<p>It is huge stretch to think that the science in BU is on par with those in MIT. It is nowhere close. I found that the publications by MIT faculty members, even in specialty journals, attract disproportion following and unusual large number of citations. Whereas in BU, is just average at best, unless it is a collaboration with MIT or Harvard faculties. The gap is enormous. Science hiring and graduate student recruitment is largely a function of connection. A graduate from MIT would have a huge leg up on somebody from BU regardless grades or GRE, as far as there are some strong support letters from MIT well known and usually well connected professors. There is no contest. I sat in the graduate admission committee for so many years. It is an unspoken rule to place great weight on references (particularly those references you know personally). </p>
<p>That said, it does not mean graduates from BU having no chance to get into top flight schools. As far as you prove yourselve with research results, strong letters, good GPA and GRE scores, you are still competitive. For MIT graduates, you only need to confirm the expectation. A trip from MIT undergraduate to top flight graduate science schools are equivalent to hit the ball from fairway to green. A trip from BU to top flight schools is equivalent to hit the ball from sideway sand bunker behind the trees to green. It is doable. But it is just a little tougher and it needs more effort.</p>
<p>I was in a similar situation last year. I chose MIT, however, I did not need to take on as much debt (~$25k).</p>
<p>In my opinion, if you have the knack for getting to grad school in general, especially if you can get into MIT as an undergrad, you can probably do it from anywhere. I do agree it is “easier” from the MIT side. “Easier” in that more opportunities for you to stand out will present itself as an MIT undergrad. Yet, I put it in quotes because being a physics major at MIT is a difficult task. I presume, if you plan on doing physics in grad school, you are going to want to do Junior Lab (J-lab) for both semesters – not an easy task by any means. J-lab usually takes on the order of 30 hours per week and the junior year for MIT physics majors is among the most rigorous terms an MIT student can undertake. Making through this difficult process is among the many qualities that grad schools like about MIT undergrads.</p>
<p>On another note, I believe the general culture of MIT students is a unique one – one that for many people, doesn’t work, but for most who choose MIT is the best fit possible. There are enough people with diverse backgrounds at MIT that can allow you to find your social setting, be it partying, building stuff, research, or whatever. And the passion for math and science creates an environment that makes school so much more enjoyable. Given many of the top schools, academically, they are very similar, but what I believe sets MIT apart is it’s knack for a science-oriented school. This isn’t for everyone, and I encourage you to go to CPW for the purpose of seeing if this is a good fit.</p>
<p>At the same time, 100k in debt is a lot of money. It is so significant that I encourage you to think very carefully at your priorities. Being that much in debt is risky for your future, and as a graduate student, you could very well find yourself in a deep hole of debt.</p>
<p>In terms of getting into grad school alone, the OP should ask him/herself this question: does the prospect of getting a very high GRE score (90%) range sound difficult or easy. If he is confident in his abilities to master the material at BU or elsewhere, it won’t be that tough to get that score.</p>
<p>MIT does have more rigorous classes and you will learn more. However, one physics major mentioned to me that she “doesn’t have time to think big thoughts.” It wasn’t really a complaint, just that she was trying to keep her head above water as she was being hosed down by the firehose. If you like to have some time to think about the material on your own, MIT may not be the place.</p>
<p>Also, there are other drawbacks MIT. At BU, it’s less likely that you will know someone that committed suicide. Not everyone deals with this the same way. For some people, they just read about it in the newspaper and think “too bad.” If you know the person or if it happens in your dorm, it can have a big effect on your outlook.</p>
<p>Frankly, Collegealum, your comments are going from strange to weird. No time to think? Depression? Suicide? What more anecdotes can you pull to turn people off? Jeez, I don’t know what MIT did to you lately! Maybe we should both let current MIT students talk about their experiences.</p>
<p>Well, I probably wouldn’t have put anything about the suicide thing if there wasn’t two recent suicides there in the last 6 months (not counting the last one, which looks like an accidental overdose.) Obviously, they haven’t solved this problem. MIT has a reputation for suicide. Everybody knows this. Is it really weird to think that this could have an effect on the campus atmosphere, particularly for those who may have a connection to the person or who lived in the dorm where it happened?</p>
<p>As for the firehose, I hardly think it’s bizarre to question whether the sheer quantity of work is a good thing or not. It’s called critical thinking. And besides, it was an unsolicited comment from a physics major.</p>
<p>Math55 at Harvard has a killer reputation, yet there was a theoretical math grad student there (and MIT undergrad alum) who wrote a long post explaining that it wouldn’t have been good for him to take it when he was an undergrad. </p>
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<p>This is ironic, considering you are arguing about what goes on in a UROP at MIT versus other schools, yet you didn’t go here. I’ve done UROPs at MIT and seen and I’ve overseen undergrad “UROPS” at other schools. I’ve even seen high school students who were an active participant in their research at their nearby university. You don’t need to be at MIT to do this.</p>
<p>But maybe you’re right, perhaps someone with second-hand info and an alum 10-years out of MIT should post less on this thread…</p>
<p>Last semester sucked for me. A lot of my friends got depressed, one left, a few revealed to me that they were depressed and had considered suicide. I was pretty miserable for a bit. I had a few bad relationships. My grades dropped, and my desperate attempts to resuscitate them didn’t work. I didn’t spend as much time as I wanted at my UROP. I felt unwanted, directionless, and stupid.</p>
<p>The suicides didn’t help. A friend of mine was friends with the people who found the body in one case. There was also a constant fear of more suicides, especially since I live in a small, closeknit dorm where everyone knows everyone else. (“Have you seen ___ today?! We haven’t seen ___ in, like, the whole day! Guys he’s not opening his door. We should call the campus police. OMG OMG OMG did he commit suicide? Are we about to find a body?! Oh. No. He just slept through two exams.”) It was pretty terrifying.</p>
<p>As for UROPs at MIT vs. at other schools. I did research at Penn State in high school, and then did research in the same field at MIT a year later. Labs at MIT are better funded, and publications from these labs are more likely to be published in high-profile journals. It’s also much easier for an MIT student to get involved with truly awesome research. However, once you do get a lab and a project, it’s harder to get published as an undergrad from MIT, because the quality and quantity of work that is expected of you before publication is usually greater, and the project you will be working on is most likely bigger. You don’t really need a publication as an undergrad or even a grad student leaving MIT, though, since a stellar recommendation from an MIT professor who is a leader in the field is worth more than enough.</p>
<p>Where does that come from? True, I was a grad student at MIT and not an undergrad, but I had plenty of undergrads around, some of which I oversaw in the AI lab. Also, the fact that my D just graduated from MIT after spending three years doing research provides me with some very current data.</p>
<p>A problem at MIT is that it often attracts the students who decide their worth is directly proportional to their GPA. This is not a healthy outlook anywhere, but can go wrong most drastically at MIT where people will be challenged. It doesn’t help that many consider it correct to be “hardcore” and do more than you ever should, often not only academically but hosing yourself with pointless clubs. </p>
<p>With the right mindset, MIT is really a wonderful place full of opportunity. But people have. trouble changing the definition of self-worth that has worked for them for so long, or ignore the peer pressure to be stupidly hosed. It took me way too long to get to that point, but my life’s been happy since. I think it was a change I needed to go through.</p>
Well, you do often need a publication as a grad student – it’s a PhD graduation requirement in many programs. But it’s easier to end up with a publication after four or five years of 60-hour-a-week indentured servitude (ahem, I mean, grad school) than it is after two or three years at fifteen hours a week as an undergrad.</p>
<p>^ “vastly greater than … any other school” is too broad a generalization. i would agree if it was worded as ‘greater than … many schools in some programs.’</p>
<p>remember, there are extremely successful folks in every walk of engineering/other fields who did NOT get their undergraduate degree from MIT. in fact they (i.e., highly successful people) out number MIT graduates easily. </p>
<p>but no matter the hyperbole attached to the opportunities, it’s not worth going in debt to the tune of $200 k, especially considering a free-ride at fairly good school like BU per op, especially is grad school is the ultimate motive, again per op.</p>
<p>That statement is completely irrelevant to the OP and meaningless. of course, there are more sucessful people in general than MIT grads or Harvard grads or all Ivy grads and top 20 schools grads combined. MIT graduates a very small number of students and that rarity combined with the hardcore reputation of the school is in part what makes it so valuable. While people will often complain that Harvard is overrated, I have frankly never heard that being said about MIT. You just can’t BS your way to a degree at MIT. There are no rankings, no Latin honors: just graduating is enough of an achievement. Employers and grads school admission officers know that. </p>
<p>The real issue is whether the OP is more likely to do well if he goes to MIT versus BU. The answer is unequivocally yes. That would be especially true for grad school where the difference in success rate for grad school placement between the two school is substantial. Sure, anybody can overcome all types of obstacles with a lot of effort and defy the odds. But it is very often a long shot. </p>
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<p>The OP could never get in debt for $200K anyway. His parents could be in debt for most of the cost, but the OP could at most get in debt for around $25 K over 4 years. MIT still offers very good FA for middle class families and if his parents can afford the cost, it is probably the best investment they can make for the OP’s future. Ther are VERY FEW students that turn down an admission offer because they have a better deal elsewhere. How many students admitted to Cal, UCLA or UMich, much better schools than BU, where they can pay low instate tuition, choose those schools over MIT if they have the choice. You can count them on one hand! Same thing at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford. The high yield of admitted students to HYPSM proves it. Nearly all MIT admits turn down great merit aid elsewhere. That just comes with the territory. </p>
<p>Pretty much every study shows that a PhD is already a very risky career choice, even in the STEM fields. Most drop out and of the few that continue to the end, an even smaller number ever make it to a livable wage. So, frankly the very worst choice the OP could do would be to save money now and risk ending up as an adjunct making $30K a year fifteen years out. Nothing ventured, nothing gained! getting into to MIT is not quite like winning the lottery but it certainly buys you a lot more tickets!</p>
<p>^Purely in terms of interest by grad schools, if you get 4.3 or higher with a good subject GRE (80%+) score you will probably get into most of the top 5 grad schools, if not all. This is just my rough recollection of physics majors that I knew. However, if you go lower than 4.3 and it becomes kind of iffy. If you really learn a lot and your GPA belies your skills, then it’s possible to still be successful in admissions. 4.2 is the average GPA at MIT; I don’t know what it is in physics, but I think it is fair to say there are a significang number of people under a 4.3 GPA.</p>
<p>Cellardweller’s “nothing ventured, nothing gained” is true here. However, you should have some kind of gut feeling that you want to be at MIT. Some of the underperformers are undoubtedly people that came to MIT because of its reputation rather than for the fit. “Fit” is not just a buzzword with a school like MIT, since MIT is so different from other schools. It’s not just about being hard. U. of Chicago is very rigorous especially in physics and math, but there is a very different feel to the school as well as (I think) the general pedagogical philosophy. I think words do have meaning here. The idea of “tooling”, the strapping on of more and more algorithms and processing reams of problem sets, would not be used at a liberal arts school.</p>
<p>Pay close attention to at least three people’s comments, collegealum314, lidusha, and PiperXP. All three were top students in high school. One went to grad school and is now a prof, one wants to go to grad school, and one is having a second thought, IIRC.</p>
<p>If high school was easy for you, e.g., 2380 SAT without prep, 6-8 AP per year with all 5s, and you spent most of your time having fun with something else, MIT is a great choice but you don’t have to go. Otherwise, think carefully. I know one person who took a full ride to a State U and then went to MIT for grad school.</p>
<p>Could you please expand on this? Why would you make less with a PhD? Just trying to understand what people mean when they discuss grad school and the advantages/disadvantages of going to MIT for undergrad/grad (which I take to mean a Masters?)/PhD?</p>
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Again, could you clarify here? The average student graduating from MIT has a 4.2 (undergrad)? That seems incredibly high from my son’s experience or do the GPA’s go up quite a bit over the years? (I thought I’d read the reverse). Or do you mean that the average student getting into MIT for grad school has a 4.2 GPA? </p>
<p>Also, I know this topic has been mostly on the sciences, but those of you with experience - would you say the same holds true for engineering? Primarily in terms of grad school admissions and in terms of funding for grad school. My younger son is still trying to make a similar decision (different major/different school alternative) and has heard both that it’s easier to get into MIT from another school for grad school and that it’s harder. He’d love to save the money and go to his nearly full ride at a still top 10 school and then do MIT for grad school, but feels like getting into MIT this time was, as stated, a bit like “winning the lottery” and is very fearful this might never happen again!</p>
<p>For some fields, MIT tries not to accept people who have already been there for undergrad. Other fields don’t mind.</p>
<p>I know a lot of grad students at MIT who did undergrad at schools I’ve never heard of. To get to MIT from there, though, you really need to stand out from the crowd at your university. You need an almost perfect GPA and almost perfect (or perfect) GRE scores, you need amazing recommendations, and most importantly you need good research experience–the kind that lasts three or four years and preferably results in a publication–preferably in the field you’ll be sticking with for grad school.</p>
<p>Going to MIT for undergrad gives you a lot more flexibility and stability. It’s easier to find a research opportunity as an undergrad, your grades don’t need to be perfect, and your recommendations will be coming from leaders in the field.</p>
<p>“Why would you make less with a Ph.D?”
It all depends on what you do with it. My daughter, now in a physics Ph.D. program at Harvard, tells me that some of the graduates from that program have immediately established their own companies or gone to work for private industry. In such cases, a Ph.D. graduate has the possibility of very high earnings. Some graduates will land tenure-track positions teaching physics in colleges in universities, but such positions are pretty scarce these days. This means that some applicants will obtain only “adjunct” or “post-doc” positions which pay much less. The quoted figure of $30,000 is too low, because that’s the average amount a graduate student would receive today as a living stipend from a large research university, but you might expect the earnings in such positions to range from around $40,000 to a bit higher. Quite frankly, a young physicist in such a position could triple that salary by leaving academia and joining the private sector – it’s never a dead end, in the long run. </p>
<p>“The average MIT student has a 4.2 undergrad gpa?”
MIT calculates GPA on a 1-5 scale, and a 4.2 translates as a 3.2 gpa. I have no idea if that’s the correct figure these days, but I do think that collegealum’s memories of how many MIT students went on to physics graduate school are now pretty out of date. You can visit online forums where applicants to grad schools in physics will post their test scores, experience, and gpa and then also post admission results. Just Google the phrase “Grad cafe physics forum” for example. You’ll discover that admission to grad school physics programs has become really competitive.</p>
<p>When I was there, the common knowledge was that the average GPA was 4.1. I’ve heard that it has gone up a little. I would guess that engineering is lower than the sciences, based on the grade distribution differences in my engineering versus advanced science classes.</p>
<p>I don’t believe I commented on how many physics students went onto grad school from MIT. I had specific knowledge of people with 4.3+ from MIT having no trouble getting into Stanford or MIT for physics grad school. I don’t know what happened to the people who did worse than that in physics, though I have heard on occasion that people in other areas got into top schools with worse GPAs. However, GPA is more important for theory-heavy area. Maybe it is harder today. </p>
<p>I did say that getting a high GRE score will help you out a lot. One reason is that most of the top GRE SUBJECT scores in physics/chem are gotten by international students, and these guys are in a different pool. Many of the international applicants have master’s degrees when they apply.</p>
<p>For engineering, unless I am very out-of-date, EECS and chem E require a 4.3/5.0 for automatic admission to their masters’ program. PhD is a little more difficult, but if you’ve been working in a research group and the prof likes you, you are likely to get in. Undergrad and graduate school are very different. I don’t think telling people to just go to the prestigious school for grad school is good advice. Most engineers don’t even go to grad school.</p>
<p>Try to make an informed decision as to what is the best education and where you think you will be the happiest and/or most fulfilled. Then decide if it is worth the money. If you have a good experience at MIT, I think it is probably worth the money IMO.</p>
<p>I assume you are asking whether GPAs tend to go up from freshman to senior year. I think the core classes in the sophomore year are often the hardest on people grade-wise, but I guess it depends on whether you go out of your way to take the harder electives later on. In some cases, some people have trouble with the GIRs but do better when they are in their specific areas of interest. </p>
<p>One random thought: don’t pressure your kid to major in something which is not their first choice in terms of pure interest. Maybe at another school this might make sense. But they will be living and breathing their major at MIT and probably won’t be able to do well if they don’t like it.</p>
But it’s easier to end up with a publication after four or five years of 60-hour-a-week indentured servitude (ahem, I mean, grad school) than it is after two or three years at fifteen hours a week as an undergrad.</p>