<p>masochism is one of the things that attracted me to MIT--it might be hell having to work a lot there, but that's what makes MIT undergrads so marketable-employers know what they have survived. also, after CPW, the whole work hard play hard thing is definitely a reality in my eyes. it might not be the place for someone who doesn't want intensity.</p>
<p>My</a> sleep statistics</p>
<p>Note especially page 3, where I show that I slept significantly less as a freshman than I did as a senior, although I still got about 6 hours of sleep per night on average as a freshman. (Although it hurts my head now to look at those statistics and see that I went to bed just after 3 AM on the average schoolnight freshman year.)</p>
<p>I think I pulled a total of three all-nighters during my time at MIT, and none of them was academically necessary.</p>
<p>MIT's definitely not the place for someone who doesn't like intensity, but I'm not sure that someone who didn't like intensity would do well in science or engineering anyway. Take it from me, if you stay in science or engineering, life is not going to get any easier after undergrad, except that you'll have fewer fun distractions.</p>
<p>i had a question about frats-how exclusive are they? does everyone who wants to join a particular frat and expresses interest in it during rush and everything get a bid or are there a lot of disappointed people on bid day?</p>
<p>niceilike: Exclusive? Not in the sense that the word is usually used. And I can't really think of any fraternities that have a reputation for being "more" exclusive than others, that's not really how the Greek system works here.</p>
<p>Fraternities are looking for freshmen who fit their particular house culture and who are going to be dedicated to the fraternity. If that sounds sort of vague, my apologies...but those really are the most important things. It's not that hard to get a general sense of what a house is like - and at the same time, nor is it that hard for upperclassmen to guess how good a fit a particular freshman would be for their own house.</p>
<p>Regarding disappointed people - it does happen, unfortunately. But most fraternities will give some sort of indication before bid day whether or not you will receive a bid, so it's not as suspenseful as (for example) the college application process. And anyway most men interested in joining the Greek system are checking out multiple houses simultaneously.</p>
<p>Whatever you do during rush, explore multiple options. This applies to dorm rush and frat rush. (Sorority Recruitment less so, because you don't have a choice, they make you visit all of the houses.)</p>
<p>If you spend all of your time during REX at BC, I will hunt you down, and kick you out. I will bodily follow you out the front door of the dorm. If I'm in a good mood, I might give you suggestions for other fun things to do. (I don't live in other dorms, and can't very well kick people out of them, but if I find out you did this I will track you down and give you a stern talking-to.)</p>
<p>DO NOT spend all of rush week at one fraternity. DO NOT. If you do this, I will find out, and hunt you down and give you a stern talking-to.</p>
<p>Just ask Snively on any of the above points. =)</p>
<p>How does the "Minds and Hands" philosophy get applied to Course 18? Can a non-engineer (who loves math and CS theory) find happiness?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Can a non-engineer (who loves math and CS theory) find happiness?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yes. I mean, it's not like there aren't plenty of other math and theoretical CS people for them to geek with. And 57% of the undergrads are non-engineers.</p>
<p>In general, though, the scientists will tend to get a little bit more engineer-y, and the engineers a little more science-y, over time. Not necessarily in their academic interests, but just in the way they interact with the world.</p>
<p>I don't suppose any of ya'all happen to know any Course 2, recent or soon-to-be graduates of MIT undergrad who found themselves massively in debt?</p>
<p>I know, it's kind of a lot of perameters to meet.</p>
<p>But I really would like someone in that particular position's take on how "worth it" it was. While I know in the end, it is a decision I must make for myself and my family based on my own unique situation (as is true of all college-deciding students), talking to someone who has experienced or is experiencing or got through this dillemma of decent cheap State school vs. hugely expensive awesome-ness at MIT would be muchos helpful. :-)</p>
<p>Most MIT students I've talked to thus far haven't really absorbed the debt/tried to live with it yet or simply didn't have much debt at all to speak of.</p>
<p>Well, if you are very confident in your ability to get a high GPA, you can get a high-paying job on Wall Street for a couple of years after school.</p>
<p>Kind of going off lalala's questions about Harvard vs. MIT...</p>
<p>Do you guys know what percentage of MIT students go on to the top grad schools in the nation (as in HYPSM and others)? I'm worried that because MIT academics is so demanding, a low GPA will be inevitable, and that when I graduate from MIT, my GPA will hinder my admissions chances to good grad schools.</p>
<p>Not that I believe that Harvard uses grade inflation, but because it is not so science/engineering geared and more liberal arts, I am guessing it is not as difficult to achieve an impressive GPA at Harvard. This is one of my major qualms about going to MIT: not being able to get into a good grad school.</p>
<p>So, I'm not at all planning on going to grad school, and my GPA is less than impressive, so I'm probably not the best person to answer this, because I don't have the <em>actual</em> information. But anecdotally, I know lots of people here who get into awesome grad schools. Maybe they're all just geniuses, or maybe part of it has to do with the fact that they were planning to go to grad school, so they worked hard to get their GPA up.</p>
<p>Again, I don't have the real facts on this, but I do know that getting into a good grad school after MIT is certainly possible, and I know lots and lots of people who have done it. It's not <em>easy</em> and you're going to have to work hard to keep your GPA up, but it's certainly not like Harvard and Berkley are like "Man, those MIT grads have these awful GPAs, they must all be really dumb, we never take any of them!" <em>grin</em></p>
<p>My concern now is more towards how my UG choice will impact my
Grad school possibilities....</p>
<p>1) I know Course 20 is brand new...but is there any indication that course
20 UGs will not be allowed in to the Graduate program at MIT (for
example like the Science Courses like 7/5?)</p>
<p>2) Is there a place to view GPA distribution by graduating major or get a
rough idea of statistical trend? If not can someone post the potential
(guestimate) for something like 20 V 10B V 2 with BME minor please?</p>
<p>Thanks
:)</p>
<p>
[quote]
but is there any indication that course
20 UGs will not be allowed in to the Graduate program at MIT...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No. If anything, the course 20 people are probably better-prepared for course 20's grad programs.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Do you guys know what percentage of MIT students go on to the top grad schools in the nation (as in HYPSM and others)? I'm worried that because MIT academics is so demanding, a low GPA will be inevitable, and that when I graduate from MIT, my GPA will hinder my admissions chances to good grad schools.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Meh? Grad schools, at least in sci/eng, are much more forgiving about grades than med or law schools are. They care less that you have really good grades, and more than you have adequate grades and really good letters of recommendation and research experience (and MIT should help with those). Even with sub-adequate grades, you can manage to get into a top grad program coming from MIT, it might just take longer. I know people in that situation who spent a year or two working as lab techs and such (and many schools will let you take cheap or free classes if you work for them, so some of them were building their GPAs too), getting research experience, an excellent rec from the supervising professor, and even publications, from it, who ended up in top grad programs. And people who got a master's first, somewhere else, and then got into top programs on the combined strength of their MIT experience and the recent good grades in their master's.</p>
<p>Because my youngest went to MIT planning to major in Course 20 he asked the questions about grad school and was assured (by 2 different faculty in the department) that he not only could do his PhD there in Course 20, but would be an ideal candidate.</p>
<p>If you are planning to apply to graduate school (master's/PhD programs), your MIT GPA is very close to being irrelevant, as long as it's close to a 4.0/5.0. What matters much more are your letters of recommendation and your research experience, both of which will probably be outstanding if you take advantage of the opportunities presented to you at MIT.</p>
<p>I got into all of the top PhD programs in biology with a 4.4/5.0 (which, I believe, is significantly below average for a biology major at MIT), and my class of PhD students has 10 MIT alums out of 70 total students. (More had gotten in and chosen to go elsewhere.)</p>
<p>Generally speaking, going somewhere like MIT will open more graduate school doors than going somewhere with fewer opportunities. (If you go to State U, for example, don't expect to get into the top grad programs in the country with anything less than about a 3.8/4.0.) I am pretty confident that I would not be in my current PhD program if I had gone to my state university. The opportunities and the challenges at MIT were absolutely fundamental to my success.</p>
<p>
For the record, course 7 does accept its own undergraduates into the PhD program -- they started doing this in 2006.</p>
<p>Also, re: course 20 graduate admissions, the admissions blogger Bryan (who was obviously an MIT undergrad) is now a graduate student in the department.</p>
<p>^^I'm sure if you had a 1st author paper at a state school as an undergrad, you would have gotten into most if not all top 5 grad schools.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Generally speaking, going somewhere like MIT will open more graduate school doors than going somewhere with fewer opportunities.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Molly, I know from other threads that you are in the PhD program at Harvard. Can you try to maybe compare the MIT undergrad experience with the Harvard undergrad experience in terms of likelihood to be accepted by grad programs? Do you think one school prepares a student better for grad school better than the other? Obviously, both are big-name schools, but does one stand out more than the other when a grad school admission officer is flipping through your files?</p>
<p>^^I'll let Mollie answer the main question, but it's important to understand that "grad school admission officers" don't really exist like they do for undergrad. Professors sit on the committee that read applicant files and decide who they want.</p>
<p>Grad school admissions are done by field, so I'll speak for biology, but you can generalize this to anything that both Harvard and MIT are really good at.</p>
<p>In biology, neither school would be advantageous over the other simply for the name on the degree -- that is to say, basically 100% of each school's applicants will probably be admitted to one or all of the top programs. </p>
<p>The only difference in biology between the schools that I can see is that the majority of Harvard's biomedical research labs are not on campus (they're at Mass General Hospital or the Longwood medical area), while virtually all of MIT's are. This makes a difference in terms of the depth of research you can engage in as an undergrad -- the Harvard undergrads in my lab are in a lot less during the term than I was as an undergrad, simply because they have to commute from campus to my lab. When all the great labs are on campus, as they are at MIT, it's much easier to invest a lot of time on your research, and you're more likely to get more experience/publications/what have you.</p>
<p>
For sure, but that's the trick, right?</p>
<p>For the real superstars, I think the choice between MIT and a less rigorous program is not so important -- the superstars will shine wherever they go. For the average admit, though, MIT is a better choice, because they're not likely to be the 4.0/first-author paper students anyway.</p>
<p>...any other questions we can answer with May 1 just over a week away?</p>