<p>Hey, I think we should get back to topic... I was just wondering how petty MIT students are vs. Stanford students. Racial segregation is another matter (tangentially related, maybe)</p>
<p>
LOL mit self segregates so much. ever heard of simmons, next house, new house?
Excuse me?</p>
<p>**final question<a href="Promise!!%20:D">/B</a></p>
<p>How Preppy is MIT? Is it preppier (not sure if exists) than Stanford?</p>
<p>MIT as a whole is not preppy at all. There might be a few living groups that I might hesitantly identify as preppy-tending under duress.</p>
<p>People comment that I'm dressed up when I put on jeans instead of pajama pants. So I would say not all that preppy.</p>
<p>It's not preppy. If you happen to be preppy, no one will care either way. Most people do not put that much energy into their clothes either way. I would say that oblivious is the best attitude. The people walking around with Northfaces probably don't know they are even expensive. (I had no idea this was some kind of status symbol.) In fact, I would wager that people would be more impressed if your parents were physicists at a university and made little money than if they were rich doctors. </p>
<p>Of the top schools, the student body at MIT is more working class and less pretentious than the other ones. If people are going to be arrogant, they are arrogant about how smart they are. No one cares whether you have money. If you do, fine. But no one cares either way. </p>
<p>The only school that I would describe as really preppy would be Princeton. The other ivies and Stanford are somewhere in between I would guess.</p>
<p>There are all kinds of people at every school, so I'm sure there are preppy people at MIT that I haven't met, but it certainly isnt a dominant culture. What I can tell you is that the MIT population is extremely diverse (it surprised me when I first came here). I can think of no stereotype that fits MIT - there are athletic people, computer nerds, political junkies, artsy people, and everything in between. To figure out whether MITs social environment is right for you, I highly recommend you attend CPW in April (at least go for tons of free stuff). Of course, I also highly recommend you attend Stanford's prefrosh weekend, or whatever it is they do. </p>
<p>Do be cautious though - CPW is great fun, but remember that a couple of days at a place like MIT, especially when you're not a student, is not really enough to understand what it would be like to be a student there. You should ask people about that when you visit.</p>
<p>As the parent of an admitted student, parts of this thread have stirred up concerns that I already had about the MIT culture. There seems to be an assumption that somehow pain and learning should be intertwined (unhealthy degrees of being hosed..., branding irons...) On the one hand, I see what you are getting at. It's hard to learn the discipline to work harder than you knew you could, and it's psychologically difficult to admit weaknesses and work to overcome them. On the other hand, I don't see any intrinsic good in unpleasantness. When the sun shines in Palo Alto, it's just hard not to smile.</p>
<p>That, however, is not my main concern. My main concern is the contempt that people seem to show each other. Molly, who has always struck me as a very nice person says:</p>
<p>"MIT undergrads aren't condescended to by pretending they're special snowflakes around whom the world revolves. They're expected to learn and contribute the way everyone else at MIT is."</p>
<p>This just seems harsh. Undergraduates start at, 17, 18, 19... Maybe they need to be mentored a bit? Molly's statement implies to me that if you aren't cutting it at MIT (or in a moment of doubt, feel you aren't) you'd better not show it, because, well, who do you think you are? Who doesn't have shaky moments when they think they aren't doing so well, even when they are doing fine, really?</p>
<p>Am I misreading you Molly? Would you like to elaborate a bit on this?</p>
<p>@ Geomom, you can use Google's search engine to find websites that provide students' ratings of their own institutions. No matter the institution, a fairly large percentage of students end up wishing they had gone somewhere else. For this reason, it's important to visit in person, if possible. </p>
<p>At both MIT and Stanford, admitted students can stay in the dorms and participate in as many events as they can. At MIT, students who stay in the dorms during Campus Preview Week will get a good sense of the workload, because from what I've heard, after a full day and evening of activities -- all organized by MIT students -- the admitted guest will find groups of those same MIT students working together over psets far into the early morning hours. If your daughter attends CPW and finds herself drawn to the intensity of MIT and put off by the relatively relaxed atmosphere of the Stanford campus, then she'd probably be a good fit at MIT. But it's tough there. Entire traditions, acronyms, institutional identity and culture have developed in response to the level of rigor students encounter.</p>
<p>@Geomom: Have you noticed how the essay questions hint at things like "how have you handled failure in the past?" You can start to see why the essay is very important for admissions. </p>
<p>I really like MIT because the bar is not lowered anywhere. It's very meritocratic. My UROP professor uses the word "good work" to mean the same level for both the grad students in the lab and myself. Obviously I don't get that kind of praise nearly as often as the grad students do. On the other hand it feels great when I do because I know he's not just saying some or other ******** to make me feel good about myself. It means my work is <em>actually</em> good. </p>
<p>In the end its just about honesty. Everyone at MIT is very honest with themselves and each other about their respective abilities and competence. Yes some people go home and cry and throw in their towel, but a lot of people eventually realize that being brutally honest with themselves is the only way to get better.</p>
<p>Most MIT students have been told they are "smart" and "talented" most of their life. It's about time someone knocked them back down so they can see the real picture.</p>
<p>You guys misread me a little bit. I'm not at all concerned that the course work is too hard. The coursework seems quite fun. I especially like the redesigned Course 6 curriculum.</p>
<p>I'm concerned about this :
"Most MIT students have been told they are "smart" and "talented" most of their life. It's about time someone knocked them back down so they can see the real picture."
and:
"a lot of people eventually realize that being brutally honest with themselves is the only way to get better."</p>
<p>How about just being honest and hard-working and skipping the brutal stuff?</p>
<p>I don't think that MIT is more "brutal" than Stanford. Let me try to explain what I mean by this!</p>
<p>At either place, students who were in the top of their classes come together, and roughly a third of them will end up in the bottom of the class. No professors mock them. No professors say, "Hey, you can't cut it." No students demean them. The situation is brutal nevertheless. It's brutal for one's self-image. At Stanford, I had a fair number of students come to office hours in tears. I have no idea what the situation is at MIT, but I do know that at MIT, students work together collaboratively. They suffer together collaboratively. When someone fails a class, nearly everyone around understands. At Stanford, the science student may fail a class, return to the dorm for another full night of studying, and room with a liberal arts major who's got enough free time to head out for a party. That situation is brutal in another sort of way, particularly for a young adult who has the talent for science and with just a bit of perseverence and encouragement, could persist and succeed.</p>
<p>But the students are demeaning them! By saying, "Yes SOME people go home and cry...", and "about time someone knocked them back down." Or implying that a student that seeks help thinks they are a "special snowflake." Now, I don't know what you are making your students cry about, but it just seems to me that the equating learning and suffering is a tad unhealthy. The question is, is that really the pervasive view at MIT these days?</p>
<p>Geomom -- you seem to be bringing up a similar sort of viewpoint to what I generally carry, which is to say that while I'm all for not dumbing down any aspect of curricula (in fact, I'm all for having "the good (and thus tough) stuff" available to undergraduates), I don't seen an intrinsic good in brutality either. Part of the reason that while I carry tremendous respect for a school like Caltech, I could hardly have considered attending it, even if at first glance I'm a pretty good fit. Every bit of brutality I undergo in school is self-imposed, and I prefer to keep it that way. I sort of think of MIT as relatively favoring the self-imposed brutality. </p>
<p>
[quote]
That situation is brutal in another sort of way, particularly for a young adult who has the talent for science and with just a bit of perseverence and encouragement, could persist and succeed.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Moral of story is that misery loves company, and at MIT, it has plenty? And within Stanford, I'm sure, though, that science and engineering students have their own support within that community. My belief is that at such relatively larger schools with more departments, one can get very lost if one doesn't look for subsets of the population to grow really close to.</p>
<p>Everyone at MIT has moments when they are not sure that they are cutting it. Face it, an overwhelming percentage of MIT's intake is in the top couple of percent of their secondary school class. By definition, half of these people will end up in the bottom half of their MIT class. So that is very hard for some students to take.</p>
<p>That being said, that realization is definitely a shared experience. Geomom's fear that "t "if you aren't cutting it at MIT (or in a moment of doubt, feel you aren't) you'd better not show it, because, well, who do you think you are?" is in fact quite a significant misreading. The MIT culture really focuses in part about supporting you in this way. From the pass/fail initial term to the fact that most of your early problem sets were written to be solved in groups. Almost all students find groups of friends whom they work with. I find that feeling that the work is way too hard is both very common, and very commonly shared.</p>
<p>That being said, the admissions office makes very, very few mistakes. Almost everyone they admit can do the work and they soon (defined as while on pass/fail) learn what that means for them. While this process goes on, there is more community support than in most other schools.</p>
<p>There are a very small minority of students who cannot cope with this, who need more help. I found the MIT advising services to be absolutely superb, from the more formal academic advisers to the counselors at student support services. I also heard good things about the chaplains, but had no direct experience of them. </p>
<p>When I was at MIT, I lived in a fraternity, and as part of the support system built into that environment, each of the upperclass residents were paired with more junior students to provide guidance and advice. One year, I noticed that one of my assigned students was having real trouble with his classes and more importantly with his coping mechanisms. I talked about it with the student, who was sure that everything would come together magically. Worried, I then discussed this with the house master, and it was decided that it was appropriate to warn student support services (let me be clear that this was an anguished decision). Sure enough a few weeks later he got into real academic trouble, and the institute was ready, an assistant dean in counseling services invited him in for a chat, his academic advisor had a plan to help get him back on track, and importantly, nobody made a big deal about his problems at all.</p>
<p>I mentioned this to a friend at an Ivy league university who was surprised that such a support system was in place, that we would automatically watch out for dangerous behaviour while simultaneously not acting "in loco parentis". I got the impression that their school may have been "easier" in some sense, but that the students were much more on their own, left to sink or swim alone in a dorm room somewhere. That doesn't happen very much at MIT, and I think that it is a better place for it.</p>
<p>I also do not think that the fact that nearly everyone struggles at least sometimes at MIT does indeed remove most of the stigma of struggling. I also reject the idea that MIT is "brutally" honest. I do believe that MIT is honest but in no way deliberately brutal, though I will acknowledge that for students used to succeeding without trying very hard, the MIT experience can be particularly challenging.</p>
<p>Mikalye,</p>
<p>That's a nice success story. Can you reveal what frat that was, or if, in general,
MIT frats act as healthy social systems?</p>
<p>IN GENERAL (and of course your mileage may vary), it is true of the fraternities, sororities and independent living groups. It is is one of the reasons why the average F/S/ILG GPA remains higher than the dorm GPA (and I am willing to guess without any actual data that there are very few universities in the US where that is true).</p>
<p>That being said, there are strong support networks in many of the dorms as well. Clearly there are those dorms that function essentially as ILG's (such as the language houses), but even amongst the "normal" dorms, there are those that offer a very strong support network, and those that offer a more independent existence. There are a huge variety of living groups, and they often have very strong identities and are a huge influence on your MIT experience. Choosing a living group is very similar to choosing a university, you are looking for a place where you fit in, where you feel comfortable, a place that will be your home.</p>
<p>And nobody talks about "the 3rd floor of Burton", but rather of the "Burton Third Bombers", the second floor east of East Campus housing is the "Beast from the East". Even some more prosaically named living groups can keep very close ties (Baker Street had a very good reputation for support when I was on campus - but I cannot speak for it now). I should add that there are other dorms, where the opposite philosophy applies, where it is considered "rude" to provide this sort of support. One person's support is another's prying into someone else's life. There is no real "typical" MIT student, and there is no "typical" living group. Find the living group that is right for you, and you will find friends for life.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But the students are demeaning them! By saying, "Yes SOME people go home and cry...", and "about time someone knocked them back down." Or implying that a student that seeks help thinks they are a "special snowflake." Now, I don't know what you are making your students cry about, but it just seems to me that the equating learning and suffering is a tad unhealthy. The question is, is that really the pervasive view at MIT these days?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That is indeed a very common view at MIT these days. Of course different people may have different opinions and perspectives, and there are always some profs who are exceptions, but the fact is that "about time someone knocked them back down" is a common theme throughout much of the Institute. (In the engineering disciplines, at least. I can't speak for the humanities or the life sciences.) The belief is that being "knocked down" like this is necessary for self-improvement; the assumption is that if a top student weren't "knocked down" s/he would be overly arrogant and complacent and would never realize his/her true potential. And yes, this process of being "knocked down" can and often is brutal. You can call it some form of "tough love" I suppose.</p>
<p>This philosophy toward education works well for some and not so well for others. It works well for those who are resilient and are able to get back up repeatedly and persevere. Some people also take being "knocked down" better than others; some may not even see this as a big deal.</p>
<p>That said, there are, as has been stated by others already, numerous support mechanisms to help students survive at MIT. Students are incredibly collaborative and supportive of each other. There are numerous support staff and faculty who are available to provide advice and counseling.</p>
<p>All in all each person has to decide whether such an environment is right for them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
This just seems harsh. Undergraduates start at, 17, 18, 19... Maybe they need to be mentored a bit? Molly's statement implies to me that if you aren't cutting it at MIT (or in a moment of doubt, feel you aren't) you'd better not show it, because, well, who do you think you are? Who doesn't have shaky moments when they think they aren't doing so well, even when they are doing fine, really?</p>
<p>Am I misreading you Molly? Would you like to elaborate a bit on this?
[/quote]
I absolutely do not mean that undergraduates at MIT aren't mentored, or shouldn't be mentored, or that students who need help are ridiculed. To the contrary, there's a strong support network at MIT, both officially by the school and by various departments, and unofficially through student tutors and through living groups. Students who need help will always be able to find it without judgment -- one of the things I find greatest at MIT is that nobody does the work alone. Everybody works together and helps each other -- science is a collaborative effort, and so is undergraduate work at MIT.</p>
<p>My statements speak specifically to the idea that there's some sort of "focus" on graduate students and research. I was trying to say that there's no focus on graduate students, because the focus is on students in general -- MIT students are treated like real scientists from the moment they step on campus. That does not mean they can't seek help, but that they are challenged commensurate with their abilities, rather than being patronized by being treated differently. Graduate students are a few years further along in their academic careers than undergraduates are, but there's no reason undergraduates can't contribute in just as meaningful a way to scientific research and to engineering.</p>
<p>I think it's an empowering sort of environment. You're taught that you can learn and do and become and create -- but that you have to put in the elbow grease to do it. Sometimes putting in that elbow grease isn't fun, but everybody at MIT is doing it together.</p>
<p>I get sort of exasperated when I see the assumption that undergraduates have to be treated specially in order to thrive, or that an environment without a high-powered research enterprise is automatically better for undergraduates because faculty are "more focused" on them. I see such an "undergraduate focus" as assuming that undergraduates are stupid and shouldn't be afforded top-quality research opportunities. At MIT, the professors respect the intelligence and of undergrads and value their ideas. They're treated as colleagues, not special snowflakes.</p>
<p>EDIT: I should note, perhaps, that the "special snowflake around whom the world revolves" comes from a conversation I was having last week with my PhD advisor (who's also an MIT alum, class of '80). We were talking about Harvard undergraduates. ;)</p>
<p>"They're treated as colleagues, not special snowflakes"</p>
<p>That's an impression I also got, and is verbatim a quote from another MIT student (forgot where). I also value this a lot, b/c I did some lab work in the past, and one of the most enjoyable part of the lab was not really what I had achieved (rather modest, to be honest), but the fact my mentor took my suggestions seriously and that we were able to talk about the subject seriously together.</p>