<p>datalook, to answer your question, you are telling kids they should attend Stanford because they have a better chance of making significant achievments in science and technology. I think this is incorrect.</p>
<p>Because this forum is primarily geared toward people considering undergraduate institutions, I emphasized undergrad achievement. </p>
<p>Also, in my experience Stanford graduate students in science are not that different from MIT's graduate students. However, the undergrads at MIT tend to be smarter in science and math than their counterparts at Stanford. Stanford does get some smart people, but intellect is not nearly as important a selection criteria for Stanford as it is at MIT. This is especially true in bio and chem, where they tend to get a lot of people who are pretty smart premeds but who do not particularly value originality or creativity. (Instead, their emphasis is being active in the community, volunteer work, etc.) Stanford does recruit a lot of brilliant undergrads in comp. science, though.</p>
<h2>If you really want to compare the aluminus, I think an apple to apple comparison would be look at the number of alumnus in both schools majored in science and engineering plus economics before 1970, and then calculate a Nobel prize winner percentage. If you do that, the result will be more interesting. you might already know MIT had graduated a lot lot more people than Stanford in these fields before 1970. </h2>
<p>We don't really graduate that many people in the pure sciences as you might think, so I don't think it would be that different. The engineering people are not going to win the Nobel Prize, so they should not be included. Still, I would think any comparison would favor the MIT undergrads, even if you cut off at 1970 and compare only the science majors.</p>
<p>SAT I/II scores, % of entering class in top 10%, percentage and number of science majors who win the nobel prize or are elected to the national academy of science. Take your pick.</p>
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datalook: Why only undergraduates? why not graduates? why not facultyand staff?
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<p>Hell, why not janitors, especially the ones that solve problems posted on blackboards and get chased away by math profs? Wait... those are only at MIT...</p>
<p>Stanford and MIT are both great schools. Arguments about which is better could go on forever...but I'm going to address the original question: why would a student choose MIT over Stanford? I would have been thrilled if my daughter had chosen Stanford (or Berkeley, or any school here in California). She had attended several residential summer programs at Stanford and really enjoyed the campus and everyone she met there. But the undergraduate campus culture of Stanford and MIT are not at all the same, and she fell in love with MIT. Perhaps she'll come back to Stanford for graduate school. :)</p>