(Just for some background, I want to major in math or physics, both of which are extremely strong at both schools.)
From what I’ve seen, MIT and UChicago are quite similar culture-wise. They are both very academically intense (“where fun goes to die” at UChicago, “IHTFP” and “drinking from a firehose” at MIT), they both have people more interested in doing cool things than making a lot of money, and they are both similarly-sized and both city schools. The people at both are usually described as “quirky” and “nerdy”. All this is leading me to believe that the main differences between the two are MIT’s emphasis on STEM and the differences between the campuses. Is that true?