What can we tell you that will help you make your decision?

molliebatmit · April 20, 2013, 10:23pm

For the past eight million (okay, seven) years, I've started a thread around this time dedicated to the last-minute questions people need to have answered before they can whether to come to MIT or not. It's pretty late at this point, but I'm sure there are still burning questions out there.

The first year I started the thread, I said

[quote]
The title says it all. This was a question I was asked frequently in graduate school interviews, and I really like it -- cuts all the crap and gets right to the heart of the matter.

What do you really care about in a school, and what don't you know about MIT that prevents you from knowing whether or not you want to spend four years here?

[/quote]

So what do you need to know? All questions, no matter how big or how small, are welcomed. Just be aware that if you make them too big, they're hard to answer succinctly -- the more directed your question, the more likely it is that we'll be able to answer it informatively.

There are lots of great questions and answers there from seven years' worth of prefrosh. (Alarmingly, I have been hosting this thread every year since I was a senior at MIT, when you current prefrosh were in middle school.)

SusieAnne · April 20, 2013, 10:42pm

I’m a junior right now, so I guess I’m not quite your target audience, but here goes.
I’m interested in Physics for my major. Every time I see a MIT Math SAT score, it’s ~800. Mine was only 720. It’s good, but am I going to stick out like a black sheep because I’m not a math genius? My CR/M combined was 1520, so I’m not dumb or anything, I just worry that I’ll be a minuscule fish in an ocean, if that makes sense.

PiperXP · April 20, 2013, 11:23pm

@SusieAnne - Most people at MIT aren’t math geniuses, and most people aren’t math majors at all! A 720 is a perfectly acceptable score for an MIT student.

That said, you will be a small fish in an ocean. “90% of MIT students were in the top 10% of their high school, and 90% of MIT students are not in the top 10% anymore.” Most people come here and feel initially surrounded by brilliance. You get used to it, and start forming your identity around things other than “I’m the smartest”.

collegedad2013 · April 20, 2013, 11:35pm

What surprised me about talking to MIT students is how much the students talked about “all-nighters”. But I couldn’t figure out whether they were really all nighters (e.g. no/very limited sleep for a full day, or if it was more of a time shift (go to bed at 5am after working, wake up at noon).

Also, what drives this? Is it that they work in groups and people don’t get together until all their extracurricular stuff is done (e.g. start working at 10-11pm?)

PiperXP · April 21, 2013, 12:56am

@collegedad2013 - People who pull all-nighters just talk about it more than people who don’t pull all-nighters. They are often either seeking comfort, or showing off because of the “being hardcore” mentality. I haven’t pulled an all-nighter. The closest I’ve come is getting 3 hours of sleep before a final – because I took Claritin because I needed a histamine, and found out through experience that it’s a bad thing to take right before bed But usually I get 7.5 hours of sleep a night.

What drives it - often it’s people taking on more than they should. People seem to do this less as they learn to manage their time and decide what’s actually important to them. Pset groups meeting last-minute is definitely a thing. I’ve shifted towards utilizing office hours more because of it.

maumau1 · April 21, 2013, 1:12pm

My D absolutely loves MIT. She is interested in Math as major plus Econ, CS, or Mgmt Science as minor. She also got accepted into Stanford and Princeton, both offer excellent programs in these academic areas. Our remaining considerations are:

1) The extreme rigor of academics at MIT & what seems to be a common theme of constant sleep deprivation amongst MIT students is quite concerning. This was pretty apparent when we visited MIT during CPW, as many prospective students shared that they did not seem to see their hosts back at the dorm during the night, nor during the day. While some students as Piper may be able to get decent amount of sleep (thanks for sharing Piper!), not sure if that is the case for the majority of students at MIT. And while some may thrive during such an extreme academic pressure, not all respond well. We also know that students from other top schools may face similar challenges, however they appear milder (relatively).
2) Princeton and Stanford offered significantly higher financial aid than MIT. We had discussed with MIT FinAid and filed an appeal but the difference it made was not significant (thank you MIT for your considerations!). A MIT financial aid officer we met with suggested that D take out a loan for part of the college cost. But the idea of a sizable debt upon college graduation in such a soft economy is not very convincing. And if D decides to pursue professional or graduate study, the debt will continue to grow so this will likely become a hindrance for her pursuit of graduate/professional study.
3) Out of MIT, Stanford and Princeton, it appears that Princeton is the only one ranked highly of undergraduate education by USNews. I understand that this often means ease of finding undergraduate research and internship, and accessibility of professors to undergraduate students. On research/internship, this may be a supply/demand dynamics as such there may not be a fixed answer. But in certain areas such as Math, it may be easier to land opportunities in NYC Metro area or Silicon Valley area.

We know fit for a student is quite important, and MIT may very well be the best fit for D. But we often compromise in life as so many other factors need to be taken into consideration in forming a decision. Any thoughts or experience that you may share is highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

wellthatsokay · April 21, 2013, 1:43pm

<ol>
<li> The sleep thing really varies, and it is true that you hear more from the people who didn’t sleep a lot than the people who did. It really depends on how you set your schedule. I really like getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night, so I try to plan out my schedule (and start all my assignments ahead of time so I can attend office hours) accordingly.</li>
</ol>

Granted, it is sometimes hard even with planning to get 7-8, but for me 5-6 hours is an uncharacteristically small amount of sleep. Many athletes with morning practice are really strict about bedtimes, and I have friends who are in bed no later than midnight most nights.

This is also largely self-inflicted. Students (and lots of other students here) tend to over-commit. This means 4-5 classes, a UROP, a job, clubs/sports/leadership positions, etc. You don’t need to do this, and people don’t and are happy with their lives too.

<ol>
<li>As I don’t know about your family’s circumstances, I can’t really comment on this. I don’t know what magnitude of loans you’re talking about. I can say that I was offered a significantly better package at CalTech, but thought MIT was a better fit and came here and don’t regret it.</li>
<li>I’m not sure what you mean here. MIT, Stanford, and Princeton are all extremely well-regarded for undergraduate education (please don’t pick your D’s school based on USNews, and especially not based on a difference of a handful of spots in their view of the world). There will be a lot of opportunities at all schools.</li>
</ol>

I can only speak for MIT, but it’s extraordinarily easy to find a UROP (undergrad research position) and there are a boatload of companies that recruit on campus and have strong ties to MIT.

PiperXP · April 21, 2013, 2:07pm

I will tell you that the majority of students can get enough sleep, but they make choices to take on too much and don’t. I used sleep-deprive myself to do way too many extracurriculars. This was when I was an officer in multiple clubs - people often balance classes with officerships and too many classes and a UROP. I grew out of it.

… and I wrote this and then read wellthatsokay’s reply. I’ll post it anyway :)

skibum4 · April 21, 2013, 2:17pm

Agree with Piper. The sleep issue is a personal choice. My S is math major/varsity athlete, doing very well his freshman year, and does not pull all nighters. I think his regular bed time is around 11:30. He’s always needed sleep, and has stuck to his own schedule. I think some students just prefer to use their time differently, which is fine, but it definitely isn’t the only way to get through MIT.

On undergraduate research, it is EXTREMELY easy to get a UROP (undergraduate research opportunity at MIT). Son has gotten a paid UROP for summer in Boston, without too much difficulty or previous experience. The UROP program is fantastic and it really allows students to do real research, basically as soon as they find the time to work it in their schedule.

collegealum314 · April 21, 2013, 2:20pm

I don’t think sleep deprivation is much of a problem with the math majors. With the more intuitive majors, you can either do it or you can’t. And you don’t have to be a super-genius to do well in applied math or economics, either.

In engineering, by contrast, a lot of these systems aren’t intuitive so there is a kind of trial-and-error involved, even in the classes.

skibum4 · April 21, 2013, 2:29pm

^Makes sense. His computer engineering class (for 18C) takes more of his time :). Still, I think some students are more apt to organize time differently and are natural night owls than others.

UMTYMP_student · April 21, 2013, 3:11pm

Also CPW is a pretty unrepresentative in terms of sleep as CPW activities eat up a lot of time and students still have their usual work as well. I wouldn’t call typical MIT course loads extremely rigorous either. I suspect that STEM majors at Stanford and Princeton are approximately as difficult as those majors at MIT. I think the differences in rigor across top schools is largely due to the composition of majors. Econ may be somewhat of an exception as all econ majors at MIT take fairly quantitative classes while other top schools like Harvard have various tracks for econ majors which range in difficulty.

maumau1 · April 21, 2013, 4:00pm

Thanks wellthatsokay, PiperXP, skibum4, collegealum314, & UMTYMP student for your replies. They were pretty useful in addressing my concerns 1) and 3). On 2), the total difference for 4 years will end up totaling ~$80k between the best offer and MIT. We understand it is not easily quantifiable how much more is the MIT experience worth compared to the other also excellent schools but appreciate your help to answer the following:
With the rigor of the MIT education & advanced/graduate-level courses upper-class students often take, do MIT graduates usually acquire sufficient training for their careers without the need of a graduate degree, unless of course if a student were to be interested in pursuing academic or professional career? We do consider MIT’s flexibility to allow students take advanced classes a major plus. One example as I understand - Harvard undergraduate students often cross-register courses at MIT Sloan as Mgmt Science courses at Harvard may be restricted to graduate/professional students only.

Thanks very much for your help.

PiperXP · April 21, 2013, 4:05pm

I am very, very far from the top of my class, but I can tell you that doing an engineering major doesn’t make sleep deprivation a necessity :)

sbjdorlo · April 21, 2013, 4:47pm

maumau1,

I’m the parent of a 2016er at MIT. My son was choosing among MIT, Princeton (better aid with no loans), Caltech (fantastic aid), Harvey Mudd (even with full tuition scholarships, still too much loan), and Vanderbilt (basically free).

My son is a math major and probably will now double major or minor in management.

Our situations are different in that my son was able to bring in a yearly 6K scholarship to effectively wipe out both the loan and work study part of his f. aid package, so in the end, MIT was actually one of the least expensive schools. Had he not had that yearly scholarship, he would have had 24K more over 4 years (6K a year) to come up with through work study (which he didn’t need to do, though he works 4 hours a week elsewhere) and loans.

We are middle income, though (under 80K for family of 5), and your situation sounds different.

MIT was the right fit for my son for sure. (He never applied to Stanford, so I can’t comment other than to say I know it’s an amazing school)

His first semester, he definitely chose his social life over sleep and academics. This semester, he’s done much better (until this week with everything that happened) both academically and sleepwise. I would say he averages 6-7 hours a night and he’ll take naps and skip classes on occasion to make up his sleep. He loves, loves, loves MIT and his dorm mates and friends. He chose well. I’d be happy to answer any questions as regards to the major, etc.

Oh, and he never applied for a UROP during the year but was able to email his physics professor and was offered paid research in his lab for this summer for which he’s quite happy as he was unable to get a math internship (looking mostly in finance) for this summer.

Another friend of his is at MIT, choosing it over Caltech and UCB, Caltech offering her excellent aid relative to their upper middle class income. She will have significant debt, perhaps up to 70K unless she can work full time each summer and work a lot during the school year. Yet, she liked MIT that much that she was willing to take the risk. At first, her parents weren’t happy but her father came to realize that her degree (and I think she’s going for that degree where you come out with a masters; I don’t really know about it) was worth the debt.

I wish your daughter the best in her decision! Sounds like she can’t go wrong with any of the choices.

angelakk · April 21, 2013, 5:10pm

My S is struggling with decision…

He loves MIT and is most familiar with MIT and he spent several summers at Boston/Cambridge. He does not mind MIT’s weather. He plans to major in CS + econ/finance/management and wants to continue his pursuit in visual arts.

His interests in visual arts and humanities make Yale and Princeton look like better choices than MIT. I understand that he can cross register with Harvard or Wellesley, but I wonder how many % of MIT students actually do that and how easy is to travel between MIT and these schools. Most importantly, will he have time for that if he wants to pursue a 5 yr BS + MS program in CS with a double major from econ/finance/management?

Regarding Stanford’s CS, can someone please give me a comparison between its CS program and MIT’s CS program? And the career paths of master students from these two programs?

If S wants to go to Silicon Valley after graduation, are there reasons that why he should go to MIT for undergrad?

UMTYMP_student · April 21, 2013, 7:02pm

This varies a lot by field so it’s unlikely any general answer will be meaningful.

MIT is actually quite good at a number of humanities fields and its architecture department is top notch and does some visual arts stuff. I’m not too personally familiar with this stuff but my impression is that someone interested in visual arts as a secondary field will be happy at MIT particularly if the interest is somewhat interdisciplinary. Visual arts are under architecture at MIT so I’d encourage you to look at their offerings here [Spring</a> 2013 Course 4: Architecture](<a href=“http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m4c.html]Spring”>IAP/Spring 2024 Course 4: Architecture) and here [Overview</a> | MIT Architecture](<a href=“http://architecture.mit.edu/art-culture-and-technology/program/overview]Overview”>http://architecture.mit.edu/art-culture-and-technology/program/overview).

molliebatmit · April 21, 2013, 8:00pm

[quote=maumau1]
With the rigor of the MIT education & advanced/graduate-level courses upper-class students often take, do MIT graduates usually acquire sufficient training for their careers without the need of a graduate degree, unless of course if a student were to be interested in pursuing academic or professional career?<a href=“I’ll%20give%20the%20general%20answer,%20with%20the%20caveat%20that%20UMTMYP%20notes%20above.”>/quote</a> In general, the training that MIT students receive is perfectly adequate for them to get jobs, but the careers that MIT students choose often require advanced training. About half of the class generally goes off to graduate school immediately after undergrad, and another ~30% will return to school for an advanced degree at some point in their careers.

This isn’t because MIT doesn’t prepare them for the real world, but because science and engineering careers are often ones for which an advanced degree is necessary or useful – many professional engineers, for example, have no problem getting jobs with a bachelor’s from MIT, but find that having a master’s degree or an MBA will improve their prospects of promotion five or ten years down the road.

In short, having an MIT education is generally sufficient for a new graduate to find a job. Whether it is sufficient over the course of an entire career depends largely on the specific career path.

molliebatmit · April 21, 2013, 8:15pm

Harvard is easy – just a quick trip on the subway or bus. Wellesley is more of a pain. There is a Wellesley-run bus shuttle between Kendall Square and Wellesley, but it doesn’t run as frequently as the subway (obviously), and it’s a longer trip.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen actual statistics on the number of students who cross-register. Anecdotally speaking, a few of my friends did it, but certainly not “a lot” or “all”.

It’s really tough to say. One of my best friends at MIT doubled in EECS and management, and she said it was actually fairly logistically difficult, since there’s very little overlap between the two programs.

It’s not all that impossibly difficult to make time for outside interests at MIT. To make time for classes in outside interests, particularly when you’re considering a double major and/or an MEng program, can be more difficult.

As for MIT vs. Stanford, I’ve just sent a message to my friend pgbovine, who did his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at MIT in course 6 and his PhD at Stanford, so hopefully he’ll drop by if he has anything to add.

PiperXP · April 21, 2013, 8:24pm

^ Note that you can do a 5-year SB + MEng in CS. The MA is strictly for people enrolled in the PhD program.

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