<p>:)
If you are a current Stanford Engineering student (or with equivalent knowedge) who was cross-admitted as a HS Senior to MIT in the last 4 years, can you please share what made you decide to go to Stanford over MIT Please? </p>
<p>** why you chose Stanford over MIT ......(top 3/5 choices below please) :**</p>
<p>[list=a]
[<em>] Research opportunities (for undergraduates)
[</em>] Potential for linking up with other entrepreneurs/VCs when graduating
[<em>] Weather/Location
[</em>] Financial aid
[<em>] Dorms/Food
[</em>] Balancing humanities pursuits (English/SS/language etc)
[<em>] Balancing artistic pursuits (Dance Minor/Drama Minor etc)
[</em>] Professors (or a specific area of specialization)
[<em>] Premed training
[</em>] Access to grad opportunties that I would not have at MIT (can you please explain)
[<em>] Felt I could stand out more at Stanford
[</em>] I have friends who go there/will be going there
[<em>] Visited both places and I ended up liking Stanford over MIT
[</em>] recruited for some athletic/other team
[li] specialized EC is much more supported at Stanford[/li][/list]</p>
<p>..it seems unlikely the key reasons could have been
a/d/e/h (probably equal in both places?)
probably not j</p>
<p>curious about the other choices though..... on a scale of
1 to 10 (10 being knows quite a bit), I am pretty sure
my familiarity with the MIT environment is above a 5 compared
to familiarity with Stanford- probably around a 2-3.</p>
<p>One of my parents really likes Stanford and the other really likes
MIT; I like them both along with Caltech and Duke :)</p>
<p>I am answering on behalf of my brother, with what knowledge I had on his decision last year. He's not an engineering major, but I believe he put down computer science as his prospective major (so close enough). Although, in the end, his final choice was between Stanford and Harvard, I believe MIT was whittled off the list primarily because of Reason H. I'm not quite sure about M, though I know he went to admit weekends for both and had a great time at MIT - I'm assuming he also did at Stanford. Reason O actually probably was more applicable to MIT as his main EC passion was classical piano, and classical music is supported much more by MIT than Stanford.</p>
<p>echang :) thank you very much for your reply. </p>
<p>MIT is uber-likable as I found out personally through my overnight stay.
The problem is that I may not get to visit Stanford until admit weekend
and want to put in as much soft-dilligence ahead of time. I have been through GAMIT a gadzillion times but have nothing equivalent for Stanford.</p>
<p>Any insights would be valuable!</p>
<p>Just saw your post chronicidal! Thanks.</p>
<p>pistolen, also the new breed of "engineer-scientist" physician will need tools
that MIT and Caltech provide in the future. Traditional pre-meds
would not prosper in droves but there are new batches of students who
may benefit from programs like the Caltech-UCSD med scholars and
potentially learn at MIT and still go for an MD. That said reason "i " is one
that Stanford is traditionally superior at- which is why it is listed as a
reason someone chooses Stanford over MIT).</p>
<p>arwen, one other thing you ought to consider is the difference between the student body at Stanford and that at MIT. Academics/education aside, the weakness of the humanities department at MIT would also affect your experience there because the student body will be much more homogeneous in terms of academic interests and, by nature of their correlation, also extracurricular interests. This is the main reason why I myself did not apply to MIT: although I would hate to give up stimulating classroom access to the humanities, I am almost definitely a science person; yet the prospect of being surrounded with people, the majority of whom would much rather discuss robotics or biochemical pathways or whatnot over religion etc., was simply unattractive to me. I've always envisioned college as four years of stimulation in <em>all</em> intellectual areas, both inside and outside the classroom, and simply did not think MIT could offer that. To each his/her own, however; this concern of mine may be insignificant to others.</p>
<p>My overnight experience at MIT showed me an extremely diverse set of people who were intellectually just bubbling and drawn to every topic under the sun. Any other place is probably going to be as good at best from my
individual perspective ;)</p>
<p>(Whats wrong with having a warm fuzzy about biochemical pathways or
Guido Von Rossum (the BDLF) who evolved beyond man when he created Python.....:p)</p>
<p>Any other inputs from others on why you may be at Stanford now after being admitted in MIT as well( reasons a..o)?</p>
<p>........are there really not that many folks at Stanford currently who
were admitted to MIT who are on CC this week?</p>
<p>hmmm, anyone at all, if you took out weather, financial aid and wanting to
do premed why would you choose Stanford over MIT.... (at this point it
looks to me like qualitative personal preference and not a systemic 'here
is why' kind of thing.....)</p>
<ol>
<li>more balanced education</li>
<li>student body with variety of interests</li>
<li>general campus "vibe"</li>
<li>focus on undergraduates</li>
<li>weather/location</li>
</ol>
<p>Curious about "4 focus" and "3 vibe." Could you please share
a bit more - especially about 4? (Thought the Stanford focus
was relatively more on grads v undergrads- no personal
ideas/facts on my part though)</p>
<p>Having visited both, there is indeed a "vibe" that is different on each campus.</p>
<p>Stanford is very, very beautiful and open and green and relaxed and bucolic almost lazy...in a way that a river is lazy on a summer day. Haha. So, if you want to work hard in a relaxing backdrop, Stanford might suit you.</p>
<p>Matched with Stanford's California slow is MIT's east coast fast. The campus is smaller, grayer, and uglier. But it has the excitement of the urban atmosphere, and students who are wildly zealous in whatever they pursue (from robotics to World of Warcraft to physics). </p>
<p>Definitely different type of students. MIT is way nerdy, but so is most of CC! :) The students and campus might not be as attractive, but it seems like at MIT you would more easily find the zany students that you want to stay up with at night discussing and debating topics that run the gamut.</p>
<p>vibe -
Stanford has that "laid back cool dude" attitude. It is often referred to as a "duck syndrome" (calm on the surface, paddling hard underneath). This metaphor suggests that the the calm appearance is only a facade, and I don't think it is quite true. The students do work very hard, and it can be stressful at times, but there is that friendly and relaxed atmosphere that does not seem to exist at East coast schools. (Not everyone likes it - I know students that chose Yale over Stanford, because Stanford felt "too laid back" to them.)</p>
<p>focus on undergraduates-
In the last 8 years or so Stanford made a concentrated effort to place more emphasis on its undergraduate program. Several changes were made to ensure that the students get to closely interact with prominent faculty members (there are many freshmen and sophomore seminars capped at 12 students and taught by top profs), grant money was made easily available for undergraduate research projects, etc.</p>
<p>nngmm:), thank you for the 'focus on undergraduate' information! I did
not know this. Are there any public links available identifying such courses
for example for the upcoming year (2008-2009) that you can post please?</p>
<p>kyledavid:p, talking of paddling, I saw a MythBusters episode with the
Stanford rowing team trying to pick up enough speed to keep the
myth buster surfing. </p>
<p>he,he:D. Seniors from my HS who are at Harvard now also
have the "studied nonchalance" thing down pat.... "I am just chillaxin,"
(never mind the 18 straight hours they put in on their upcoming finals kind of
thing.)</p>
<p>I'd like to revive this thread..since we're getting so close to the deadline. I'm currently in the same situation, choosing between stanford and mit. coming back from cpw, i was extremely surprised at the amount of diversity at mit. i don't think the "more diverse interests at stanford" argument necessarily holds. Sure everyone may be interested primarily in math, science, and engineering, but many students also have interests in the humanities as well. Even if mit doesn't have certain humanities classes, you can always dual enroll at harvard. Based on what people said, to me it seems like the most "compelling" reason may be in research. How does stanford research compare to mit's urop? Because mit culture is such that pretty much everyone does research, it seems like it would be much easier to get a professors to accept you into their lab. How is it at stanford, and is it really easy to get research funding for your own projects?</p>