigorous math/sci education than the avg. columbia student (SEAS and CC). indeed if you are an English major in the college you needn’t have to take any serious math, but you do at MIT. but i don’t think that you can claim that a student who attends SEAS somehow is receiving engineering-lite. if you are, then you are conflating a few issues, nor that columbia which boosts one of the strongest faculty throughout the sciences is somehow going to provide the OP or any student some junior high version of science.</p>
<p>a) how is MIT concentrating more on ‘theory.’ usually ‘theory’ is not considered more rigorous, but often more abstract and less about engineering. and if a student wants theory, they could apply to columbia college and work in the natural sciences that are often more theoretical.</p>
<p>b) studying the applications of theoretical practices IS engineering or any professional study that falls under the rubric of applied sciences. </p>
<p>c) about 10 years ago columbia innovated its SEAS curriculum to emphasize smaller classes, more cooperative work and hands-on experience. MIT has just recently caught onto the trend that most people who follow education acknowledge that columbia was one of the first big engineering schools to implement. (in fact a SEAS friend of mine is the person who shared with me this article - <a href=“At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard - The New York Times”>At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard - The New York Times). thus SEAS was one of the first schools to put career-oriented classes at the beginning of a students education, pioneered hands-on projects through Gateway that have now begun to be copied by other institutions.</p>
<p>i have a problem with the fact that you are gesturing vague statements. if you know something about columbia or SEAS from personal experience or from some source, i am happy to have you share it. i think MIT is a fantastic place, and friends of mine that attended and love MIT as much as i love Columbia made me jealous i was never that much of a math/sci kid; there is a cult there that is awesome. but there is something about Columbia that is fantastic, and the truth is that columbia is a very rigorous academic experience, but what separates columbia certainly is a) the feeling, especially in the sciences or folks that are interested in academia, of collaboration and the ease with which you can pursue research, b) the opportunity for discovery as a result of columbia’s unparalleled diversity (by most measures, and from my own study on the subject, i would offer that just three other schools are as impressive in the breadth of their academic offerings - Berkeley, Stanford and Harvard).</p>
<p>both MIT and Columbia are fantastic schools and it would be hard to make a wrong decision. While I do not know much about MIT’s programs, as a current Columbia student, I can speak about Columbia and my experience. Columbia has an incredible science program. We have an outrageously low student-faculty ratio. Many of my SEAS friends are in small seminars this year and are getting a lot of individual attention. You will be able to take a wide variety of classes. I thought I would be a Computer Science major my freshman year and took some of those classes. You get a great deal of hands on experience (in your freshman year, SEAS students work on an applied project in small teams in a class called Gateway. Some of their project actually get implemented in NYC and they have an internship during their freshman year). </p>
<p>anonymousapp-you mentioned your letter was from CC, so I will focus on the sciences from a Columbia College student’s perspective. I think one of my favorite aspects about attending Columbia College is that the school is strong in basically every department. Columbia has the oldest anthropology department. We have an awesome Italian department. We probably have one of the best economic departments in the country with professors such as Jagdish Bhagwati and Joseph Stiglitz teaching here. You will be able to take classes in Biology, Physics, Chemistry or any other discipline you may be interested in. College is also an good time to develop and explore your interests. If you decide you want to try something new and explore a different subject, you know that you will be in good hands. When I was looking at schools, I wanted one that had a strong program in the sciences (as I said, I thought I was going to be a Computer Science major) but I also wanted one where I could also take classes from really talented professors in other disciplines too.</p>
<p>We also have opportunities for undergraduate research starting freshman year. As upperclassman, my friends have gone on to lead their own experiments and become co-authors on scientific papers. Columbia also has partnerships in the sciences. For example, one of my roomates works under an OB/GYN at Columbia Presbyterian hospital. If you have any interest in environmental sciences/sustainable development etc, the Earth Institute offers great undergraduate internship opportunities. </p>
<p>Ultimately, I am very happy I made the decision to come to Columbia. I do not think another institution could have afforded me the same experience and opportunities. I have a group of friends that I consider my second family. I have had the opportunity to become involved in activities I am incredibly passionate about. Finally, I’ve taken some really really cool classes from Deep Sea Thought (where you focus on the motif of death by water and read texts such as Moby Dick and The Tempest) to Microeconomics to Neurodevelopmental Processes. I have been able to develop close relationships with professors whom I can turn to for advice. On a different note, I am going to have a very hard time leaving Columbia in a year. I suggest you get a feel for both campuses and try to imagine yourself in that environment on a daily basis. Both are great schools. Congratulations! I am sure you will make the right decision for yourself and hope you enjoy the rest of your year:)</p>