<p>I'm a rising junior and I'm in the process of looking at and comparing different schools. I'm really torn between MIT (or a similar school like Cal Tech or Harvey Mudd) and liberal art schools like Williams, Carleton, etc. As of now I plan on majoring in physics and I would like to eventually go into academia. I know that MIT has more in the way of research opportunities, advanced courses, and amazing faculty than it's liberal art counterpart, however I'm worried about a couple of things:</p>
<p>1) I love the fact that the student body is made up of brilliant people who love science. However, I worry that because there are so many amazing students I would not get the personal relationships with professors. While at Williams there are only like 40 physics majors.</p>
<p>2) I have heard that MIT is somewhat different, but wouldn't a lot of the professors rather spend their time with grad students? While at a liberal art school there aren't any grad students. </p>
<p>3) Also, while I love the scientific culture of MIT I'm not sure I want to go to a school where everybody is into science. I mean what about English, and History majors?</p>
<p>4) I'm really not sure if I want a larger school (MIT) or small school Williams. I like the idea of community that many smaller schools seem to have, however at the same time I like the diversity (not just racial) that larger schools offer.</p>
<p>Anyways, I'm still a long way from deciding which I really want in a school, so any thoughts/comments/suggestions/etc would be appreciated!</p>
<p>Hmmmm have you visited MIT? To go there I think you would probably have to love everything about it pretty much…if you want to enjoy your time there. </p>
<p>It seems from what you said that you definitely want a closer community and easily accessible professors. I think that Williams would thus be a really good choice. You won’t see any history majors wandering around MIT :)</p>
<p>From what you’ve mentioned it seems like maybe a liberal arts college would be a better match. And I might note that although HMC is listed as a liberal arts college, it is DEFINITELY more on the mathematics side. </p>
<p>That’s good that you’re starting the search so early! I am an incoming junior as well. :)</p>
<p>1) The physics department has ~60 students/year. While you probably won’t get close to GIR professors, after your first year your class sizes will be quite small. UROPs also seem to be good ways to build relationships with professors.</p>
<p>2) You would think so, wouldn’t you? And I’m sure it happens to some degree. I’m currently in my first UROP, and I was shocked by how much personal attention I was getting from the PI and how focused he was on me having a fulfilling experience. I’ve heard similar things from friends of mine who have UROPs.</p>
<p>3) HASS majors are on the rarer side - but there are many people who minor in HASSes and many more who just plain love HASSes. Physics majors who take tons of theater, programmers who take lots of philosophy, biologist like me who love music and anthropology. You won’t be alone in being a HASS-lover :D.</p>
<p>4) I went to a high school with 200 kids per class (about the same as Caltech). I took some time off from MIT and attended Calstate LA, which has about 4000 people per class. MIT itself has about 1000 people per class. I really feel like I have the best of both worlds here - 200 is just too small to offer the variety of clubs and activities I want to explore during these four years, while 4000 just made me feel lost in the crowd. I thought MIT would be way too big at 1000, but somehow it seems to work out. You won’t know everyone in your class, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find community. Living groups often become a very close-knit community, and there’s quite a range in personality (read more about rush/REX). There are other opportunities in learning communities (like ESG or Concourse), clubs, majors, etc.</p>
<p>A big difference between the feel of MIT and Calstate LA, I think, was the fact that at the end of the day, Calstate LA students went home. At MIT, where 97% of us live either on campus or in an FSILG, we stick around and do things together.</p>
<p>Piper did a really good job of addressing your concerns. I would just like to add a few points. </p>
<p>1)You mentioned that you would like to go into academia and that basically entails research, and MIT gives you an EXCELLENT opportunity to do so. I’m sure you’ve heard about the UROP program where undergrads get time to do research (and not just working in a lab, RESEARCH). Around 85% of students end up doing SOME UROP by the time they graduate. I don’t think you would get that big of a number at another school. Also, around 20% of the students are published or in the process of being published by the time they graduate, which is VERY impressive for grad schools. Heck, I have a friend who is about to get a 3rd authorship on a paper before she EVEN STARTS SOPHOMORE YEAR! </p>
<p>2)Don’t think that you’ll get to meet professors ONLY in classroom settings. More likely, you’re going to get to know them through your labwork or as your advisers. Some faculty even live in the dorms as housemasters! Also, a lot of faculty supervise clubs. I’m part of MUBA (MIT Undergraduate Biochemistry Association) and we have Professor Cathy Drennan (chemistry and biology as well as Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor) as our Faculty Adviser. Faculty at MIT are really easy to approach. Often times, clubs will have faculty dinners and you can meet them in the casual setting and get to know them in person. It’s a great opportunity! (I’ve been to three of these and have been at MIT for only a year).</p>
<p>3)While MIT IS an institute of technology, we still have humanities/social sciences majors. In fact, management is our second most popular major. I also know lots of people who major in Economics/Political Science. While you don’t really get English or History majors here, MIT requires that everyone takes 8 semester of HASS (humanities, Arts, social sciences) classes at MIT (including 2 communications intensive ones) to make sure you’re up to par with your writing/communication skills. This way, you’re not only a scientist, but one that is able to effectively communicate ideas.</p>
<p>4)I feel like you find your own community here at MIT whether it’s through your dorm, an organization, or a “pset group.” Seriously, I don’t feel that MIT is really that big. Your community is what you make it to be. I’ve never had such as close circle of friends as I do at MIT and I know that this circle will stay with me for the rest of my life.</p>
<p>5)It doesn’t hurt to at least APPLY right? If you enjoy the sciences, you should apply! If you get in, come to CPW and let us show you what we’re about! :] Good luck!</p>
<p>Re: #2: If you want to go into academia, you’re going to have to be a grad student yourself someday. Don’t you think it that in that case it would be beneficial to get to meet, work with, befriend, and talk to grad students? To find out what their work and their lives are like, and get accustomed to the sort of tasks that they do? I’m not saying to do this to the exclusion of interacting with professors, obviously, since they are also what you want to be someday, but the grad students are your more immediate future.</p>
As a grad student, I find this sort of puzzling. Grad students and undergrads have very different roles on campus and for a faculty advisor, and at a school like MIT, nobody gets neglected in favor of somebody else. From a faculty member’s point of view, both graduate students and undergraduates are trainees, and their job is to make both types of students into scientists or engineers.</p>
<p>As an undergrad at MIT, I met with my UROP advisor to talk about my project, my classes (he was also my faculty advisor), and my graduate school plans. I also had some other professors with whom I was comfortable, and could drop in their offices and discuss classes and grad school. As a graduate student, I work in the lab of one specific professor, and he’s basically the only faculty member with whom I interact. I guess I get more time with him each week than I did with my UROP advisor when I was an undergrad, but I’m also spending a lot more time in the lab – per hour spent in lab, I definitely saw my UROP advisor more.</p>
<p>I think that graduate students are often set up as the enemies of undergrads by LAC boosters, and I think that’s unfair. Grad students and undergrads fill different roles on campus, and are basically never in direct competition with each other. In contrast, grad students and undergrads often work collaboratively together in labs.</p>
<p>Mollie - you make an excellent point. I had never thought of it that way before… Maybe its just a high school thing, but my teachers are more open with the smarter students. I know there are people at MIT whom I will never be close to intellectually, so I was wondering if professors “favor” these people. I don’t want it to sound like a competition I’m just worried about being “out shined” to a point where professors would rather spend their time with the smarter students. Also I didn’t ask this in my first post, but is the environment at MIT stressful? I know that MIT’s courses are very demanding and that your personal level of stress depends on how you deal with it, but are other MIT students always stressed out? </p>
<p>The thing is, if you get into MIT, you are without a doubt, SMART. Professors know that and they don’t judge their UROP students that way. Rather, they expect you to do high caliber work/research BECAUSE you are smart. Also, professors don’t seek out “smart” students to work in their lab. YOU seek the professors out. You have to have initiative in contacting professors and asking for a job in their lab. </p>
<p>MIT is definitely hard, but that doesn’t mean that people are stressed out all the time. I have had IHTFP moments on both ends of the spectrum. There are weeks when I just want to pull my hair out and weeks I feel really at ease. I think this is probably true at any college. After all, you’re expected to learn and grow there, no lounge around. Granted, MIT is probably harder than most other schools but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a supportive environment. Students usually love helping each other figure out problems and there are always the GRTs (Graduate Resident Tutors, basically grad students that live in the undergrad dorms that guid undergrads) to turn to for help. While MIT is HARD, I think what you get out of your experience here is worth it.</p>
<p>Well frutiaspice your posts did a fabulous of addressing my concerns! I probably need to visit before I decide on a “top” choice, but MIT is even more attracting to me now. One last question: I’m a bit confused by MIT’s EA program. On their site they say that the majority of the students aren’t accepted nor rejected, but deferred to regular decision. So do they only accept geniuses EA? And if so would it be better just to wait and apply RD? Basically, why would you apply EA vs RD?</p>
<p>To give you an outsider (but math/science enthusiast’s) perspective on this, I’ll say that at a certain point, “smarter” matters only so much. Almost anyone who is an undergraduate has tons and tons to learn, and lots of growing to do to really get to the point of doing great things in the future as a mathematician, scientist, engineer, etc. There is a place for many intelligent people in the world to think about various different things, because these fields are all exceptionally vast. So the answer to your question is that if you’re actively trying to learn from the professors, they’ll be happy to share with you, I imagine. And as an enthusiastic student, there’s no reason you can’t read things and talk to your professors about them, and even teach them something new. (Of course, don’t make that your goal :).) “Smarter” is a high school thing, i.e. there’s a decent chance that if you’re at MIT, your high school class thought you were the “smartest person they’d met” or something. When people go on to take on careers, really there’re a whole lot of factors that go into success, most of them not exactly being how “smart” you are, but more how much you want to succeed, and how much energy you have to do what is necessary.</p>
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<p>I made a post about why students at some tech schools may be more stressed out than their counterparts at other schools, in the “mentally ill” thread. The short answer is that I think that it’s stressful to invest deeply in something you love, even if the “something” is broadly math/science/engineering. And if many around you are very focused on somewhat similar things, it can be mentally wearing to be around them (because being around them might remind you constantly about all the tough stuff you have on your head), even if they’re delightful, friendly people who are out to make you feel good. To enjoy a school like MIT, I would guess you have to be the type of person for whom the benefit of having a community that thinks in some sense alike to you heavily outweighs the “problem” I mentioned. </p>
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<p>I’m sure if Mollie says so, the conditions will be fine at MIT; the reason that other schools’ professors may favor their graduate students, however, is that professors often are mainly interested in talking to people who’re trying to become researchers. A page I have read, which helps graduate students choose advisors (I think it might have been specific to math grad students) says to be careful if the advisor has a history of knowing his/her stuff about non-academic positions, and being open to the idea of the student looking at them. It feels like any professor who’s not a total grouch would help undergraduates who’re looking to become researchers, and show some promise, but they might not be interested in undergraduates broadly speaking. It seems natural to me that a professor might be more interested in working with graduate students, and in fact I’m sure at many schools outside of MIT, this is why the norm is that professors favor grad students. At MIT, however, the student body is probably specifically passionate and energetic about working with the professors, so they’re more likely to be receptive. Most professors really like student enthusiasm, it’s just that a grad student having actually signed up for 5 years of narrow study might win brownie points with the professor in terms of being convicingly enthusiastic!</p>
<p>I don’t necessarily disagree, but the way I’ve seen it at MIT (and Harvard also) is that professors understand and embrace the idea that they wear many hats: research grant writer, teacher, advisor to graduate students, advisor to undergrads, member of various committees, head lab idea-generator, funder of lab parties, etc. They do lots and lots and lots of things, and if they’re good enough to be professors at Harvard or MIT, they will do whatever they need to do to get all of it done, because not getting it all done isn’t an option. </p>
<p>Educating undergraduates is an institutional priority at a school like MIT, and professors appreciate that. (It seems to me that they actually do appreciate it, and aren’t merely forced to appreciate it.)</p>
<p>Right, I think this derives largely from the fact that MIT is a very special kind of school. The “experts” seem to have suggested that undergrads are picked out not even mainly for their intelligence, but for their commitment to certain ideals valued by the school, along with evidence of talent to protect such ideals. They may just be naturally more what professors are looking for. Most importantly, I don’t think it’s the goal of MIT to have a class full of typical preprofessional types. That is, a professor might not be hounded with premeds who want to do research with him/her just to get a recommendation letter and make it to medical school. </p>
<p>Just putting myself in their shoes, if I were a professor at my own school, I’d probably shun undergraduates to an extent too, with of course a bunch of exceptions. And no, I’m not a horrible elitist or anything.</p>
<p>spratley, my daughter could have written your post a year ago. She ended up going ED at Williams and will start there this fall. It took a lot of soul searching but ultimately she felt she would be more comfortable in a smaller environment for undergrad. She definitely went through a letting-go process with MIT as she had had a very nice visit there. Perhaps she’ll end up there for grad school some day.</p>
<p>Either choice can be an ideal situation for someone wanting to study math/science. Visit if you can.</p>
Why not? If your application is finished in time, you can apply EA. Then if you are admitted, yippee. That might or might not save you some time with finalising your other school applications. If you are deferred to RD, then that is what you expected, and you haven’t lost anything in the process.</p>
<p>As to fit, the visit is very important, if you can afford it. Spend time on campus, attend classes in your major, and classes in for example Russian poetry. Explore. See if you feel comfortable. That is the most important thing. You are picking a home for four years.</p>
<p>My son applied EA, was accepted, and is about to start his sophomore year at MIT. Actually, he applied to three schools EA and was accepted at all three. The EA option is terrific because, if accepted, the “pressure is off” for the rest of your senior year. He was able to learn for learning’s sake, visit campus, and not agonize over his future for a few extra months. Obviously, the ED option is different (not available at MIT anyway); EA really has no downside (except for getting the application done earlier) and lots of upside.</p>
<p>What I’m thinking right now is that I would apply EA to both MIT and Chicago. Then I could visit later after I know if I even got accepted - or should I try to visit before I apply?</p>
<p>If you can visit both places before making your final decision, I’d suggest it. Before applying, though, it’s less relevant unless you think it could make the difference between applying or not applying (as opposed to which to rank first if you get into both).</p>
<p>In general, you should try to visit as many schools as possible to get a “feel” for campus life. I’ve tried to take each of my kids to multiple schools before application decisions are received, because it’s harder to make a decision “under the gun” once you have a decision deadline. However, virtual tours can substitute, and some like to visit the top two schools accepted to in April (when many schools have accepted students “fairs”).</p>