<p>I am currently a junior at the Univ. of Illinois in Aerospace Engineering. I will not be applying to grad school til next year but I have already found what research area I want to work in. I'm interested in Human Factors Engineering applied to Flight Transportation. Apparently, MIT is pretty much the only school that has a sector like this within their Aero department unless i switch to Industrial Eng. which i don't want to do. I have good grades and excellent GRE scores which i took early. I just wanted to know if anyone has any inside information on graduate study in the Aero/Astro dept. at MIT? Courses, workload, intensity, etc? The reason I ask, is that two of my classmates from high school went to MIT for ugrad and have told me that grad school is easier and it is actually sometimes more prestigious to have an undergrad degree from MIT than an MS from MIT. I hardly doubt this is true but would welcome another opinion on it form someone who attends MIT as well. I would just like to know how grad school life at MIT would compare to grad life at UIUC. I was a bit surprised to find the acceptance rate to be 48% for Aero/Astro which i think is quite high. Of course, I know MIT loves to take MIT students more so i'm sure there is a disproportionate number of MIT vs. non-MIT applicants thus skewing that "high" acceptance rate. Anyway, I'd appreciate any feedback from anyone knowledgable in this matter. Thanks.</p>
<p>My fiance is an undergrad in the department right now, and is currently applying for the masters' program. You're right that there are a lot of MIT undergrads applying, and that they're basically all accepted. There are certainly spots for students from other schools, though.</p>
<p>My fiance says that grad students in the department are generally "about as happy as graduate students ever are." I don't think grad student life in general would vary too much between UIUC and MIT -- grad school isn't exactly a barrel of monkeys anywhere.</p>
<p>Many of the courses offered by the aero/astro department are joint grad/undergrad classes, so yes, it's proportionally somewhat more difficult to be an MIT undergrad than an MIT grad student.</p>
<p>If you'd like to PM me and ask about particular professors in the department, I'd be happy to ask my fiance for the dirt. :) The department's pretty small, so he knows all the faculty members and all the gossip, too.</p>
<p>my wife was an undergrad, masters, and now PhD candidate in the department. i am surprised that the masters acceptance rate is that high but one of the reasons may be the very high attrition from the masters program. only about a third of those who take qualifiers are allowed to stay for the PhD and the doctoral program is considerably smaller. terminal masters students generate a lot of extra tuition revenue for the university as well.</p>
<p>regardless, i think the discussion of whether undergrad or grad school is more difficult is a silly one. it, of course, depends. i will say that people's experience at MIT in general tends to vary very much by department (so take your former classmates advice with grains of salt) and also by lab affiliation. your best bet is to talk directly w people doing human factors stuff.</p>