<p>So I have done a good deal of reading about MIT, Cal Tech, and Harvey Mudd, however I would appreciate it if students/alumni could explain what they see as the non-trivial advantages/disadvantages/things to consider about each school. For instance Im not sure if a bigger school, like MIT, or a smaller school, Mudd/Cal Tech, would be best for me what do you see as the advantages/disadvantages of each? Furthermore, I know all three of the schools are excellent and rigorous however could any of the three be considered harder than the others? Also please comment on any other important differences between the schools. Thanks for the info!</p>
<p>See my post about Berkeley in the thread about HMC v. Berkeley under HMC’s forums. A lot of what applies to Berkeley applies to MIT, actually. MIT’s student population and culture may be different, but the schools are acclaimed for quite similar fields, and to similar degrees. Many of the assets of MIT that contrast with those of Mudd do so similarly.</p>
<p>Beyond that, for the student culture, ask the students and alumni, and also visit.</p>
<p>In particular, I think while all three of these are very hard, Caltech for instance offers less outside of maths and science and engineering. And some are more rigid in terms of their curricula’s actual requirements than others.</p>
<p>I think CalTech is probably the hardest school around. MIT is really hard, though. I don’t know much about Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>Bad grade deflation at all 3 places. High academic level of student body at all 3 places as well, though MIT and Caltech are a bit stronger. </p>
<p>One alumni of Harvey Mudd told me that, at least in one class, if they didn’t get above a certain score on the homework you had to keep re-doing it. At MIT and Caltech, they would not pay attention. So, there is a lot more individual attention at Harvey Mudd I would think, especially from the profs themselves. </p>
<p>Caltech and Harvey Mudd, I’d imagine, are communities in which everyone knows each other. You can kind of get lost at MIT.</p>
<p>Research opportunities are more diverse and more cutting edge at Caltech and MIT, but this is not the most important consideration for undergrad research experience. </p>
<p>Weather is better for the California schools. And most people think the campus at Caltech is better than MIT’s. </p>
<p>There is more of a theoretical emphasis at Caltech, though this doesn’t necessarily make it harder. It depends on your talents.</p>
<p>Personally I favor a “theoretical emphasis” - could you explain how Caltech has more of a theoretical approach? Also, after reading a good deal of the posts here on CC I have sort of gotten the impression that a lot of students hate Caltech and Harvey Mudd while they’re at them, but later appreciate how much they have learned. On the other hand, and this is largely due to the blogs, MIT students seem like they thoroughly enjoy themselves while they’re still students. Is this just a misconception, or is it fairly accurate?</p>
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<p>It wasn’t true when I was there, but I graduated 10 years ago. </p>
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<p>Well, there are more theoretical physics/math requirements the first 2 years at Caltech compared to MIT. Partly, its just the culture of the students. In contrast, there is more of a drive toward starting up a company at MIT. The students themselves may have had similar values when they left for college, but you can kind of get sucked into the value system. </p>
<p>I was fairly interested in theory as a high school student, taking group theory and number theory as a high school student, but when I got to MIT my interests broadened and also became more applied. I think this is more typical at MIT than at Caltech.</p>
<p>collegealum314, you didn’t enjoy your stay at MIT?</p>
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<p>Part of Caltech’s core required curriculum includes, I believe, a quantum mechanics course, and also a course in calculus using Apostol’s more theoretical book. </p>
<p>MIT has the option to get as theoretical as you want in terms of course offerings, but as collegealum says, the requirements at Caltech reflect that the students may be more uniformly theoretically inclined.</p>
<p>Well I really hate school right now, and I would like college to be different - that is I would like to really enjoy college. Now this doesn’t mean I don’t want to do hard work - in fact the main reason I hate high school is the trivial uninteresting nature of it. However, I don’t want to be so overloaded that I can only focus on getting the next assignment done. Furthermore, I think that the social aspect of college is quite important if one is to truly enjoy their time there. Other than the differences in size what are the main differences between these school’s student bodies?</p>
<p>@spratleyj,
Since no student I’ve seen here has attended all three, you are asking for information we don’t really have. Maybe there’s another way to approach this. You could list the kinds of experiences you’d like to have in college and then ask, “How likely am I to have these experiences at this school?” on each of the three boards.</p>
<p>Example (I’m using the criteria I recall from my daughter’s mental list when she visited all three schools – these are HERS, not yours):</p>
<ol>
<li>Exposure to outstanding physics and engineering professors and students.</li>
<li>Chance to do research in as many different areas as I like.</li>
<li>Join a student community where there are artists, musicians, actors, dancers, budding architects, film-makers, athletes – all of whom are math/science nerdy like me.</li>
<li>Chance to live in a completely different part of the country.</li>
<li>Chance to live in an area where I can explore/hike/travel to new and different sorts of environments.</li>
<li>Learn in the most challenging math/science environment possible so that I can really come to understand how “good I am” and be able to make a realistic decision about whether to go on in science, or become an engineer.</li>
<li>Join a math-science community where there is a critical mass of other females.</li>
</ol>
<p>See, given that list, I think that it was pretty clear she’d end up at MIT, given the choice.</p>
<p>Okay - I see what you’re saying CalAlum.</p>
<p>Here is a rough idea of what I want - ranked in terms of importance</p>
<ol>
<li><p>A group of peers who are extremely intellectually skilled and curious (especially math/physics)</p></li>
<li><p>A group of peers who enjoy college and life in general, and who aren’t socially awkward =) </p></li>
<li><p>A school which offers an environment (namely classes) in which students are extraordinarily challenged because of the quality, not quantity of work. This includes very challenging intro courses, as well as access to advance (grad) courses. (especially math/physics) </p></li>
<li><p>A faculty who are experts in there fields, as well as quality teachers, who care deeply about their students. </p></li>
<li><p>A school which is in a different region of the country (all three of these schools fit this catogery) </p></li>
</ol>
<p>All in all I would like to learn, rigorously, about the fundamentals of all subjects: biology, chemistry, humanities, etc. Then I would like to have access to even more challenging and interesting physics/math courses. Furthermore, I would like my interest/ability to be somewhere towards the median of the student body.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>
I think there’s a balance at MIT – people are loving it and hating it all at once (see: IHTFP). The blogs aren’t inaccurate, but they only rarely show people at their very unhappiest, just because it really isn’t all that comfortable to talk about those kinds of things to an audience of non-MIT students. </p>
<p>I can’t speak to Harvey Mudd or Caltech in your list of criteria, but MIT absolutely fits your list. Are you going to visit any of the three schools at their respective visit weekends?</p>
<ol>
<li>A group of peers who are extremely intellectually skilled and curious (especially math/physics)</li>
</ol>
<p>There are definitely living groups/clubs etc… at MIT where getting an overdose of math/physics atmosphere is fairly easy. I think we crack more math physics jokes spontaneously than anything else. If you are going to take those intense math/physics sequences, you’ll definitely get to know a lot of people with similar interests. It’s MIT after all. Also, I’ll point out that with regard to math/physics, there’s a certain quirkiness involved, at least where I hang out/live.</p>
<ol>
<li>A group of peers who enjoy college and life in general, and who aren’t socially awkward =)</li>
</ol>
<p>Enjoying college/life at MIT can be graphed as a periodic fn. Basically, local minimums will occur around midterms & finals. Social awkwardness has lots of forms… It definitely depends on your living group. THe cool part about MIT is that you get to choose your living group, and since there is such a variety of choices, I’m sure you’ll find a close to perfect fit.</p>
<ol>
<li>A school which offers an environment (namely classes) in which students are extraordinarily challenged because of the quality, not quantity of work. This includes very challenging intro courses, as well as access to advance (grad) courses. (especially math/physics)</li>
</ol>
<p>I think the coolest thing at MIT is how much liberty you get to shape your education. Want to audit that awesome Quantum field theory class as a frosh? Go ahead. Want to take 8 classes as a sophomore? Sure. You can also add a class up to 1 month after class started. And prereq’s are not “required”, in the sense that they are guidelines. You basically get to challenge yourself as much as you want to. No one will forbid you (maybe you’ll get some warnings from your advisor if you haven’t been performing well). I haven’t taken a single multiple choice test here, and all the physics tests had all the formulas available. THe emphasis is definitely on the thinking process and problem-solving rather than mindless computation. I think the teaching in the physics department has been uniformly distributed between good to exceptional, and I think the curriculum here is extremely solid and well organized for physics. If you took the minimum theoretical requirement for course 8: 8.012, 8.022, 8.03, 8.033, 8.04, 8.044, 8.05, 8.06, and 8.07/8.08/8.09, you’ll have a very solid knowledge of physics, and can shift to more advanced topics in a fairly smooth manner.</p>
<p>I think we can take the quality of the work for granted. Just select courses where quality is emphasized and you’ll get it (hence, if you hate brute force computation, don’t take Classical mechanics with a computational approach, take 8.09: Classical Mechanics III). If you like to be axiomatic, and build everything from scratch, don’t take 18.01/02/03 (ASE it), take 18.100B. Or if you don’t like Rudin, you can always opt for the “theoretical” sequence: 18.014, 18.024 (which uses Apostol), 18.034</p>
<p>As far as the quantity is concerned, it’s all up to you. I don’t think 4 classes/semester is a lot of work, even if some of the classes are hard (exclude engineering classes/lab classes in the discussion), in terms of quantity. That’s also the standard load. You can add as much as you want to that load, once you declare sophomore.</p>
<ol>
<li>A faculty who are experts in there fields, as well as quality teachers, who care deeply about their students.</li>
</ol>
<p>For the physics department, I can attest to the fact that most classes here will have faculties who fulfill both of your demands. Experts in their fields? Well, nothing beats taking a cosmology or string theory class by Alan Guth, or a Quantum Mechanics Class by Wolfgang Ketterle. Good teachers? So far, I have been extremely pleased with the teaching. Some people might complain the material for some courses are too easy, but that’s their fault for signing up to a class they already took in high school (especially if they went to TJ). Others might complain the material is too hard… well it’s MIT after all.</p>
<p>Also, one thing I noticed is that it is fairly common for physics professors to Latex gazillion additional materials (I’m also referring to McGreevy). Consider the time it takes to gather so much material. It definitely attests to the fact that they CARE about teaching. Another thing is that I see a lot of professors who WROTE the book for their course. (6.002, string theory for undergrads, …) The fact they wrote an undergrad textbook show they don’t just care about their specific subfield, they also are pedagogically motivated enough to help undergrads out.</p>
<p>Most professors will have office hours at decent times. I never found difficult if I want to discuss sth with my physics professors. While most of my intro physics class had class size about 50 people, recitations only have 10-12, so it’s a great time for interaction/asking questions. And office hrs, well usually if I went to them I was the only one with maybe 1 other student.</p>
<ol>
<li>A school which is in a different region of the country (all three of these schools fit this catogery)</li>
</ol>
<p>At MIT, you’ll be very close to Boston, which is awesome, but I know plenty of people who visit New York etc…</p>
<p>BTW, I have given my perspective primarily from the physics/math departments here, because that’s what I know best, and that’s also probably what the OP plans to study.</p>
<p>I think one main misconception is that because you go to a “big” school like MIT, professors won’t care about you. I found that utterly false in the physics department at MIT at least. Not only has the teaching/selection of material been awesome, but I found it very easy to interact with those Nobel-prize winning superstar professors. Many of them are very nice, and it’s up to you to take advantage of their office hrs. I had circumstances where I emailed them not just academic questions, but also career advices and they answered to me thoroughly half an hr after. I think the size of MIT is perfect for me, in the way that there is a decent balance between teaching quality, research opportunities and diversity/number of classes offered. I looked at the Caltech homepage, and while they have a very solid core physics classes (the classical physics, quantum physics sequences etc…), they had less of those more non-traditional undergrad courses (solid-state physics, String theory, Astronomy courses…). Also, MIT might be “big” compared to Caltech/HMC, but it’s definitely nowhere near the size of Berkeley, or other big state schools.</p>
<p>Many MIT students are also very independent, and don’t rely on lectures/office hrs etc… to learn. That might be the reason why there’s not such Hype for the teaching, simply because many students don’t take advantage of it.</p>
<p>Did you get in all 3 schools? That’s probably the main question to be asked 1st.</p>
<p>Hope it helped.</p>
<p>-faraday</p>
<p>Wow! Thanks Faraday - that was exactly what I was looking for! I’m a junior right now; just trying to rank my list of schools so I can plan out my application process. Anyways, if I’m fortunate enough to get into all three of them I will try and visit all of them as its always hard to get a feel for the different cultures.</p>
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<p>OK, yeah, I was course 6 and at the time about half of the school was that major. So the smaller departments are probably more personal.</p>
<p>Haha, yeah course 6 is HUGE. 6.01 has probably 300 people. I don’t know much about course 6, except 30% of MIT or so do it.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that physics or math at MIT is “small”. Physics has 50-80 students/class I think, which I would qualify as medium. Math probably has more.</p>
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<p>This brings an important point, which is that size of school may be less important than size of major. Someone contrasting MIT with HMC for instance may note that classes get a lot smaller in “bigger” schools even when you get to the basic major requirements beyond the introductions.</p>
<p>Even at Berkeley, non-intro EECS classes can be sub 50 frequently enough, and honestly in the mathematics department, it is highly common for them to be sub 30. We’re talking basic classes that a huge number of majors may need to take.</p>
<p>I know this shouldn’t be a main factor, but the school’s reputation is something to consider - if you go to Harvey Mudd or Caltech, you will definitely get at one point or another a shocked “you turned down MIT?!?!” If you go to MIT, nobody’s ever going to say that to you about the other two schools. Now, reputation for reputation’s sake alone is kind of silly - but there are opportunities that come w/ going to a school w/ a great reputation. Twice a year, MIT gets literally flooded with recruiters from all kinds of companies, both for full-time jobs and internships. It’s pretty much the norm for MIT students, esp. in the upper years, to work corporate internships over the summers - either that or they stick around MIT to do research, or do some other really cool program. I’m mentioning this because this is something I really wish people had told me about when I was applying to colleges - I lucked out, because I did choose MIT, and I ended up at Microsoft and Google after my sophomore and junior years, respectively, but it was all kind of a shock to me that companies like that actually would think I was worth talking to. I wish someone had told me beforehand that’s what an MIT degree could do for you (even before you’re done earning it!), and so that’s why I’m telling you.</p>
<p>Also, @faraday - I found that most of the upper-level math classes I took fit in a regular-sized classroom. Wasn’t sure if you meant per class as in “30 people in 18.781” or “80 sophomore math majors”</p>