<p>Hey guys :) </p>
<p>I really need some advice on this. I'm planning to apply to MIT for grad school (which is 4 years away from now, but I think it's a good idea to plan early...) However, I know that MIT tends to prefer to admit their own undergrads into their own grad programs over other applicants. How exactly can I make myself a competitive candidate when those undergrads have MIT professors on their side?</p>
<p>Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks :)</p>
<p>My advice is not to think of yourself as competing with MIT undergrads for admission. There are never enough MIT undergrads applying to graduate programs at MIT to saturate the number of spots available – only about 20% of each graduating class heads off to grad school at MIT upon graduation, and the graduate student population at MIT is larger than the undergraduate student population anyway.</p>
<p>So you have to make yourself a competitive candidate in general: get excellent grades in challenging courses, forge relationships with scholars in your field who will recommend you, and participate deeply in meaningful research. And then figure out what subfield within your field interests you most, and articulate that interest within your application.</p>
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<p>It could be advantageous to qualify “scholars” with “well-known” ! Of course a few words from such scholars won’t buy you much, it should actually say something about your potential, and hopefully they are reasonably willing to recommend you.</p>
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<p>Kind of a meaningful question, but more generally: note that a lot of the academics you will ever run into are very connected with each other and know (personally) the people in each others’ departments. So you are competing not against MIT only, but also against anyone in the good graces of people who know MIT faculty well. This means Harvard, this means many other places. </p>
<p>Also, the graduate department in certain fields may be small, and in fact the strong students applying from Harvard and MIT may in fact be of numbers enough to intimidate you. However, they are not all planning on studying the same thing, and MIT will consider you over another applicant coming from MIT (potentially, at least) if your credentials indicate you will bring some distinct research potential and interests. Yeah, if someone applies from MIT wanting to do exactly what you want to do, has more famous people on his/her side from inside the department your’e applying to, you might be screwed :), but getting into MIT for grad school isn’t something one should expect necessarily.</p>
<p>Participate in research programs outside your school with some “prestige” attached to them if you can, if you do not come from a well-known school. And if you don’t come from a well-known school, hard and fast scores are important to secure your competence in the eyes of admissions. Never do things that you find are a total waste of your time with the hope that it’ll boost your application, as you will find it doesn’t almost 100% of the time, if not 100% of the time.</p>
<p>Also, people from famous schools are wary of letters of recommendation from lesser known schools (note: lesser known in the scope of academics, so this would mean Harvey Mudd still qualifies as well-known, since we’re talking of academia, not the average person who knows only about Harvard and the local state school). They see too many letters that say “Joe is the greatest ever, and I am in awe of his ability to …” … a letter from a credible scholar who says “this is not the smartest person I’ve seen and isn’t that impressive to me…but you’ll not find many/any people from our program who realistically bring more to the table right now” is better. That is, it actually gives the person reading it a good reason to make a certain decision, rather than just singing praises or, on the other extreme, detailing the student’s worthlessness.</p>
<p>MIT only prefers its own in engineering disciplines. In other fields, undergrads are encouraged to go elsewhere, no matter how qualified they are. It’s possible to stay, but it’s discouraged. Even Richard Feynman was told to go somewhere else for grad school.</p>
<p>MIT Physics students have been traditionally encouraged to go elsewhere, as stated above. The American Physics Institute maintains a website for students interested in grad school in the physical sciences. According to the information provided by MIT, last year the graduate physics department accepted 14% of applicants: <a href=“http://www.aip.org/gpb/pdf_files/122.pdf[/url]”>http://www.aip.org/gpb/pdf_files/122.pdf</a>. So even though you won’t necessarily be competing with MIT undergraduates, admissions is is highly selective.</p>
<p>Thanks guys! </p>
<p>After reading all your advice and thoughts, I’m starting to feel rather small. I mean, I don’t exactly go to Harvard, so I’m not so sure I’ll be able to get letters of recommendations from “scholars”. Where exactly can I find these scholars if I don’t go to a well-known university?</p>
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<p>As I wrote, try to find prestigious research programs or something that you can go to over summers – that’s one way. Try going to conferences in the fields of interest for you (of course, “scholars” are way up there and you have to reach out to them, they will most likely be hard to get ahold of). Maybe do a master’s degree in a fancier school to use it as a stepping stone to a PhD (if that is your goal). </p>
<p>But honestly, you can show you’re serious without being at the most prestigious school if you take a serious curriculum; it’s not like the curriculum is insanely different, assuming you go to a good school. Even if you don’t get into MIT, you may get into a great school that can prepare you for your career just as well. For instance, you may get into some Ivy League school that has a good program in what you’re doing, but not MIT (which tends to be especially hard to make it to)…and it may have scholars in your areas of interest, and they may take you to high places if you show promise of being a productive scholar in the future. </p>
<p>If you’re doing engineering or anything with a practical element to it, professors hardly need be your only allies – if you try to get experience working in relevant ways, sometimes the people you do work for could know MIT’s people very well, and recommend you highly to the program, which can get you in without very much support from your professors at all.</p>
<p>Thanks. That clears up some doubts. I’m assuming reccomendations from professors who are part of the MIT Alumni would be better than non-alumni professors? My math professor is one, although I’m not really sure how helpful this will be if I’m not going to do any research with him haha.</p>
<p>Connections tend to matter only in so much as they come from within the academic loop – an MIT alumnus who has no connections with MIT academia in the dept you want to work in won’t help you get an “in”.</p>
<p>Another way to get to a top 5 grad program from a non-prestigious university is to get apply to a PhD program that is of intermediate prestige, do well there, and then leave with a masters and apply for MIT and other top schools. I’ve seen people do this, though I wouldn’t advertise this when you are applying to the first school.</p>
<p>For chem and physics, a high GRE subject test score will help a lot because they are hard tests that are well-respected. Also, as someone mentioned, you should do a research internship at a good research school. It doesn’t have to be the one you want to go to, although that will help. Research recs are more important the less theoretical a field is–i.e., synthetic chem and/or bio.</p>
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No. Recommendations from professors who know your academic abilities are better than recommendations from professors who don’t.</p>
<p>All things being equal, it’s better to get recommendations from professors who are well-known in your field, but it’s not a necessity. But it’s not important that they come from a particular program.</p>
<p>What field are you planning to apply for? We are all talking in generalities here, but it’s difficult to speak generally about “graduate school admissions”, since each department at MIT admits graduate students independently, and each field has different expectations for applicants.</p>
<p>I’m in engineering at McMaster University.
I was thinking of the aero-astro program at MIT</p>
<p>^That is a highly theoretical field, so the advice is a little bit different than for bio and chem. </p>
<p>Shoot for being the top student in all your classes. It might actually be necessary to be the top student. You had better get an 800 (perfect) in the quantitative section of the GRE, or else that raises a red flag. The other sections aren’t as critical for engineers. Do research in the summers and during the school year once you have mastered your coursework. I wouldn’t recommend trying to do it during the school year in the first two years, maybe not even the third year either, depending on how advanced you are.</p>
<p>McMaster University is a well-known university, but I think you’d better be the top candidate overall in your major to get into MIT. That’s my guess. I’ve met other people from large state universities and they were ranked 2 or 3 in their (very large) classes. But for all I know, #1 didn’t apply to MIT for grad school. </p>
<p>Anyway, that’s my guess. Don’t worry about doing enough research if it is at the expense of your classes. It’s imperative that you crush your classes. You can always take a post-grad year and work in a lab or even in industry before applying.</p>
<p>Good Luck.</p>
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<p>If it’s anything like the very theory-oriented fields I know this is very true. If you’re coming from a good school but not one of the ones with THE top faculty in your field, then your courses, recommendations, etc won’t have enough pull without having utterly crushed everything on the way, like collegealum says. </p>
<p>Research in theory isn’t as important usually, because you simply may not know enough to do things that realistically are good predictors of success in grad school. Showing you have an interest and inclination to really do what is necessary can take you a long way. Now since this is MIT, all bets are kind of off, dependng on the field. You might need to pad yourself with additional indicators, on top of mastering your basics. You should look into what people who have had success in your specific one have done.</p>
<p>This all largely depends on the size and competition in the specific program, but what I’m advising errs on the side of caution.</p>
<p>Oh crap. </p>
<p>I think I’ve totally messed up my first semester here at McMaster. Mostly I’ve been in the 70s to 80s range in all my courses. I actually didn’t really understand how exactly to study for university papers until quite recently. Will this have a huge impact when I’m applying if I do well in the rest of my courses in the years to come? Of course, I’m being super hopeful here and assuming I don’t screw up courses again.</p>
<p>@Mactomit,
You’re a freshman, and the end of the semester is right around the corner. Start studying for finals, finish your papers, and stop worrying about where you’ll apply to grad school when you’re a senior.</p>
<p>Mactomit - you have to get your act together as quickly as possible; it doesn’t actually matter what happens at the beginning if you salvage it by the end, but you should have quite a consistent record of doing extremely well to get into any good school.</p>
<p>Okay so maybe I should just get everything together first before I start making huge plans 
Thanks everyone for your help and advice!</p>
<p>Hi, </p>
<p>I’m still studying at McMaster University. I was thinking about transferring to either the University of Toronto or the University of Waterloo for engineering because they are better known in Canada as being “top engineering” schools. Just wondering how big a role the school you did your undergrad at matters when applying to a school like MIT?</p>
<p>It’s not really directly about the school where you do your undergrad, it’s about the opportunities that school makes available to you. If you can excel academically while getting to know your professors well enough to get great recommendation letters and while pursuing meaningful research opportunities at McMaster, then you’re fine there. If those opportunities would be more plentiful or more interesting at UT or Waterloo, then that’s where you should be.</p>