<p>I know this has been asked before a couple of times, and most of those times, it seems to be hypothetical. Right now, I'm in the process of choosing between these two great institutions and I have heard a number of times that it's not really possible to go wrong. Especially current maths/science/engr majors at Yale, are there any reasons you might have chosen MIT and if there are people in the past that have chosen Yale over MIT, do you have any regrets?
I would also appreciate inputs on the ease of moving into an engineering career upon graduation, and the any other relevant input worthy of consideration.
I love you all.</p>
<p>I think it's worth mentioning that Yale is giving me a fabulous finaid package that I dont see MIT matching up to.</p>
<p>Yale has a better undergraduate engineering program than MIT. MIT is larger (in size) and more obviously more high-profile in engineering, but in quality-based rankings, Yale has the top program - ranking above Stanford and Caltech:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sciencewatch.com/nov-dec2002/sw_nov-dec2002_page2.htm#Engineering%5B/url%5D">http://www.sciencewatch.com/nov-dec2002/sw_nov-dec2002_page2.htm#Engineering</a></p>
<p>Also, in terms of social life, Yale has MIT beat by a light year.</p>
<p>Try searching for last year's threads on this topic.</p>
<p>Anyway, i'm a chemistry major at yale, so not engineering, but I think that choosing yale over MIT was the correct choice for me. Here's why:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>As much of a science geek as I am, I love my humanities classes & after going through course catalogs realized I'd have to deal with the harvard-MIT cross-registration process to get the classes I wanted. I have a friend at MIT who's going through that right now & says it's really more trouble than its worth, mostly for scheduling reasons. If you hate humanities then this shouldn't be an issue for you, but otherwise it's something to consider.</p></li>
<li><p>Now that I'm here, I've found I really like the science departments at Yale... partly because they're reasonably small (w/the exception of bio/mb&b), I've found my profs to be accessible and the classes to be interesting. Next year I'll be getting to start grad-level chem classes, too, which are small & intense & all that good stuff. Oh, and undergrad research, which I really could have gotten into earlier if I'd gotten my act together. I know MIT has great undergrad research opportunities (UROP); just don't think that Yale doesn't have them b/c they don't publicize as much. They're here.</p></li>
<li><p>in a non-academic sense, the residential college system at Yale is amazing.</p></li>
<li><p>the ONE regret i have about not going to MIT is that I love love love Boston. I don't think new haven is as bad as people say it is, but I'd just really love to be in a place like Boston. eh, maybe for grad school :-P</p></li>
</ul>