I am under the impression that you are not allowed to double-major at Princeton, right? Also I agree the sheer rigor if MIT makes double majoring a reasonable possibility only for super exceptional students.
If cost is a concern, Princeton.
If cost not a concern, MIT. (But if you were just focusing on CS and didn’t care so much about Econ, I’d say Caltech as first choice. Did you apply to Mudd? Cuz you could do CS there plus econ at Pomona.)
I’d recommend writing MIT and asking if they’ll match Princeton’s FA offer.
Admittedly not familiar with the others, but the research opportunities at MIT are vast! Check out their UROP and Misti programs.
What are you looking for in social life? I’m guessing Vanderbilt for traditional sports an Greek life.
@Senior2016M Yeah, I used IDOC and scanned all the forms that it said were required for all of my schools, so now we’re just waiting for responses from Harvard and MIT.
@acron611 Thanks for the input! The school I come from is also cutthroat so I have a little bit of experience with what you’re talking about with Princeton, but I honestly think I’ll be fine academically wherever I end up (although it probably would be easier to graduate cum laude from Vanderbilt than from Princeton).
@Penn95 I probably just do a minor in Econ at this point, but I may end up just doing CS. I mean my plans for majoring are not concrete yet but I am leaning heavily towards CS.
@insanedreamer We’ve already contacted MIT and now we are waiting for a response.
@nw2this My demands for social life aren’t very serious, but the main thing is that if the school has a party culture or anything like that, I would like to be able to NOT be part of it and still feel at home at the school. In terms of Greek life, I’m not terribly fond of it (and my parents are completely against it), but I like the sense of community that I saw when I visited Rice with the residential colleges, which were basically frats without all the stereotypical frat stuff.
There is an interdisciplinary research field called “Computational Economics” that you might want to check out and see if you find that it is interesting and whether or not any of these schools have implemented coursework or undergrad programs in this space. It basically applies computer modeling to economic game theory using some techniques borrowed from engineering. You might be able to design your own program in the context of applied mathematics or a CS major and Econ Minor. Princeton, Harvard and MIT all have researchers in this area. Here are some links to get you started.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_economics
http://www.pacm.princeton.edu/undergrad
https://www.seas.harvard.edu/programs/applied-mathematics
http://news.mit.edu/2016/faculty-profile-constantinos-daskalakis-0204
@Mastadon Thanks for the links! They were really insightful.
I finally decided that I would go to Harvard. They got back to me on financial aid after the scholarship money, Harvard turns out to be cheaper to attend than Princeton at about $16000/yr. Plus, my brother is going to law school there in the fall so at least I’ll have some family over there. Thank you guys for all your suggestions and support!
Sounds like Harvard is the best deal. Note that Harvard and MIT have cross enrollment, so you can take courses at MIT.
Boston is a great place to go to school - best of luck!