<p>I have been admitted to both of these undergraduate institutions and am having a difficult time deciding where I should go. I assume that prestige/quality in physics would be the same for both schools? I plan to go on to graduate school.</p>
<p>A few of my concerns are the availability of undergraduate research, having to take unwanted courses at Princeton (humanities requirements; I'm not sure if Princeton's Integrated Science sequence would be similar to MIT's science education), dorms, the unfortunate financial aid situation at MIT ($40,000 [possibly more] student debt after four years vs. 0 debt at Princeton), and grade deflation at Princeton (would this hurt in grad school admissions?). What are your thoughts?</p>
<p>Any advice or advantages of one school over the other would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>I know (only) four physics majors graduating from MIT this year :
One going to a hedge fund, one Harvard graduate school, one MIT graduate school, one deciding between Berkeley and Caltech graduate schools.</p>
<p>Grade deflation at MIT, if anything, will be worse at MIT than at Princeton.</p>
<p>The difference in dorms are night-and-day. Just look at pictures on the web. Some people prefer MIT; most prefer Princeton’s.</p>
<p>If you don’t like humanities, then you might prefer MIT. It does have a humanities requirement (like 8 classes,) but some of them can be economics. Also, it has a techier feel, so those that aren’t in love with literature might feel more comfortable at MIT.</p>
<p>Personal preference is the biggest difference between the two schools. If nothing pulls you one way or the other, the undergrad classes in experimental physics are probably more thorough at MIT. Theory is probably the same at both.</p>
<p>Princeton has great opportunities for research. You can pursue research as early as the summer after freshman year with professors at Princeton (or you could just use summers to do research at other programs like SURF), and, Princeton has the requirement of the junior paper and senior thesis. So even if you don’t do research sophomore year, you will be required to at least do some research in your junior year. Student to Faculty ratio in the physics department is one to one. Not sure about how it is at MIT. Grad school admissions for the sciences are not heavily dependent on GPA. Also, admissions know of Princeton’s grade deflation policy. You won’t have to take unwanted classes at Princeton necessarily. If you have AP credit you can get rid of some of the requirements…Also, MIT requires you to take 8 semesters of HASS courses (humanities, arts, and social sciences), so you’ll be stuck with humanities either way, unless you go to Cambridge or Oxford. Go to Princeton. Having less debt is the best way to go, and they have a great undergraduate program. Especially in maths and sciences (which are extremely rigorous I hear). It is your choice, but the prospects of no debt is way better than the prospects of having to cough up 40k after undergrad.</p>
<p>I know another physics major graduating this year who’s deciding between Berkley, Stanford, and Caltech… I also know a physics major who’s graduated already who is going to Columbia. It appears from my limited sample size that MIT physics majors are well-equipped to get into grad school.</p>
<p>As far as I know, physics UROPs tend to be pretty theoretical. The graduating physics major that I know does a lot with computer simulations of experiments and such and has a course 6-ish UROP. Job opportunities are also not difficult to come by if you’re a physics major with some background in CS, it appears.</p>
<p>You should probably figure out which community you like better, MIT’s or Princeton’s - it isn’t unheard of to make $4k+ during the school year and summer (in fact, it’s pretty common, especially if you’re working at a UROP), so I don’t think that your actual undergraduate debt will be $40k when you graduate. Come to CPW and see for yourself!</p>
<p>“You won’t have to take unwanted classes at Princeton necessarily. If you have AP credit you can get rid of some of the requirements…”</p>
<p>Their website made it seem that the only AP exams you can use to test out of humanities are foreign language and economics. Are there other opportunities to get rid of some of the requirements at Princeton?</p>
<p>Also, would Princeton’s 1 to 1 student to faculty ratio in physics make it easier to obtain a research position than it is at MIT? However, I’m glad to hear that physics UROPs at MIT are not as difficult to obtain as I previously thought.</p>
<p>Even if I could lower the debt to $30 or $35 k at MIT, how hard would that make my life after graduation? Would it be worth it?</p>
…so long as you go to a school like MIT or Princeton. Your grad school opportunities are not likely to be different coming from either school, given that they both have great research opportunities for undergrads.</p>
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I had about 20k in debt coming out of MIT, and it hasn’t made my life difficult at all. My loans are in deferral while I’m in graduate school, and I’ll have them completely paid off (almost interest-free due to the deferral) by the time I finish my PhD.</p>
<p>Are you going to come to CPW and/or Princeton’s admitted student weekend? You’ll be fine academically as a physics major at either school – you should pick based on where you feel more at home.</p>
<p>CPW and Princeton’s admitted student weekend overlap, so I am planning to attend Princeton’s for one day/night, and then drive to MIT to spend a night/day at CPW, or something along those lines.</p>
<p>molliebatmit,
I’m glad to hear that your debt has not made your life difficult, but do you think it would have if it were doubled ($40k)? It’s truly frustrating that Princeton offered me almost triple the amount that MIT did, and that our appeal to MIT’s financial aid department barely changed anything.</p>
<p>I think I would feel more at home at MIT, but I will have to wait until I visit next week to know for sure (hopefully). Thanks for your help.</p>
Oh, that’s awful. Poor planning on their parts!</p>
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Even if my debt were doubled, I could still afford to pay it off by the time I finish graduate school without significantly sacrificing my savings. I’m paying $200/month to pay off my debt in five years – much less than my rent, or my car payment, or my utilities bill. I could easily put more money toward the loans right now, but I want to have them repaid a little slower to improve my credit score.</p>
<p>I’m facing a similar decision for physics/astrophysics ( I recently posted “MIT or Princeton?” in the College Search and Selection forum.)</p>
<p>The Princeton Preview weekend is actually being held twice: April 16-18 and April 23-25. I will be going to CPW and the later Princeton Preview weekend, so it is possible to attend both if you want to.</p>
<p>Congrats on your acceptances and good luck with the decision. (I’m finding it a difficult choice as well!)</p>
<p>MIT’s physics department is much larger than Princeton’s. Based on data from several years ago, MIT has more than 3 times as many undergraduate physics majors. In 2004, Princeton reported 45 undergraduate majors; the year earlier, MIT reported 178. There are as many females majoring in physics at MIT as there are physics majors at Princeton. What does that mean for a student? Greater breadth and depth of coursework and a substantial mass of students with a wide range of talents and interests in the subject. Lots of opportunities for research and collaboration.</p>
<p>Give yourself time to explore the options at both schools. </p>
<p>Originally I had commitments during the second Princeton weekend, but I just found out that I can attend. So now I will go to CPW and the later Princeton Preview weekend. The only bad thing is that it’s so late in the month, and gives little time to make a decision… Good luck to you too astrophysicsdude; maybe I’ll see you there.</p>
<p>Keep in mind, if worst comes to worst, there are ways to get student loan forgiveness. A two-year term in the Peace Corps will get 30% of your Perkins Loan, if you have one, canceled. The Army and Navy will both pay down up to $65K of an enlistee’s student loans, and the Army National Guard, which allows you to have a civilian career and serve part-time, will pay up to $10K. VISTA and AmeriCorps both pay smaller but still substantial amounts.</p>
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<p>This.</p>
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<p>Also true of my limited sample (which partially overlaps yours, but not entirely).</p>
<p>All these things are just as true at MIT. Freshman can start doing research the moment they set foot in the school. But, 40k? It depends on how much money matters to you. Hard to say, though, people’s ideas change about that.</p>
<p>In one of your blogs you said that “Getting good recommendations is one of the biggest factors for getting into graduate school, and being in a small program is a really easy way to get to know professors.” I’m afraid that since there are so many physics majors at MIT as opposed to Princeton, this would be a disadvantage at MIT. Would what CalAlum said outweigh this? (“Greater breadth and depth of coursework and a substantial mass of students with a wide range of talents and interests in the subject. Lots of opportunities for research and collaboration.”)</p>
<p>More physics majors = more students for you to collaborate with = more resources = more opportunities, in my mind at least. I don’t think there’s really any difference between there being 10 professors with 2 undergrads each and there being 20 professors with 2 undergrads each, except if you don’t get along with your UROP supervisor it’s going to be a <em>lot</em> easier to find someone that you do get along with if there are more professors to begin with. Add in the part where those professors are all doing different research (because you might not be interested in what one professor is doing, and so you might want a different project), and I think that MIT probably wins.</p>
<p>It’s not like there are the same number of professors at MIT and Princeton with more undergrads at MIT all vying for their attention…the department is actually bigger.</p>
<p>Well a lot of factors go into it, and only you can decide that, but even given that MIT is pretty much my dream school, 40k is a lot of debt. Personally, I would go to Princeton and aim to go to MIT for grad school, but that’s just my opinion. Depends how much money matters really.</p>
<p>oh, but you may also want to consider contacting MITs FinAid office and explaining the situation to them. They’ll probably say there’s nothing they can do for you but they may be willing to reconsider your Aid considering how much more Princeton gave you. And I do think MIT is a better place for Physics because of the students but remember, this is the difference between MIT and Princeton, not MIT and Community College, so you’ll get a great education either way.</p>