MIT vs. Stanford

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
21

<p>The edge definitely goes to Stanford computer science.</p>

<p>Stanford drives SILICON Valley. MIT drives Route 128. Silicon Valley>> R128. </p>

<p>More high profile IT companies such as YaHOO, GOOGLE, SUN, HP, CISCO, netscape were founded by Stanford. </p>

<p>About 20 Turing award winners have ties to Stanford. MIT can not match that.</p>

<p>More IT milestone inventions come from Stanford (Internet TCP/IP protocol, digital music synthesis, DSL, microprocessor, 1st computer controled robot arm, 1st robot cart, Stanely, and etc). MIT can hardly match that.</p>

<p>More rankings have ranked Stanford as #1, such as NRC ranking, Shang Hai Jiaotong world university ranking, and business week’s best IT lab ranking.</p>

22

<p>^ datalook, save your breath. We’ve heard it all before.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/314802-mit-losing.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/314802-mit-losing.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

23

<p>to yagottabelieve: I’m not saying specifically just about the CS department, simply because most likely the OP might not major in CS after all. I think MIT puts its money/focus more into academics, which to me is the right place. It’s also about how the OP wants to be treated. If the OP likes the independent/exploratory feel of the institute, then MIT is the place. MIT is like driving a race car without the security features. While you risk crashing, you can go faster also (or from a programming point of view, it’s like C programming= MIT, Java=Stanford.).</p>

<p>While rankings don’t say everything about a department, last time I checked , MIT tied first with Stanford on Computer engineering/Electrical Engineering. Secondly, what if the OP decides to be a mechanical engineer instead? Or a aero/astro major? Or nuclear engineer? MIT consistently is awesome at all technical fields while stanford is only at select ones. It’s extremely likely that by the end of freshman year, the OP would have changed ideas about his major 3-4 times.</p>

24

<p>

</p>

<p>Stanford is awesome at all technical fields as well. According to US NEWS graduate school rankings,</p>

<p>EE: MIT #1, Stanford #1
Computer Engineering: MIT #1, Stanford #1
Mechanical engineering: MIT #1, Stanford #2
environmental engineering: MIT #9, Stanford #1
civil engineering: MIT #3, Stanford #3
industrial engineering: MIT (not ranked), Stanford #5
biomedical engineering: MIT #5, Stanford #10
Areospace eningeering: MIT #1, Stanford #3
chemical engineering: MIT #1, Stanford #5
neuclear: MIT #2, Stanford (not ranked)</p>

25

<p>Cool. Stanford is awesome.</p>

<p>But MIT too. ^_^</p>

26

<p>Oops, my bad datalook. I usually remember rankings in fields I am interested in. THat’s why I did not notice environmental, industrial etc…</p>

27

<p>Don’t feed the ■■■■■. datalook has been regurgitating the same posts for years. If you read the thread oasis posted, datalook made essentially the same exact post in early 2007, and sakky showed that most of his arguments were invalid. In fact, most of those 467 datalook posts are just him proclaiming that Stanford is superior to MIT. He’s like a college fanboy…</p>

28

<p>I predicted all this would happen…in all honesty, I think figuring out why some of these schools are ranked so high is a full time job by itself. It’s great to toss around #1’s and all, but it’s incredibly important for the prospective frosh to pick the school they’d think would help them realize why it’s so highly regarded quickest. This means the combo of student culture and opportunity that will push them best.</p>

<p>A more relaxed atmosphere may or may not do this well – depends if one is the sort of individual to use it as a happy thing in the background to go to after having been productive or if one is the sort to succumb to it and stop being productive altogether :smiley: Having a more intense atmosphere overall either will be damaging or push one to do more.</p>

29

<p>To clarify the intent of my last post, I’m hinting datalook’s and anything revolving around his/her point really doesn’t seem to answer the question, which isn’t exactly about where the most innovation comes from or whatever. It’s about the initial training.</p>

30

<p>Oh boy, this is going to be a tough decision. Each seems to have its pros and cons. Hopefully my visits to each will clarify which is more a fit, or maybe I should just flip a coin :slight_smile: just kidding!</p>

<p>Just to clarify, I’m looking into computer science and economics at the moment, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I graduated with a degree in sociology or something. I come from a very small public school, so I haven’t been exposed to many subjects. I’m looking to college as a time to explore my intellectual interests.</p>

31

<p>Ranking from US news and world report is subjective peer review score. In terms of productivity, MIT has obvious upper hand ([Performance</a> Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities](<a href=“http://ranking.heeact.edu.tw/en-us/2009%20by%20Fields/Domain/ENG]Performance”>http://ranking.heeact.edu.tw/en-us/2009%20by%20Fields/Domain/ENG)). In fact, Stanford’s productivity is behind UCB, Georgia Tech, Singapore National University. Here is Turing award table ([Turing</a> Award - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Award]Turing”>Turing Award - Wikipedia)), I don’t see anywhere near 20 recipients from Stanford. In fact, in the last 10 years, MIT and Stanford appear to tie.</p>

32

<p>Affe, based on your last post, I think it’s clear that Stanford would be the better choice for you. MIT and Stanford are both fantastic schools with strengths in CS and econ, but Stanford would offer you far more opportunity to explore a broad range of intellectual interests–including some interests you may not yet realize you have. As a tech school, MIT has done a relatively good job (compared with, say, Caltech) of offering courses in the humanities, social sciences, etc., but Stanford, as a full-spectrum research university, is in another league entirely in this regard. Its superb science and engineering departments are matched by similarly excellent departments in virtually every field of study. Stanford also operates on the quarter system, which maximizes students’ opportunities to explore an especially wide range of courses before declaring their majors at the end of sophomore year. For students who arrive at college with a very open mind about their prospective courses of study, Stanford would be the better match–even before taking into account the weather, campus, housing, dining and many other quality-of-life differentials. Of course, you’ll be getting the “feel” of each place first-hand when you visit. Enjoy your admit weekends!</p>

33

<p>@faraday, I was only going by what the OP claimed interests in. No one knows what is going to happen in the future. I still stand by my statements (backed by endless publications, reviews, etc.) that MIT and Stanford both have excellent CS and Economics departments. Either will give a top-tier academic experience. As for the TOTAL experience, the other factors that I and others such as @CalAlum have stated should be considered.</p>

34

<p>

</p>

<p>This does not mean much. UCB used to have quarter system but they switched to semester system so that students have time to study deeper in the subjects.</p>

<p>Both MIT and Stanford are great schools. It’s a matter of personal preference.</p>

35

<p>Coolweather, there’s nothing about a quarter system that prohibits deeper study; a student can elect to take the next course in the sequence for continued depth in the subject matter. The point is that the quarter system allows for the broadest exposure across disciplines to facilitate the appropriate selection of a major (or majors).</p>

36

<p>Zenkoan sounds right. I would think it’s very foolish to choose MIT if there isn’t a clear bias towards maths, science, or tech, simply because of what students have said about the culture. </p>

<p>And semesters can be long. This one feels short to me, but others have seemed very long. It’s certainly better by far to have three times to switch gears if one is figuring things out. Further, my experience is that topics taught in a semester usually go into special optional things. The streamlined courses usually are an entire year’s worth of stuff, and can be blocked out by sequences as zenkoan says. I think it’s a matter of whether people like switching it up more often (for instance, switching professors). The semester system started working for me very well precisely once I decided I knew exactly what I wanted, and wanted to spend long amounts of time learning from certain professors.</p>

37

<p>The nice thing about the quarter system is that it lets you have your cake and eat it too. Let’s say you are enjoying a particular course and prof., and want to continue studying the subject with that prof. the following quarter. You can usually continue to do so by taking the next course in that sequence with that prof. the following quarter. If, on the other hand, you would prefer to try something (and/or someone) else, that option is typically also open to you.</p>

38

<p>I had the quarter system before. There are pros and cons. But this is not the compelling reason for people to decide between MIT and Stanford. Unlike easy community colleges, both MIT and Stanford will keep students busy. And after 3 or 4 classes people know which major they want to be in.</p>

39

<p>[List</a> of Stanford University people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“List of Stanford University people - Wikipedia”>List of Stanford University people - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>19 Turing award winners with ties to Stanford Computer science (not including visiting professors such as Minsky and Wilkinson) </p>

<p>Vinton Cerf, former faculty, Turing award winning computer scientist </p>

<p>Douglas Engelbart, Turing award-winning computer scientist, inventor of the computer mouse, former researcher, inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame </p>

<p>Edward Feigenbaum, Turing award-winning computer scientist, father of expert system, coinventor of Dendral </p>

<p>Robert Floyd, former faculty, Turing award winning computer scientist </p>

<p>Sir Antony Hoare, former faculty, Turing award winning computer scientist </p>

<p>John Hopcroft, former faculty, Turing award winning computer scientist </p>

<p>Alan Kay, former faculty, Turing award winning computer scientist </p>

<p>Donald Knuth, professor emeritus, computer science pioneer, creator of TeX, author of The Art of Computer Programming, Turing award winner </p>

<p>Barbara Liskov, the first woman earning a ph.d in CS (from Stanford), Turing award winning computer scientist </p>

<p>John McCarthy, responsible for the coining of the term Artificial Intelligence, and inventor of the Lisp programming language and time sharing, Turing award winner </p>

<p>Robin Milner former faculty, Turing award winning computer scientist </p>

<p>Allen Newell Turing award winning computer scientist </p>

<p>Amir Pnueli postdoc, Turing award winning computer scientist </p>

<p>Ronald Rivest former faculty, Turing award winning computer scientist </p>

<p>Raj Reddy, former faculty, Turing award winning computer scientist </p>

<p>Dana Scott former faculty, Turing award winning computer scientist </p>

<p>Robert Tarjan, former faculty, Turing award winning computer scientist </p>

<p>Niklaus Wirth former faculty, Turing award winning computer scientist, inventor of PASCAL </p>

<p>Andrew Yao, former faculty, Turing award winning computer scientist</p>

40

<p>^^Without even researching your list, two of those people are faculty at MIT: Rivest and Liskov.</p>