<p>there's a really awesome thread in the Stanford's forum done by a current student: </p>
<p>"I'm currently a freshman at Stanford and I really like it here, and most of my friends do too. That being said, here are some bad parts about Stanford that you might want to consider when trying to decide between schools, all you prospective freshmen."</p>
<p>The poster talked about lack of college town, high cost-of-living due to fees and Palo Alto's upscale taste, inaccessible professors, bad weather and advising system. Any of the MIT alumni or current students want to chime in and let the prospective freshman know what they're getting themselves into?</p>
<p>unlike stanford, i doubt you're deceived about the quality of boston weather, cpw magic notwithstanding.</p>
<p>depending on your department, not every single prof here is open and beautifully accessible...but i've foudn enough to not make me too sad.</p>
<p>you will almost certainly, at some point (and maybe more), have some form of crisis over your self worth, your future plans, and why you're stuck doing x awful project or pset at some obscene hour of the weekend. this is not necessarily a huge problem, depending on who you are, and isn't strictly limited to the mit experience. but yeah, it happens. i recommend having friends who're capable of helping, in such cases. and no, jim, jack, and jose don't count.</p>
<p>I am currently a junior, and I absolutely love it here. Wouldn't have gone anywhere else.</p>
<p>Still, I think prospective students need to understand that MIT is hard. Even if you were #1 in your class with perfect SAT scores and a to-die-for GPA, you will probably come here and fail at least one test, if not four or five.</p>
<p>But it turns out to be okay for most people, because they learn to work harder and worry less and just sit down and plow through the work... the workload doesn't get less intense as you go through MIT, you just learn to deal with it better.</p>
<p>Heh ... as far as "failing multiple tests and questioning one's self-worth" ... this is the first time I feel so lucky to have had such a sadistic math teacher the year I had (extended) mono. Maybe I'll be somewhat prepared to not take it too seriously. /me crosses his fingers</p>