Hello.
I’ve recently been accepted to some amazing schools which has made my commitment decision relatively difficult. I’ve already narrowed down the list from Princeton/Caltech/MIT/Stanford due to cost-of-attendance and location/fit of the other two colleges. I’ve read about the student cultures at MIT/Stanford, but a lot of the discussion I’ve found is surrounding Course 6/Computer science or EE and that doesn’t interest me much if at all (sorry to all the amazing CS students!)
As stated in the title, I’m interested in a Course 20/Bioengineering into graduate school (PhD or MDPhD) track, with an emphasis on research not medicine, though medicinal research is perfectly fine with me. I’ve looked into faculty, and in the specific field I’d like to focus on they’re both very good. Because of this, if anyone could provide insight into the nuances of what it’s like being a Bioengineering major at either of these universities, that would be great. Any insight into the ease of landing lab jobs while an undergrad and getting into grad school would be appreciated. Having spoken to Stanford undergrads at conferences before, I got the impression from them that landing a research position as an undergrad was hyper-competitive at Stanford; that doesn’t seem to be the case at MIT, but I would really like the perspective of more than two students.
I’m not interested in start-ups, and I’m pretty much a standard nerd. I still have to visit both campuses, and I do think that’ll help me decide; however, I’d like to discuss the choices within the context of my major in case I’ve missed something important while doing my research.
Thank you all.