I was fortunate enough to be accepted into both of these great schools. At Uchicago I would probably double major in math and economics and at MIT I would double major in math and business. My ultimate goal is business. I am also interested in UChicago careers in business. If anyone could please advise which school I should choose.
Are your serious? MIT.
Could you please help me decide one way or the other?
I also had to make this choice, and I ended up going with UChicago.
My most shallow reason was that I love Gothic architecture. UChicago’s campus is absolutely gorgeous while MIT’s campus is one of the ugliest I’ve ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on. This was not the deciding factor, but I would rather see Ryerson every day than the Stata Center (I’m a CS major).
Atmosphere wise, the schools were very similar, but I eventually gave the edge towards UChicago. MIT and UChicago both had what I was looking for, students who were more interested in doing interesting things than becoming millionaires, but I found that at UChicago this was more prevalent than at MIT. I don’t know how familiar you are with UChicago and MIT dorm culture, but most of MIT was like UChicago’s Max P and most of UChicago was like MIT’s Senior House. I wanted more Senior House than Max P. I hate to stereotype based on majors, but business majors tend to be more pre-professional, so if you personally find the kind of people who will try to talk you out of interviewing for the NSA despite its high pay (this happened to me) exceedingly annoying, I would go with MIT.
Academically, both schools are mostly fantastic. UChicago doesn’t have engineering, which might irk you. On the other side, MIT treats the humanities like an unwanted child - 8 different forms of engineering have their own departments while all the humanities are shoved into Course 21 - and if you have a serious secondary interest in history or English this may bother you a lot. This was the deciding factor for me. Admittedly, you can cross register at Harvard to fill your humanities needs, but it isn’t the same as being surrounded by liberal arts majors. I, personally, would be miserable surrounded by STEM people constantly, and I say this as a STEM person. I also have a strong secondary interest in history, and I just didn’t feel like MIT delivered on that end. On the other hand, I’ve found UChicago’s CS department delightful. The department isn’t as well known but the classes are small and personal and the professors are excellent. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything but CS reputation. My history classes are…well…absolutely amazing. At MIT, I know I would find my CS classes amazing but I don’t think I could call my history classes delightful.
Alright, those are my personal reasons and how I reached my decision, and they may be useful in making your decision. Unfortunately, I don’t know what you should do.
If you go to UChicago, you will be majoring in two of our strongest subjects. If you go to MIT, you will be majoring in two of their strongest subjects. I don’t believe you will be missing anything out with respect to academics or job placement.
What will change is your quality of life. Choose based on vibe, the core (the core cannot be ignored, it will take up a huge amount of your time when you’re a 1st and 2nd year), and overall impressions.
Good luck!
Thank you so much for the reply YogSothoth. Could you expound a bit on the dorm cultures of the two schools?
Also, how are you finding the hard sciences/computer science at UChicago? How difficult is it to get involved in research?
I would pick MIT. I love the campus as well as Cambridge/Boston. There are so many CS opportunities outside of classes. I think the humanities classes are surprisingly good! I agree with YogSothoth it is a personal decision and you have two great options.
MIT and UChicago both have very distinct dorms. It isn’t like Yale or Harvard where you are randomly sorted, you either apply (in UChicago’s case) or rush (in MIT’s case; yes like frats) to get into the dorm you want, and all the dorms have different personalities.
At UChicago most of the dorms are very off-beat, with the exception of Max P and, to some extent, South. To get a sense of UChicago’s dorm culture, I strongly recommend reading the House and dorm descriptions on the housing site (http://housing.uchicago.edu/houses_houses/). Houses are smaller groupings within dorms that act basically like Hogwarts houses, they’re a grouping of people who you live near and provide a built in social base. There are some dorms that are filled with people who like their privacy and don’t want to party (they saw “UChicago: where fun comes to die” as a plus), some dorms that are filled with people who are okay with partying but are still extremely intellectual, some dorms filled with social people who don’t necessarily want to party and one dorm (Max P) that is very social and has the most athletes and people who are interested in rushing in frats. I, personally, love it. I ended up in a dorm that fit perfectly with what I want out of UChicago and college and I can’t count the number of times I’ve stayed up until 2 am because I can’t stop talking to my housemates. Also, if you want a single, come to UChicago. I believe every dorm except Max P has singles and its fairly easy to get one, even as a 1st year.
I don’t know as much about MIT, so take most of what I say with a grain of salt, but I don’t believe the dorms are as individually unique. Instead, there’s a large divide between East Campus and West Campus. East Campus is nerdier, more intellectual, and much more interested in doing interesting things (like painting on all the walls in Senior House or roasting a massive steer once a year), while West Campus is less nerdy (relatively speaking, this is MIT) more straight-laced and the prevailing attitude seems to be much more pre-professional. I preferred East Campus, although most of the dorms are in West Campus. Again, this is all just my impressions from CPW, reading about the school, etc.
Hard sciences at UChicago are fantastic, as far as I can tell, but everything is grounded in theory, not practical applications. I’m not a hard sciences major and it isn’t really my thing but UChicago is well regarded with respect to the hard sciences, especially physics. Computer Science is, as I said, perfectly fine. I haven’t had any problem with it and I’m enjoying the depth (a lot of theory) and breadth (learning theory!=getting out of actually programming). UChicago isn’t known for computer science but that doesn’t mean UChicago is bad at computer science.
As for research, I think it’s like any other school. I haven’t done any but I know people who have persuaded (and maybe bribed with $1 milkshakes) professors to take them on. The professors are, for the most part, genuinely interested in undergraduates, and if you’re friendly to them they will be friendly to you. I think if you express an interest in research it shouldn’t be hugely difficult to get involved, but it probably depends on the professor. A CMU professor wrote up a handy guide on grad school admissions that includes a guide on how to get involved with research, you can read it here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf. It will be useful at both MIT and UChicago.
MIT unless you are more interested in math theory.
Cambridge is a much nicer city than the south side of Chicago. And Boston is fantastic. If you go to MIT, you can cross-register to Harvard, including its graduate schools. Big bonus.
Cambridge and Hyde Park might as well be the same place, honestly. Outside of Cambridge is a bigger bubble filled with college students and very rich people but outside Hyde Park is the real world. Not that that matters - MIT students and UChicago pretty much only leave Cambridge or Hyde Park to go downtown, which both schools have easy access to the downtown. Chicago is very different, though, (bigger, more skyscrapers, less rude people) than Boston.
Almost no one at MIT cross registers at Harvard. There are a lot of bureaucratic hurdles and taking the T to class turns into a massive pain. I looked into it when I was considering MIT and it didn’t seem worth it.
OP - have you decided?
Plenty of MIT students cross register at Harvard! Where have you heard otherwise YogSothoth?
Indeed, you have a very difficult task in hand! Deciding between MIT and UChicago is like chosing between two diamonds of equal size, with same color and clarity. Only the cut is different! Once you decide, do post your decision with the rationale you followed.
@lostaccount Maybe my sample size was unrepresentative but everyone I talked to said it was a pain and they neither did it nor knew many people who did it. My parents are alumni and it was the same deal when they went there, very few people took classes at Harvard.
This page outlines the steps to take a class at Harvard. When looking at this (plus dealing with actually going there and back which can be annoying) vs just signing up for classes I’m interested in that are offered at UChicago, it was a no-brainer. http://web.mit.edu/registrar/reg/xreg/MITtoHarvard.html