<p>wow...i havent been on or posted to cc in months. and tonight i decided to randomly come on and look...</p>
<p>i didnt get into mit, but i got into princeton and stanford. im now a cs major (i think...only a freshman) at yale. (i would not have gone to mit if i had gotten in. i would even [!] have gone to princeton over mit.)</p>
<p>it's a very tough choice, mit vs. yale. i think that you need to take what everybody says with a grain of salt. at mit, many of the people are hardcore engineering types, obviously, so they might answer your question as if they were doing a math problem. the "logical" thing to do, if you consider college a place to learn a discipline and work hard and just learn it (okay im oversimplifying here, but you get the idea), is go to the school with the best department in what you're studying. so i was crazy, according to this mindset, to choose stanford over yale, and you would be crazy to go to mit over yale. it's a no-brainer, they say.</p>
<p>(mit people, please dont hate me...all of this is obviously just a generalization, and i realize many of you dont fit this. but overall, more of yale is about social/cultural/non-science issues, while more of mit is about science and math and engineering things. i realize we have both at both schools.)</p>
<p>but the fuzziness and non-mathematical (god im so not eloquent this late at night) thinking of people who choose yale will give you different ideas...</p>
<p>yes, mit has diversity, etc., but that is diversity on paper. people at mit are united by a focus on science and math, and that informs them...just like most yalies are united by a focus on the humanities. HOWEVER--the thing about being a math/sci major at yale is that you are a math/sci major here, but you get to interact with people who arent engineers--so the humanities people influence your thinking about social things and everything not to do with science, places where math/sci people often can't operate (or try to apply their math/logic, which often doesn't work, because people aren't governed by logic in many places--thinking logically about things often doesn't work. but sometimes it's really cool. see music theory, economics, etc.) so socially, you get the people who are most apt socially. (think: future presidents, lawyers, activists, policy makers, heads of business.) and you're surrounded by them, and you learn how to deal with people very well, because you have all these people around you who are into people. (yes, there are a few recluses.)</p>
<p>it's so late and this is such bad writing and unclear prose that i'm thinking of ditching it...but ill leave it on here and hopefully youll be able to get some of the ideas im trying to impart.</p>
<p>but all i can say is, even though its a huge cliche and is in a million songs...ugh, im shuddering to have to say this (bc of the cliche). but: listen to what your heart wants. (okay! i said it!) stanford didnt FEEL good to me. you have to see how yale FEELS. because that's what separates us from pure math and science--we have feelings, while machines dont. dont be a machine. do what you feel you want.</p>
<p>get the feel of the campus. because that's all that matters. it won't matter if you have a great education if you're unhappy. and on top of it all, here's some logic: THE POINT OF LIFE IS YOUR OWN HAPPINESS. so do everything to maximize that.</p>
<p>ps you don't happen to be planning an overnight stay on monday, do you? if so, i may be your host. (but i dont know...all i did was respond to the email that asked for a host for a eecs person coming monday night...)</p>
<p>pps i hate to say this, because i predict that stanford may outdue yale eventually...i have kind of a funny relationship with stanford ever since turning them down. but you might want to look at stanford, which has BOTH types of people...even though it is theoretically possible to only be friends with engineers. whereas at yale there are so few that that's not likely.</p>