<p>Hi everyone! I was accepted to both MIT and Harvey Mudd and am having a really hard time making a decision! I like that Harvey Mudd is closer to home, and I also got a 10,000 dollar a year merit scholarship (which is really nice because I don't qualify for financial aid). MIT, however, is bigger and has more diversity. Both seem pretty equal in terms of the education, so I guess I'm wondering what are some differences in environment/ research opportunities/ work load/etc... so if any current students or students who have had to/ are making similar decisions could give me some advice, that would be great! Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>I think that overall - more interesting stuff goes on at MIT. There are so many brilliant people there. Whether you’re really part of it is another case altogether. But the UROP thing is definitely what made me want to go to MIT.</p>
<p>You also will be living in Cambridge, where both Harvard and MIT are. And you’ll be adjacent to Boston - one of the greatest student cities in the world!</p>
<p>The best advice would probably be to visit both.</p>
<p>dancingmac - If possible, I STRONGLY suggest you visit both schools. They are so different. Both were on son’s initial list, but after visiting both, one came off. It was the only school of the 8 we visited that did. That being said, there was nothing wrong with the school, it was just a wrong fit for him.</p>
<p>If you can’t visit, then perhaps you can get a feel for the different environments by talking to some students on the phone, on their admitted students web sites, in other web site that interview students and of course, by reading cc posts. You can read the school’s sites, but remember that is marketing. </p>
<p>BTW, congrats.</p>
<p>One thing I’d definitely tell you, though, is that I myself wouldn’t take the $10,000 scholarship into consideration at all. Once you’ve graduated, that’s not too many dollars - and your education is an investment, not something you “pay” for.</p>
<p>Myself, I’m paying $30 000 a year (I get some scholarships), when I could’ve studied the most prestigious program in the highest ranked school in my own country where there are no tuition fees.</p>
<p>You can’t put a prize on a good education.</p>
<p>@FIMathMom - Really? I feel like Harvey Mudd is very similar in personality to MIT.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies! I’m going to both preview weekends in a little over a week.</p>
<p>@Piper</p>
<p>While Harvey Mudd maybe itself be similar to MIT, the fact that it is one of the 5C’s makes it very different. The ~6000 kids in Claremont, CA, make for a broader range of personality than at MIT. I don’t mean to say that MIT isn’t diverse, but at Mudd there are hundred of humanities majors around campus. I have a close friend at CMC who says that the consortium essentially is just one big college.</p>
<p>@dancingmac IMHO I think that the breadth of opportunities at MIT is much greater than at Harvey Mudd b/c MIT is bigger and has the power of its name. To each his own, though- if you would rather be in sunny CA and perhaps sleep occasionally then maybe Mudd is better for you. Definitely visit.</p>
<p>^ So, background: I live a couple miles down the road from the Claremont colleges, and regularly visit my friends there when I’m home. They definitely have an interesting big-school small-school feel (I wouldn’t call them “one big college”, but it’s an interesting dynamic). But as far as personality goes, Harvey Mudd seems to be/have the pockets of nerdness and many of the quirks MIT has.</p>
<p>MIT was my dream school and I was lucky enough to get my degree from there. My daughter visited both but attends a totally different school. </p>
<p>I would agree that they are very different colleges. </p>
<p>MIT is bigger and more research oriented. Can be a lot more impersonal at times. Lots to do around Boston and Cambridge as there are many colleges locally. </p>
<p>Harvey Mudd seemed more like a liberal arts college with a science bent. Weather is completely different.</p>
<p>You will get an excellent education at either one. Just visit them both and see which one’s style you like more.</p>
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<p>If I am not going crazy, I think MITChris used this description on CC for MIT once.</p>
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<p>True, but what if you are choosing between two good options?</p>
<p>There is no question that you are indeed choosing between two great options. But in the end it has to be what is right for you. You have to decide whether size of the school makes a difference to you – while Mudd is part of the 5Cs, your day to day classes and experiences will be with a smaller group of people. Then as everyone else says, the weather is big time different. Do you want to experience 4 seasons or mainly sun with a bit of rain thrown in on occasion? Also how important is being able to do things off campus? MIT has all of Boston in easy reach, Mudd is in the greater LA Metropolitan area and while there are things going on in Claremont, going to non-school related activities will not be as easy.</p>
<p>Enjoy both weekends, look at the things you liked, think about the things that made you wonder…why? and picture yourself there.</p>
<p>^ As far as doing interesting things nearby, you will not be able to explore much of LA if you/your friends don’t have access to a car. Something to keep in mind. Though many people at the 5C’s are from LA and thus have cars, so it probably won’t be a problem ^^</p>
<p>Nonetheless, <3 the T and the fact that Boston is so accessible.</p>
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<p>Sounds like a good advice even if that’s a lot of money to you now.</p>
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<p>Uh…I don’t think so. I mean, whatever MITChris may have said, I don’t think that’s an accurate picture of MIT. Just had a houseful of MIT seniors and recent graduates here, and this question came up as a topic of discussion: “Would MIT be a great choice for a student interested in a liberal arts major?” The consensus: No, not unless the student is also really interested in the STEM subjects. MIT has some great offerings in liberal arts subjects, but overall, the Institute is hard-core math/science/engineering. Not at all like a liberal arts college with a math department and a few science departments here and there. </p>
<p>At a liberal arts college, if you decide to give up on math & science and pursue English, you will blend in with a very large crowd. That sort of “melt” is fairly easy, because people around you aren’t pulling all-nighters trying to finish up physics and math problem sets. At MIT, everyone is working on physics and math problem sets as freshmen, and almost everyone faces a time of pretty intense struggle. </p>
<p>A couple of years ago, I had a conversation with a sixty-year-old judge who had majored in physics at MIT. However, he had apparently lost interest in physics after two years, and wished he could major in history. The way he told the story, it would have been very difficult for him to drop physics and take up history at MIT. So he simply endured. When he told me this, I explained that I didn’t think MIT was this way any more. After all, I’d heard admissions officers talking up the liberal arts departments. His response: “I doubt if it has changed.” Later I recounted this conversation to my MIT physics-major daughter and some of her friends, and their reaction was: “Yeah, that guy was right. It’s still that way, too.” </p>
<p>Caveat: This conversation included representatives from courses 8, 18, and 6, so that may have skewed things a bit. And they’re all going on in those fields, which may have skewed things further. Although … my brother-in-law says MIT was that way when he attended in the early 1970s. I don’t think things have really changed very much.</p>
<p>My take: The culture of MIT is like a coin with two faces. On one side, you have the support of everyone else around you who is also struggling up a tough mountain, and so if you’re sometimes tempted to give up, MIT’s student culture will provide a huge incentive to stick to your course. On the other hand, if you really end up hating the STEM subjects, you’ll be part of a small minority there. I see the strengths as outweighing the weaknesses, though. When I taught at Stanford, students used to talk about how many came in as pre-med, then simply gave it up in a year or two. It’s hard to keep your focus when everyone else in the dorm has relatively little homework and apparently far more free time.</p>
<p>@mathboy - </p>
<p>You’re not crazy. I have indeed said “MIT thinks of itself as a liberal arts school with a sci/tech bent.” And I was quoting the dean of admissions there. </p>
<p>I mean…I know nothing about Harvey Mudd. I don’t think MIT is a liberal arts school in the sense that, say, Amherst is a liberal arts school (although, speaking personally as a UMass alum, I hate Amherst, so that’s also good). </p>
<p>But Chris S, one of our bloggers, is a history major going in to med school. Pkoms, another student worker for us, is a poli sci / econ kid. They have a lot of friends. They’re very “MIT-ey.” Heck, the kid who is in the Tim the Beaver costume much of the time is a HASS major. </p>
<p>My sense is this: things have changed since that judge was here. And even the HASS kids still have to have a certain streak of MIT-ey-ness to them. So no, MIT isn’t a liberal arts school in the sense that some other schools are. It doesn’t have that feel of people in oaken rooms wearing tweed and talking about Virgil. But I do think that a lot of people get a lot of good out of our liberal arts curriculum, and that those who are a cultural match for MIT are just as home as their STEM counterparts.</p>
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<p>Wow, I’m really surprised. I think the world already has more than its share of liberal arts schools. Speaking as an MIT parent, I’m sorry to hear that MIT admissions is now thinking of MIT as “a liberal arts school with a sci/tech bent.”</p>
<p>Susan Hockfield, MIT’s president, doesn’t depict MIT this way. Certainly the humanities play a role at MIT, but the overall focus is on the natural sciences and engineering. This is from MIT’s website, here: <a href=“Welcome | MIT's 16th President | Susan Hockfield”>Welcome | MIT's 16th President | Susan Hockfield;
<p>Message from the President</p>
<p>MIT has a distinctive mission and history that set us apart from other universities. When the Institute was established 150 years ago, science had essentially no impact on the curriculum that was followed by most American university students. Our first President, William Barton Rogers, envisioned a new kind of academic institution-one that could, as he put it, “serve the times and the nation’s needs.”</p>
<p>Those principles have served us well, and today our work - in engineering, the natural and social sciences, the humanities and the arts - reaches people the world over. The Institute community extends far beyond campus, embracing international partners and more than 100,000 alumni around the globe.</p>
<p>I believe the world has never needed MIT as much as it does now. The major challenges of our age are increasingly shaped by science and technology, and by daunting problems of quantitative analysis and complex synthesis. With MIT’s expertise in interdisciplinary problem-solving, the Institute has a unique opportunity, and a deep obligation, to make a critical difference - by creating the innovations, fueling the economy, and educating the leaders the world needs now.</p>
<p>In addressing these needs, we draw on an unwavering drive toward excellence, a spirit of innovation, a culture of collaboration, and a commitment to making an MIT education accessible to all who have the talents and ambition to benefit from our programs.</p>
<p>Susan Hockfield
16th President of MIT</p>
<p>I’m just telling you what I heard. </p>
<p>And I think “liberal arts” has two meanings. Most commonly it is used to refer to less-quantitative reading-and-writing heavy “soft” subjects. </p>
<p>But historically, “liberal arts education” has meant broad, general education (as opposed to a trade or vocational or professional education, specializing, to different degrees, in particular subject areas). Courses in mathematics, geometry, and (historically) astronomy were grouped under the liberal arts curriculums of old. </p>
<p>I think that is what the Dean meant, and it’s not exclusive with what President Hockfield said. </p>
<p>I mean, my brothers are at another engineering school. And they don’t really get to take classes outside of their engineering curriculum. But at MIT you get the HASS-D requirement, and a full years worth of credit hours from HASS classes. There aren’t a lot of engineering schools that allow you to take 25% of your classes in HASS subjects. </p>
<p>So I think when we talk about MIT being a liberal arts school we mean that it isn’t just a place where you go to learn a trade of a particular sort of engineering or math or science. It’s a place where you go to be broadly educated in a variety of quantitative and qualitative fields, so that when you graduate you can communicate as well as you can compute.</p>
<p>MIT would allow me to do way more liberal arts than I could at Cornell Engineering (at UF Engineering, I would take the same # but with a summer term and fifth year tacked on).</p>
<p>Only thing I dislike is the HASS Concentration. I understand that it provides depth, but I would prefer to focus on breadth for my lib arts (I like so many!).</p>
<p>But, MIT does have a great poli sci dept, and I plan on concentrating there, and it is very inclusive (it easily includes history, sociology, social anthropology (maybe even cultural), economics, and philosophy) I call this a win :D</p>
<p>But historically, “liberal arts education” has meant broad, general education (as opposed to a trade or vocational or professional education</p>
<p>Yes, this was the impression I had. And this is why I interjected when another poster gave this description to HMC. I think at HMC there is a substantial humanities req, a core requiring plenty of math, some physics, CS, chem, bio of frosh, and the engineering major is a single thing rather than split into EE, MechE, etc, although it is emphasized by students there that you can specialize using your classes. But indeed they also foster a rounded education in addition to giving the chance to specialize. </p>
<p>Glad I wasn’t going crazy :)</p>
<p>I would not say HMC is the liberal arts school that, say Amherst or Williams is. It is very hardcore about math/science and engineering, and someone who wanted to do history would need to survive the core (this is directed at CalAlum’s post partially at least, in reaction to the story about how someone ended up finding it hard to avoid science at MIT). In fact, HMC would experience insane self selection in applicants, given workload competes with that of Caltech, and it is even less well known…so I would anticipate people entering know they will endure some pretty tough math and science.</p>
<p>Uh…I don’t think so. I mean, whatever MITChris may have said, I don’t think that’s an accurate picture of MIT. Just had a houseful of MIT seniors and recent graduates here, and this question came up as a topic of discussion: “Would MIT be a great choice for a student interested in a liberal arts major?” The consensus: No, not unless the student is also really interested in the STEM subjects. MIT has some great offerings in liberal arts subjects, but overall, the Institute is hard-core math/science/engineering</p>
<p>To be clear, I think all of this is true of HMC too. Which is why I believe, under some interpretation of Chris’s words, the description of ‘liberal arts school’ is a common rather than distinguishing one, from what I hear. Of course I attend neither of these schools and am just commenting.</p>