<p>Marian:</p>
<p>I think that the type of student I describe would be happier at a university with strong STEM offerings in a well rounded university. My son was recruited by the football coach at MIT (yes they have a football team) but ultimately he decided not to apply there. Some of his decision was driven by wanting a more well rounded UG experience. I also think he was a little intimidated by the idea of being at MIT although he has mentioned going there for grad school.</p>
<p>Re: MIT and well roundedness</p>
<p>MIT does have a rather extensive set of General Institute Requirements (approximately 25% math and science and another 25% humanities and social studies) to ensure that students have some academic well roundedness.</p>
<p>However, “socioacademically”, fewer than 20% of undergraduates major in non-STEM majors, even though they are readily available and (in some cases) well respected.</p>
<p>pchope - The Association of Independent Technological Universities list was interesting. Some of them (**) were never even our radar… it’s a good list to share. </p>
<p>California Institute of Technology - DS visted
Carnegie Mellon University - DS visted, accepted
Case - DS visited, accepted, great merit $
Clarkson University - alum (DH too)
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
Drexel University
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University **
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering - DS attending
Harvey Mudd College - DS visited, accepted, #2 choice
Illinois Institute of Technology **
Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences **
Kettering University **
Lawrence Technological University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology - DS visited, rejected
Milwaukee School of Engineering **
Polytechnic Institute of New York University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - DS visited, accepted
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rose-Hulman - researched, DS vetoed Terre Haute
Stevens Institute of Technology
Webb Institute **
Worcester Polytechnic Institute - researched/ liked</p>
<p>Some of the AITU schools are quite specialized even within the range of STEM subjects:</p>
<p>Cooper Union (engineering, art, architecture)
ERAU (aerospace focus)
Kettering (probably an automotive focus given its history)
Olin (engineering)
Webb (naval architecture and marine engineering)</p>
<p>Keck is a graduate school in Claremont, CA, adjacent to the campuses of Harvey Mudd/Pomona/Pitzer/Scripps/Claremont McKenna.</p>
<p>Regarding post #75. Don’t confuse being tech oriented with not having any math or science. For example, at IIT (which I happen to know about personally as a physics professor here), the mathematics and sciences have a comparable amount of research activity and funding as the engineering departments.</p>
<p>Two items: as an MIT grad, I am very happy that there was no calculus requirement, as my HS did not offer calculus of any sort (and probably still doesn’t). Since virtually everyone had already had calculus, I survived my first semester only because of pass/fail - but I did survive. There are still high schools that don’t offer calculus, and although I know that students can take calculus online these days, it’s not always as easy as you might think.</p>
<p>Second, I don’t think i will encourage my son to apply to MIT. Yes, they have an excellent STEM reputation, but they are relatively weak in the humanities, and right now he loves history almost as much as math and science. I will attempt to steer him in the direction of a university that has a strong history reputation in addition to STEM subjects, so that list provided earlier will be a big help. I would strongly encourage parents of kids who might possibly have other interests to look at the bigger picture of universities with many different strengths.</p>
<p>Of course, if your kid is absolutely convinced that he/she will be an engineer, then the tech schools (WPI, RPI, etc.) would be very valid options. Many many colleagues who came from those schools were excellent engineers.</p>
<p>I am loving this discussion. My son applied EA to Caltech and MIT; deferred at both. Has applied to various UC schools, USC and will apply to Stanford and Harvey Mudd (which he visited and likes). </p>
<p>I don’t see any mention of USC here, what do you think of it? It got our attention due to national merit $ and variety.</p>
<p>My son’s interest has veered from computer science to mechanical engineering and now genetic engineering. Probably needs to go somewhere deep and flexible. Stellar grades and scores, two years of calculus, robotics, works as software developer. Obviously there are no guarantees so casting a wide net.</p>
<p>This is great !!!</p>
<p>Does a format something like this work better?
School Name:Tech Focus:Best known for</p>
<p>Where
Tech Focus: engineering only, or broader engineering with physics/math or or big university etc.
Best known for: Small engineering only school or best known for mechanical or best known for computer science (Carnegie Melon) etc.</p>
<p>Stanford University:Top 10, broader focus, strong computer science and EE, reach:great connections to bayarea
Massachusetts Institute of Technology:Every one knows 
Cal Tech::
Berkeley::
U Michigan::
Georgia Tech::
UIUC::
Princeton University::
Cornell::
CMU::
Purdue::</p>
<p>I’m not certain anyone has said anything specific about RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) in this thread. I don’t actually know much about it, but it clearly has fans, and I think some well-established historical strengths in imaging and optical technology (a lot of things named “Eastman” and “Lomb” there). In addition to its tech programs, I think it has a heck of an artistic photography program.</p>
<p>Something like this has been posted before. A good quick look of the overall strength as well as department strengths. Stanford, Berkeley and Michigan should definitely be on every STEM applicant’s list along with MIT and Caltech.</p>
<p>The unweighted average of departments as they are rated by the USNWR graduate programs edition. They are entirely based on the reputational scores of learned scholars in their respective fields and do not depend on some random methodology:</p>
<p>SCIENCES (Bilogy, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geology, Mathematics, Pshycis):</p>
<h1>1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 98.67</h1>
<h1>2 University of California-Berkeley 97.33</h1>
<h1>3 Stanford University 97.00</h1>
<h1>4 California Institute of Technology 94.33</h1>
<h1>5 Harvard University 91.67</h1>
<h1>6 Princeton University 89.33</h1>
<h1>7 Cornell University 87.33</h1>
<h1>8 Columbia University 85.33</h1>
<h1>9 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 83.67</h1>
<h1>10 University of Chicago 83.33</h1>
<h1>10 University of Texas-Austin 83.33</h1>
<h1>10 Yale University 83.33</h1>
<h1>13 University of Wisconsin-Madison 83.00</h1>
<h1>14 University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign 82.67</h1>
<h1>15 University of California-Los Angeles 81.00</h1>
<h1>16 University of Pennsylvania 80.00</h1>
<h1>16 University of Washington 80.00</h1>
<h1>18 Northwestern University 77.20</h1>
<h1>19 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 75.60</h1>
<h1>20 Duke University 74.00</h1>
<p>HUMANITIES/SOCIAL SCIENCES (Economics, English, History, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology):</p>
<h1>1 Stanford University 95.00</h1>
<h1>1 University of California-Berkeley 95.00</h1>
<h1>3 Harvard University 94.33</h1>
<h1>4 Princeton University 93.67</h1>
<h1>5 Yale University 91. 33</h1>
<h1>6 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 90.00</h1>
<h1>7 University of Chicago 89.67</h1>
<h1>8 Columbia University 87.67</h1>
<h1>9 University of California-Los Angeles 86.67</h1>
<h1>10 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 85.50</h1>
<h1>11 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 85.20</h1>
<h1>12 University of Pennsylvania 84.33</h1>
<h1>12 University of Wisconsin-Madison 84.33</h1>
<h1>14 Northwestern University 82.67</h1>
<h1>15 Duke University 82.20</h1>
<h1>16 Cornell University 82.00</h1>
<h1>17 University of Texas-Austin 77.67</h1>
<h1>18 Washington University-St Louis 74.80</h1>
<p>COMBINED AVERAGE IN THE 12 TRADITIONAL DISCIPLINES:</p>
<h1>1 University of California-Berkeley 96.17</h1>
<h1>2 Stanford University 96.00</h1>
<h1>3 Harvard University 93.00</h1>
<h1>4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 92.09</h1>
<h1>5 Princeton University 91.50</h1>
<h1>6. Yale University 87.33</h1>
<h1>7. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 86.84</h1>
<h1>8 Columbia University 86.50</h1>
<h1>8 University of Chicago 86.50</h1>
<h1>10 Cornell University 84.67</h1>
<h1>11 University of California-Los Angeles 83.84</h1>
<h1>12 University of Wisconsin-Madison 83.67</h1>
<h1>13 University of Pennsylvania 82.17</h1>
<h1>14 University of Texas-Austin 80.50</h1>
<h1>15 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 80.40</h1>
<h1>16 Northwestern University 79.94</h1>
<h1>17 Duke University 78.10</h1>
<p>If one were to add undergraduate Business and Engineering to the equation, weighing the two combined as 1/3 of the total, with the sciences weighed at 1/3 and the humanities and social sciences at another 1/3, you would get the following result:</p>
<h1>1 University of California-Berkeley 94.44</h1>
<h1>2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 93.06</h1>
<h1>3 Stanford University 90.00</h1>
<h1>4 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 87.22</h1>
<h1>5 Princeton University 84.67</h1>
<h1>6 Cornell University 83.78</h1>
<h1>7 Harvard Universty 83.67</h1>
<h1>8 University of Pennsylvania 82.11</h1>
<h1>9 Columbia University 82.00</h1>
<h1>9 Yale University 82.00</h1>
<p>If a student doesn’t love Geometry, especially proofs, is this student likely to also not love Calculus?</p>
<p>Said student enjoys Algebra.</p>
<p>I took lots of grad school courses as an undergrad (though not in math or science). Some were taught at undergrad level as far as I could tell (i.e. the architectural history sequence which was officially a grad school course, but open to undergrads), some had slightly different requirements (i.e. a paper might be optional for undergrads and required for grads), one was more intense, but also by far and away the best course I took (Chinese Landscape Painting of the Sung Dynasty).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>More advanced high school and college freshman and sophomore level math should typically have some derivations and proofs to help the students understand where formulas come from (just having formulas to memorize is a bad way of teaching math), although the typical emphasis will be on applying the techniques presented to solve problems. However, honors college math courses and college junior and senior level math courses will have a much greater emphasis on proofs.</p>
<p>Hmm. It’s been said this student is of the “Algebra” type, rather than the “Geometry” type, which seems to be a thing, students often liking/being good at one and not the other.</p>
<p>Though pattern recognition, memorization, and algebraic manipulation are important in calculus, I think the key to calculus is to be able to think visually. Geometry is pretty visual as well, so if they don’t like that part of it calc may be tough. </p>
<p>The person who excels at the conceptual thinking involved in calculus would be able to visualize and think through the following problem: If you’re filling a curved wine glass at a constant rate, what function describes the height of the wine in the wine glass as it rises.</p>
<p>OHMomof2: I can’t remember the name of the book now, but it nails why so many kids hate the first few months of a typical Geometry class. The geometry class gets interesting later on, but extremely boring at the beginning when they are learning on how “organize” for the proofs. I think a few teachers can make it interesting, but not every one.</p>