<p>I want to know all the details...</p>
<p>The valentarian in my school declined Yale for MIT</p>
<p>I declined Princeton for MIT (however, if I had not picked MIT, I would’ve picked Cornell over Princeton)</p>
<p>Um, Princeton apparently has a lot of money, so they sent out a much better mailing with more papers and info about the school than MIT did. However, MIT matches up better with my interests (for example, I am considering a Materials Science/Engineering major, which is only offered as a concentration at Princeton). MIT is a better engineering school than Princeton. </p>
<p>I think the critical part of my decision was the type of student at each school. Note, I only managed a college visit to MIT, not Princeton, so my views are mainly based on a snapshot of the former and generalizations with little evidence of the latter. MIT seems to revel in its quirky nerdy awesomeness. I love that. Also, when I was up there, my mind was blown by the amount and quality of research being done. It definitely excited me to see, and hear the presentations, of the scientists at work.</p>
<p>Now, Princeton, I’m sure, has great research. But, it just seems more stately and establishment, more preppy than nerdy. There is nothing wrong with that, and I’m sure my generalization isn’t the best; however, I do think that MIT students enjoy their nerdiness more. There is an energy and excitement to the Institvte which is rare.</p>
<p>Also, MIT is urban while Princeton is suburban. Sure, NYC is close to Princeton, and the train station is right on campus, but I live in the suburbs and I’m ready to be back in the city.</p>
<p>Also, it helped that MIT offered a better financial aid package than Princeton (which was very surprising). Technically, Princeton could be cheaper, because you can use outside scholarships to reduce the cost to 0, while MIT has a minimum, but I didn’t end up doing too well on the scholarship front, so MIT ends up being on top. In fact, besides my state schools, which I would’ve attended for profit, MIT was my best financial aid offer.</p>
<p>After my campus visit, I had firmly decided on MIT. Prudently, I waited a little bit to submit my final decision. About a week before the deadline of 5/1, I submitted my “yes” to MIT, and “no” to the others.</p>
<p>I declined Princeton for MIT.</p>
<p>Academics: I considered the two to be extremely comparable in terms of quality. No difference between the academic opportunities of the two. However, MIT had a slight edge in terms of the environment. I am more of the math/science-type so I felt better picking MIT in that category</p>
<p>Extracurriculars: Not really any difference at all. I am going to run track, though that did not influence in my decision. Clubs and research are pretty much identical.</p>
<p>Social life: I didn’t really like the idea of eating clubs. I preferred the idea of Greek life more. While Princeton has a decent, though unofficial Greek community, to me MIT’s seemed to be better, with more options. Also, MIT is close to many other schools, so access to other schools is easy.</p>
<p>City life: Well, this one should be obvious.</p>
<p>Campus: Princeton’s was much nicer and I liked the idea of a residential college. MIT is fairly plain, just focusing on functionality (except in the case of the truly ridiculous buildings)</p>
<p>Based on these, MIT seemed to be a better fit.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I may be biased. I visited both schools during the summer before senior year, but I only went to MIT’s admitted students weekend. It was somewhat Princeton’s fault – I got into MIT EA and scheduled my trip early to save money. It was too expensive for me to change flights and I live too far away to make a second trip.</p>
<p>I think MIT won the cross-admit battle between Princeton and Yale this year (from personal experience and from the above anecdotes). It’s about time people realized the value of a MIT engineering degree.</p>
<p>I chose MIT over Harvard and Princeton. What specifically are you interested in? My designated interest was physics but I also enjoy other science and actually like the humanities (gasp!).</p>
<p>What details do you want to know?</p>
<p>I just loved the atmosphere at MIT. I feel like this is one of the only times in my life that I am going to be in a true meritocracy where you are judged really only on your ideas. It’s an awesome concept.</p>
<p>Turned down Yale and Princeton for MIT. I was also waitlisted at Harvard.</p>
<p>Yale was immediately out of the question. I found it was too liberal artsy, which isn’t a bad thing, but it wasn’t what I was going for. I loved the grandeur of Yale, its buildings. I loved the residential system. All the students were happy, but the relative isolation in New Haven and the not-as-strong STEM programs were turn offs. </p>
<p>Princeton was the hybrid between MIT and Yale. It was beautiful, offered a strong LA background and strong sciences. However, the biggest turnoff for Princeton was its isolation–the orange bubble. No opportunities to make money and being near nothing at all. Another turn off was grade deflation. They say it shouldn’t affect hard science classes, but I would think that grade deflation encourages competition, not collaboration, the opposite of MIT’s mantra. During Princeton Preview, I felt that the entire campus was empty at night. At Bulldog Days and CPW, there was stuff going on until the wee hours of the morning. But at Princeton, NO ONE was outside at night. That was disconcerting. </p>
<p>My biggest concern towards attending MIT was whether I’d be able to handle the stress levels there. It’s probably relatively common to think so, but I was afraid of burning out. I enjoyed the intensity and pace of life at CPW, and a constant stream of knowledge and learning and opportunities is something that truly excites me. Yet, I felt like the dumbest person at CPW (which, in retrospect is good for an inflated ego, and bad for the already self-conscious), and maybe MIT made a mistake admitting me. But one of the bloggers (I forget who) said that MIT makes no mistakes. =)</p>
<p>MIT also offered the greatest opportunities in STEM out of the three. There is just so. much. research. going on at all times. UROP was plus, as well earning class credit and $$ for research. Boston is a across the bridge (although my friends who study in Cambridge say it’s not often that there is time to gallivant in Boston). Cross registration at Harvard, Wellesley. Not to mention the brass rat. I know an MIT grad who says that the physical brass rat has helped her along the way, like she strikes up a conversation with someone in New York’s subway just because they are both wearing brass rats. </p>
<p>Furthermore, there is no doubt that MIT’s everything is renowned and not comparable. This was also a big issue for me-- that MIT students don’t feel a sense of inferiority. There are numerous forums on Yalies experiencing a (perhaps unwarranted, ill-founded) sense of inferiority to Harvard, and Princetonians to Yalies. Whether they are in real life superior, equal, inferior, whatever, doesn’t matter. Just the fact that the world’s ranking was H, Y, P, said something. MIT, I believe, doesn’t have this issue. The competition with Caltech is more like a friendly argument than the comparisons that HYP go through. I didn’t want to be compared to HY or P if I went to one of them. </p>
<p>Oh and one last thing. Yale and Princeton’s supposed undergrad foci? I messaged Molliebatmit about it, and she said that MIT treats undergrads like grad students, which means that they can enroll in grad courses, participate in research-- much better than being treated merely as an undergrad :)</p>
<p>A kid I know picked MIT over every other college because the ivies and Stanford called her out for lying about her race. But MIT had already accepted her.</p>
<p>^ cool story bro</p>
<p>I turned down Princeton and Harvard to go to MIT. The average MIT student is indeterminant, whereas Harvard and princeton have pretty distinct stereotypes. In an effort to differ from most, I chose MIT, and also because I find the culture a lot more fun there</p>
<p>great details! anyone else?</p>
<p>My daughter turned down these schools for MIT back in 2007. She is graduating on June 3rd, having loved her time at MIT. Next fall, she’ll start grad school at Harvard, so you could say that her path led there eventually.</p>
<p>I’d like to reiterate Mollie’s point that MIT treats undergraduates like grad students in its research projects. She had many amazing opportunities in the physics department that I don’t believe she would have experienced anywhere else. Yale was significantly less expensive when she enrolled, and we debated this as a family for awhile, but looking back – absolutely no regrets.</p>
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<p>What does this mean, for the benefit of those who don’t know? It isn’t very obvious to me. Some grad students know less than some undergrads about what they want to do. Some know much more. I would think how a professor treats you when you do research corresponds to both your abilities and your knowledge of what you want to do and background to actually do it. Really, how else does one do it?</p>
<p>Unless this has to do with access to equipment / meetings with the professor (in which case it would perhaps be informative to know what the the distinction between undergrads and grads in this regard <em>usually</em> is for comparison).</p>
<p>On the last point, based on my D’s experience as an undergrad doing research at MIT in a big lab with lots of grad students and postdocs the past three years, a few things stand out:</p>
<p>Undergrads are NOT grad student assistants, running errands, cleaning beakers, or just doing grunt work in the lab. This is to be contrasted with most other universities where undergrads can get a taste of research as opposed to being full members. In many ways, undergrads to actually LESS administrative or support work than grad students as they are assumed to have other duties such as classes and assignments. </p>
<p>Undergrads can get their names on papers sometimes as first authors which is unheard of elsewhere. If you participate in a project you will get full recognition. </p>
<p>As Mollie has mentioned before I believe, there is actually an advantage that undergrads have over grad students. They can very easily move around, change projects, PI, even change labs in the department or outside of the department. This is of course impossible for graduate students. They can work on the same project for multiple semesters or change projects. </p>
<p>The relationship between undergrads and professors is more informal than between grad students and professors who may be their thesis advisers and direct bosses. Professors generally love the enthusiasm of the undergrads and frankly sometimes seem to respect them more. </p>
<p>The last point may be debatable to some but was apparent to my D in her department. The undergrads on average were often “smarter” than the grad students and it showed in some of the projects. Whenever some heavy duty computation or computer modeling was required it was not unusual for an undergrad to do the work as they often had stronger math/comp.sci backgrounds than the grad students in the neuroscience department. This is obviously not true in all departments.</p>
<p>I personally think it is much harder (on average) to be admitted to MIT as an undergrad than as a grad student. I say that as a former MIT grad student myself. This may not be true in some fields such as EECS or possibly math and physics where grad admission is extremely selective.</p>
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<p>Why is that? Or was this specific to the departments related to the anecdote about computer modeling?</p>
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<p>That’s unfortunate, it sounds to me like undergrads barely can do research (in the least sugar-coated way) at most places outside of MIT. I find it strange that a perfectly capable undergrad would not get the opportunity to do real, meaningful stuff at most universities, though. Is this because the professors don’t want to do it at most other places? Or that there isn’t enough money to fund positions for undergrads?</p>
<p>^ I have spoken to some of my D’s professors. They just seem to love the drive and sheer brilliance of many of the undergrads. Not that there were not brilliant grad students, of course there were, but undergrads may not yet know how difficult a problem is and they just go after it. Maybe a certain disillusionment sets in once you are grad student, when you know it is going to be a tough long haul. </p>
<p>I also think that undergrads can say things that grad student would never say, for fear of consequences. As an example my D found that an experiment that the lab had worked on for over six months could simply not yield the expected results because of a built in bias in the experimental setup. She told the lab Director the project was flawed and rather than being angry at having wasted all this time, the Director thanked her. Even though she had approached the grad students and postdocs first, no one wanted to bring the bad news to the Director for fear of taking the blame for the the problem.</p>
<p>Maybe the undergrads also take the professors away from the daily grind of their labs and provide an occasion for some banter time where they can loosen up a bit. I can’t put my finger on it, but I think the undergrads remind them of the time they were themselves undergrads and research was supposed to be fun! Now it is all about grant writing and constant pressure to get results.</p>
<p>As far as why other universities don’t afford the same research opportunities, I think it is in part because it is assumed they just don’t know enough to be meaningful contributors. How could a kid barely out of high school possibly provide anything of value to a world class lab? Frankly, you seem the same bias on CC where many argue undergrads cannot possibly do advanced research. MIT simply has a different philosophy: a fresh mind sometimes can perform wonders!</p>
<p>Helpful explanations.</p>
<p>I admit that I stand closer to the side of someone who wonders how much research one can do as an undergrad; but I think that varies greatly across fields, and temperaments/desires. But on the other hand, I think a lot of it has not to do with the undergrad’s capability intrinsically, but with having sufficient experience to know what kind of research interests them, and how the basic things fit together. </p>
<p>To be honest though, I have the same attitude about graduate students ;). It’s not like 4 years magically makes you get your act together. I think it gives you an idea of what you want to do, and then you specialize; part of the issue is how early one really can specialize without it being detrimental to one’s overall scholarly development - without digging deep, probably not much research is getting done.</p>
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<p>Sure seems like it.</p>
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<p>My impression is that most universities have undergrad research, although I think MIT was once a pioneer in this regard. It is more unusual that the undergrad is paid though or that you can take it for credit. In some sense, this can effectively decrease the cost of tuition for those that for which the cost of an elite college is prohibitive.</p>
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<p>For most grad students, at some point they feel the pressure of finding some positive data so that they can publish and graduate. For those that are more accomplished, they may feel the pressure to churn out x number of papers to help get that faculty position.</p>
<p>I think that at most elite schools, the line between grad and undergrad tends to blur, probably because of the selectivity of the undergrad program. I’m starting my PhD soon and I honestly don’t feel like I’m that different from an undergrad. I used to look at grad students with such awe, as though they were miles and miles ahead of me, but I’ve come to realize that simply isn’t true. First-year grad students still feel kind of like undergrads; I think a lot of us expect there to be some distinct difference, but the reality is that undergrad and grad are supposed to run into each other smoothly. And that’s probably true of most very selective schools, where your undergrad has such rigorous preparation–and they expect you to do grad-level work before graduating–that when you are starting grad school, the rate/demands of your education are not so drastically different.</p>
<p>MIT definitely used to be the leader in undergrad research, though others have certainly caught up, emulating MIT purposefully. Most of the philosophy that cellardweller is describing is also true of schools like Harvard, Stanford, etc.</p>