<p>I did not like CPW (too much of just a frat party and trying far too hard to dispel the "geek school" myth). The people I met, the prefrosh and current students alike, were aloof and somewhat anti-social. However, I just got back from Princeton and I enjoyed it. I don't want to base my choice on a college visit but at Princeton was (somewhat) less partying, but rather more people willing to meet you and tell you about why they loved the school. MIT left a somewhat negative impression (with a large amount of people pulling all-nighters) but I'm trying to convince myself that CPW is not what MIT is usually like. How true is that statement? Thanks!</p>
<p>Tough call.</p>
<p>I will say that there is likely a group for every conceivable personality type at MIT.</p>
<p>Also, MIT is very social in terms of group study and other collaberations. This is due in part to the difficulty of the P-Sets (each person usually has unique strong points to offer the group).</p>
<p>Also, MIT does NOT rank it's students, so the "competition" factor is almost non-existent compared to most colleges. This makes for much happier group efforts in academics.</p>
<p>There are certainly "out on a limb" type people at MIT. But in over 20 years of employment at MIT, I have observed hundreds of students in research and employment positions and I have yet to meet one that did not have others to enjoy their down time with.</p>
<p>So if it is important that you have "many" freinds in school who are "just like you" or who "never" start P-Sets at 2 or 4 AM, maybe MIT is not for you.</p>
<p>However, if a few close freinds with similar interests among thousands of others with many common goals (but with different methods of achieving those goals) is acceptable....MIT should be a fit.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that unlike Princeton, MIT is within the Boston metropolitan area which boasts the most dense college student population in the world. So just a few steps outside of MIT, you can have great freinds at Harvard, BU, Northeastern, Boston College, or at any of another 100+ colleges within the public transportation sytem around Boston!</p>
<p>I personally liked CPW, but literally everyone I talked to was saying that "CPW is a lie." They kept stressing that they don't really have anywhere near that kind of free time normally. As far as how social the people are, did you stay around West or East campus? If you find a dorm/group of people who fit you well, I'm sure you'll be happy.</p>
<p><a href="with%20a%20large%20amount%20of%20people%20pulling%20all-nighters">quote</a>
[/quote]
It's true that people at MIT work hard, but I don't think I'd say "a large amount" of people are pulling all-nighters on a given night or weekend. (I personally haven't pulled an all-nighter since freshman year, and neither of the two all-nighters I've pulled here have been necessary.)</p>
<p>Somewhat ironically, I have a friend who chose MIT over Princeton explicitly because she felt that all Princeton students did on the weekend was drink beers. We certainly have people who drink beers on the weekends here, but we also have a lot of other diverse social groups.</p>
<p>Well in my opinion if you didn't get good vibes from school A but liked school B, then choose school B! Unless you have another strong reason to still go to school A, dispelling your first-hand impression of it and assuming that it's actually different from what you saw..... then that might be the case with school B also (maybe it's not as good as it seemed). So I would say, go for school B if you liked it better during the visit.</p>
<p>cpw is a break for current students, and it's a party for prospectives. that's all. we're showing you how we party. we're throwing you a party. it's our way of welcoming you to our school. you can't seriously expect us to keep that up all year long, every day all day. no way. </p>
<p>that said, if you felt more at home at princeton, you should probably go there. it's best not to come into a school like MIT with doubts.</p>
<p>Absolutely if you liked Princeton better, or felt more comfortable there, go to Princeton. It's all about the love, man.</p>
<p>People are posting about this on Matt's blog, so you might want to look there.</p>
<p>I think people need to separate out their impressions of CPW from their impressions of MIT. Some people enjoy big parties and meeting a lot of new people, and those people will probably enjoy CPW-type events wherever they are held. Other people enjoy socializing with people with whom they have more specific things in common or make friends while sharing a common interest, and those people might feel somewhat uncomfortable at CPW-type events. I suspect that given the amount of group work in classes and the participation in extra-curricular activities at MIT, people who are uncomfortable at big anonymous parties find people with shared interests at MIT and spend their free time with those people. In other words, the OP might ask himself/herself whether he/she found the party atmosphere of CPW uncomfortable or the MIT atmosphere of CPW uncomfortable and make decisions accordingly.</p>
<p>zxcvb06 I can't see any reason why you should have to talk yourself into a school, especially when the other school is also top ranked.</p>
<p>But, as another point of view, my son enjoyed CPW. He didn't spend all his time at frat houses but ate dinner one night, for instance, at the French House. There are other options if you look for them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
We certainly have people who drink beers on the weekends here
[/quote]
</p>
<p>o yes, i can attest to that :P
and many more stuff too</p>
<p>but anyway, by having a frat host i was a little more confined to boston area (across the bridge) than MIT's campus. e.g. i went to a lot of the parties, and not much other "regular" CPW events. I really wish I explored a bit more--there were certainly a lot to do, and most of mine were parties for some reason. I heard many others had a blast though.</p>
<p>I didn't like. I wasn't invited.</p>
<p>Hopefully I'll go next year. ;)</p>