Coloradomama, on another thread you stated you were a MIT educational counselor. Does MIT approve of the unprofessional, unsubstantiated comments you make in an attempt to put down Stanford. You refer to the California social scene. What does that have to do with Stanford. Stanford has students from every state in the union and countless countries. Stanford is one of the most diversified institutions in the world.
If you are really associated with MIT, you should be able to do better than your almost child-like rants devoid of any facts.
@ucresearcher444 you are obviously part of the group that believes Stanford is the perfect place. You should learn some objectivity. Let me remind you that Stanford has never had a women president. Its board of directors is 70 per cent male. Its executive management team is all male. Brock Turner is a product of the Stanford scene by his own admission. I think Stanford is a great school. It is by no means perfect and anybody who believes it is perfect is not realistic
Collegedad13, I get it. Your son goes to Harvard and you can’t stand the thought of another college challenging for elite status. Your constant attempts to trash Stanford are despicable. You constantly bring up Turner. You seem desperate to bring down Stanford by any means possible on these message boards. It is sad.
Harvard is a fantastic school. MIT is a fantastic school. I only have positive things to say about them.
ucresearcher444 as I told you before it is a daughter not a son. I understand as a high school student how one such as you has dreams and sometimes those dreams do not coinside with reality so you lash out and call people despicable who point out inconsistencies in your argument… I think you would be well served to act in a more analytical fashion
@ucresearcher444 Its nice to be called child like as I would rather be that than other things you might have called me. I talk to many college students locally about MIT and Stanford, and I stand by my comments. Remember, Stanford is a school that heavily recruits legacy and Division 1 athletes, from all over the country. That does in fact change the social pressure at the school. Its not bad if you want to go to a school like Standford. I am NOT saying Stanford is bad academically in any way, I am saying its not the same as MIT SOCIALLY. Academically they look pretty similar in engineering, I would say based on my MIT classmates who went to Stanford for graduate school. . I don’t think anyone at MIT would disagree with me, about the social atmosphere at MIT being less “fast paced” than Stanford, including the MIT Admissions Officers. By the way, MIT admissions officers all attended and graduated from MIT so they understand what MIT is like socially. That leads to a much better assessment of candidates by MIT Admissions.
FIT MATTERS to students, especially SOCIAL FIT. This is the number 1 reason Colorado students come home unhappy and transfer out of places like Cal Poly or Stanford. They simply DO NOT FIT. I rest my case. I am really happy I appear child like to you. Its a compliment.
^ “By the way, MIT admissions officers all attended and graduated from MIT so they understand what MIT is like socially.”
Is that really true? According to @MITChris’s blog, he had never had any affiliation with MIT before being hired as an admissions officer.
I went to Stanford a long time ago, and I certainly wouldn’t claim it is perfect; MIT and Stanford are both superb schools, and I think any discussion of which is “better” is fruitless. But personally, I never encountered any kind of “fast paced” social scene at Stanford (and I came from the east coast), and have no idea what @Coloradomama is talking about. Maybe things have changed, but I’m a bit skeptical, as I am of claims such as MIT admissions having a better assessment of applicants than Stanford admissions officers. It’s an imperfect process under any circumstances, and I’d personally avoid such broad generalizations.
With the possible exception of @MITChris , everyone here is simply expressing an opinion. You are free to disagree with the opinion presented, but you are not free to attack another member for stating her opinion. I’ve deleted some offending posts. Please abide by the rules.
Just to correct the factual record: it is not true. Only a handful of our admissions officers attended MIT. I was hired having not stepped foot on MIT’s campus until my job interview. Later, I became an alum of CMS/W at the graduate level. I think being an alum helps in some things, but having a different perspective helps in other things.
Please don’t assume that someone with the name “COLORADOMAMA” is necessarily female. Many people hide their identity on CC.
Thanks @MITChris for correcting my misconception about the MIT Admissions office having a lot of MIT graduates. Even MIT graduates make mistakes. Stu Schmill, the dean of Admissions is an MIT grad, the EC coordinator has been an MIT grad in recent years, two different MIT grads. So I run into MIT grads at the MIT Admissions Office. And made a bad assumption. MIT trains ECs at a conference every September by the way. And those conferences are where people like me, ECs meet people like Stu, Dean of Admissions.
As far as social atmosphere I stand by my statements. Stanford is in a suburb, a wealthy suburb, less to do, so more parties, when I was there visiting, and my MIT classmates got their masters there, its not a statement about academic QUALITY to say that there is a DIFFERENT social atmosphere at Stanford, less to do in Palo Alto than Cambridge/Boston. An MIT student can literally walk to Boston, a Stanford student may take a train to SF, but its a long train ride. I think that suburban campuses have a distinctly different lifestyle than MIT, an urban campus. Likewise, Stanford’s division 1 sports and a full ranked arts and science program ATTRACT A DIFFERENT TYPE OF STUDENT than MIT, a division 3 sports school, with a focus on technology.
Yes this is an opinion.
I do not understand why anyone would be confused about these differences, but today students put MIT into the Ivy category. I would say Stanford belongs in that category, MIT is not really that type of school. As much as some humanities departments are excellent, really A+, MIT still attracts the math science kid who does NOT play division 1 sports or want to watch , they are not available at MIT.
Stu Schmill, the dean of Admissions is an MIT grad, the EC coordinator has been an MIT grad in recent years, two different MIT grads. So I run into MIT grads at the MIT Admissions Office. And made a bad assumption. MIT trains ECs at a conference every September by the way. And those conferences are where people like me, ECs meet people like Stu, Dean of Admissions.