<p>I'm a junior and have been very interested in MIT for some time now because of its 'cutting edge' position in math/science education. I would like to expand my college search tho to comparable math/science colleges, preferably in the Northeast. Any suggestions into what to look into??</p>
<p>hmm... carnegie mellon + brown if you are interested in comp sci. princeton's pure math/science departments are excellent, and same with harvard.
olin college of engineering seems to be a rising college for engi.</p>
<p>I know it's not in the Northeast, but give a close look to Caltech. </p>
<p>It's truly an amazing place, and my decision between Caltech and MIT was very hard indeed. Though I eventually choose MIT, Caltech will always hold a special place in my heart. </p>
<p>And yes, I know it will not be safe to say this @ MIT next year :)</p>
<p>Definitely not, Cuca. <em>cracks knuckles</em></p>
<p>=D</p>
<p>I think you can consider cornell too, but it is more for engineering.</p>
<p>WPI, RPI - not quite the prestige as MIT, but still pretty good</p>
<p>I'll always hold a soft spot for UChicago, so I guess I'll throw that in the pot, even though it's technically not in your region of interest.</p>
<p>Have to agree with Princeton and Harvard for the general math/science excellence, and I know Yale is really working on its science bit.</p>
<p>It would probably help to know what you wanted to go into. Even a general idea?</p>
<p>in northeast--Columbia, has solid engineering school and I know they have a very good physics dept., not sure what branch of science exactly you're interested in...</p>
<p>If you're looking outside of the northeast at all, I'd consider Harvey Mudd...although not well-known by the mainstream public, it is very well known in higher education, with the most PhD students sent by any one university. Also, they seem to have a campus culture that is somewhere in between Caltech's and MIT's, while you also have 4 other colleges as part of the consortium across the street. I applied there and I'd say they were my soft spot (their acceptance folder had the chemical formula for mud on the front! how could someone not like them?:P), but ultimately MIT was a better fit.</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd culture is slightly less emphasized than MIT's and Caltech's, but it does have some awesome in it. (For example, I know there's a decent amount of LARPers from there.)</p>
<ul>
<li>From near-Claremont and has friend at Scripps</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm interested in something like electrical engineering :)</p>
<p>CMU + MIT : )
i spent a summer at CMU and am going to MIT. both of their EECS departments are world renowned.</p>
<p>I will add my vote to the chorus of folks suggesting Harvey Mudd. Mudd is focused on excellent undergraduate teaching, with lots of opportunities for research. Mudd students do very, very well at getting into great grad schools. My S was down to Mudd, UChicago and MIT, and says he would have been seriously happy at any of them. He picked Chicago over Mudd, but it could have just as easily (and almost did) go the other way.</p>
<p>OP, if you are not the engineering sort, but love math/science and aren't afraid of humanities, take a look at Chicago. There were a surprising number of MIT/Chicago EA cross-applicants and cross-admits this past year. In fact, MIT lists Chicago among schools it recommends for potential MIT applicants to also consider.</p>
<p>If you'd like to share the major(s) you are considering, we can probably give you some more useful info.</p>
<p>Edit: Oops! Missed the EE part. Agree with CMU. Depending on what your stats are -- Penn, JHU, Case, UMD, UMich, Rose-Hulman (Indiana), RPI, WPI, RIT, Drexel, Lehigh, Pitt.</p>
<p>In 8 of the past 10 years, Duke University students have placed among the top three teams in the Putnam Competition. For some reason, few people mention Duke as a good place to study mathematics, but interviews with past Putnam finalists from the school indicate there's a very supportive and close math department at the school. When we took our daughter to visit various schools, we found also that the most welcoming physics departments were MIT and Duke, where full-time professors were quite willing to spend time talking about their programs. </p>
<p>Of course, you do realize that nothing is truly comparable to MIT.</p>
<p>I'm going to echo Pitt, especially for merit money - they were the first college to accept me and were <em>extremely</em> generous with their financial aid, and there's no supplemental application!</p>
<p>University of Illinois also has a great EECS program. They are also pretty generous with merit aid for out-of-state kids and if you get above a 34 on your ACT you're virtually guaranteed an engineering scholarship of some sort.</p>
<p>University of Chicago actually doesn't have an engineering program. CMU is pretty awesome - my best friend goes there and she loves it (although she's in it for art - I hear that engineering is pretty rough). Case Western was also very generous with their merit aid, and with no additional application necessary. Case also has EA, so you could potentially find out about Case, Pitt, and MIT by January if you were to apply to all 3 (and not get deferred).</p>
<p>But yeah, coming from someone that's explored all of the above options...nothing's quite like MIT :)</p>
<p>Of course, you do realize that nothing is truly comparable to MIT.</p>
<p>I'll grant that MIT, for most people, is the first choice. BUT, it doesn't have 100% yield--even among those highly interested in math/science/engineering. Last year, S1 made decision that he liked Mudd better for undergrad even though the prices were the same. Granted, he is in the clear minority for that particular cross-admit battle, but he isn't alone. :-)</p>
<p>This is kinda off topic but Caltech and MIT have a great rivalry. Some of the pranks they have pulled not only on each other but also on other schools are hysterical.</p>
<p>Cornell has the number 1 engineering program of the ivies and ranks in top 10 in US. Also, Cornell ranks in top 5 in computer science and probably 1 in animal science, agriculture, and physics. </p>
<p>Since you're looking for a school in the northeast, try looking at Cornell.</p>
<p>nothing is truly comparable to MIT because nothing IS MIT :p</p>
<p>...besides MIT XD</p>
<p>Mudd was pretty awesome and the merit money was pretty nice too, from 10,000 a year to full tuition. It had a similar feel to mit but on a much smaller scale. Academics seemed to be just a notch less, tho Mudders would disagree. Northwestern McCormick doesnt get much respect on these blogs but IMO they had a very good engineering school with a very interesting internship program. Personally, I found the engineering facilities at Princeton to be underwhelming; the atmosphere at CalTech, depressing; and the campus at U of C, dangerous. Gotta Love MIT Tho. See y'all in August.</p>