@me29034, My dad went to MIT (BS/MS Engineering). My uncle went to Stanford (PhD Engineering). Two of my patients were Caltech professors and employees at JPL. Although all of them raved about the graduate programs at their respective schools, all of them were fairly underwhelmed with the undergraduate programs.
People here speak like MIT’s undergraduate program is on some other planet. If that were the case, then the Directors of the NASA locations would all be MIT undergrad alums. In fact, none of them are. The JPL Executive board would all have gone to MIT. One of them did. Where did most go? Random state schools.
I am in no way saying that MIT is a bad school. It is a strong school. We are talking $260,000 MORE that Georgia Tech, the alma mater of the current Director of the International Space Station.
There is a reason to turn down MIT…two hundred and sixty thousand of them.