<p>My priorities:
major
student environment
impact on graduate school options</p>
<p>I plan to study environmental or computer engineering with a heavy focus on application. Most of you will probably scream MIT in response to that (haven't even heard of Yale engineering), but I was wondering if Yale's higher international emphasis and more diverse education is more appropriate for someone who wants to go into development?</p>
<p>I'm appealed by the whole tech/professional culture that exists at MIT but I hear that Yale would be more fun and diverse, especially at the undergraduate level, and has more to offer outside academics.. music is really important to me so that would be an incentive. Can anyone give me insight comparing undergraduate experiences at both schools? </p>
<p>Finally, this is a personal thought, but please let me know otherwise, but I feel like MIT is a lot more rigorous, which would be good preparation for grad school and would probably open more doors not just to schools but careers in the applied science & technology sector. Of course, Yale has the distinction of top Ivy reputation :p</p>
<p>It seems like you are not entirely convinced that you want to be an engineer. Your tone suggests that you possibly want to explore other fields. Yale would be the right choice in that case.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You want to do engineering, with a focus on the application, and MIT is arguably the best engineering school in the world and they emphasize hands-on experience and application heavily in their curriculum. They even give you an entire month every year called Independent Activities Period to focus on your individual pursuits!</p></li>
<li><p>The other academic disciplines are just as good. Why? First off, MIT’s non-math+science departments are really good. I think I read somewhere that there are like 14 Pulitzer Prize winners on MIT’s faculty. Not bad. But more importantly, YOU CAN CROSS-REGISTER CLASSES AT HARVARD!!! The combined resources of both schools is hard to beat anywhere. Enough said. Unless of course you see Yale’s academics far exceeding Harvard’s. Kind of silly to put one above the other honestly.</p></li>
<li><p>For grad school (and especially for grad school related for engineering) MIT is unquestionably the king. If you want to go to grad school and become a lawyer, go to Yale. If you want to be “well-rounded” and take lots of interesting but possibly useless classes, go to Yale. If you want to be an engineer, doctor, scientist, or do anything that requires a solid math and science foundation as well as actual preparation in the field before going to grad school, MIT will do you more good.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I think this possibly relies on stereotypes a bit too much. Of course, MIT is world-renowned for engineering. But many MIT students go on to become successful lawyers. Many Yale students go on to become successful scientists and doctors. There are “interesting but possibly useless classes” at both MIT and Yale; you can be “well-rounded” at either institution. Both Yale and MIT are a lot more “well-rounded” as institutions than they are generally given credit for.</p>
<p>I’m going to be attending both CPW and Bulldog Days…
I didn’t think of the whole cross-registering opportunity with Harvard! That’s really appealing.</p>
<p>Another question, I get the feeling that with so many people studying engineering at MIT, there’s a lot less opportunity to get individual attention from professors or even funding for projects than at Yale, where the engineering student body is quite smaller. </p>
<p>I’ve also been wondering about MIT, is exactly what caliber of students should I be expecting? I really enjoy mathematics and science, but I’m hardly amazing in either (average 3-4 problems right on the AIME, placed 3rd at state Intel fair). Am I going to be going to a school where 6 out of 10 kids make USAMO or take 1st at national Robotics competitions??? I’d rather attend a school where my abilities are on par with those of my peers than in the bottom quartile.</p>
There are a lot more engineering professors at MIT, though. MIT’s student/faculty ratio is pretty favorable, and there’s plenty of funding available for undergrads – many students are funded through their research advisors, but there’s also MIT money to pay undergrad researchers. There’s enough money to go around.</p>
<p>As for the caliber of the student body, MIT students are smart, but most are not world-renowned masters of something frighteningly difficult. Most MIT admits didn’t take the AMC or AIME, after all – I don’t think there are enough academic superstars in the country to fill 60% of MIT’s class, let alone the whole thing. Everybody’s really smart, but mostly it’s kind of a normal really smart.</p>
<p>"Everybody’s really smart, but mostly it’s kind of a normal really smart. "
That makes me feel better :p</p>
<p>AUROP… it sounds like a great way to get legit research experience, but I was curious about the qualifications - do you know if they take freshman? I would really like to do a UROP as soon as I can, and I consider myself a pretty fast learner, but are professors really looking for juniors/seniors who have way more knowledge? </p>
<p>Does anyone know if Yale has a similar program ?</p>
<p>Oh, yeah, plenty of people get UROPs freshman year. When people don’t, it’s usually because they themselves choose not to have one freshman year so they can get used to classes and MIT life. It’s probably most common to start a UROP the summer after freshman year, but there are plenty of people who start at some point during freshman year. (My now-husband got one about a week and a half after he set foot on campus. :))</p>
<p>Each professor decides individually what sort of qualifications he/she requires for taking UROPs, but most expect that they’ll teach you what you need to know if you don’t know it already.</p>
<p>The engineering ones are, if anything, easier about this, because they’re competing with internship-offering companies. CSAIL (the Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) frequently has more UROPs than it can fill.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Heh, no. Think of these points:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>MIT students are good at different things. Similarly, they’re (relatively) weak at different things. There are definitely USAMO people (but some of those people are mediocre in their humanities classes, or in biology, or in lab classes, or what have you). There are also political science geniuses who struggled through required physics classes, students who can seemingly bend lab materials to their will but had to take calculus or differential equations twice, bio nerds who have nightmares about their required thermo class, people who are a little bit good at everything but not standouts in anything, people who are good at research but not as good at classes, etc, etc. There are not many people who are awesome at everything they have to do, and there are a lot of ways, including a lot of academic ways, to stand out.</p></li>
<li><p>There are plenty of students at MIT who are brilliant but don’t come from the greatest backgrounds (MIT tends to be a little more blue-collar than most other top schools - more students from public schools, more students on finaid). About 5% of the incoming student body each year comes from high schools that don’t offer physics. A lot of people come from small towns with modest school systems where almost everyone goes to school in-state if they go to college at all, and it wouldn’t even have occurred to anyone that there was a thing called USAMO, or that they could win a national robotics competition.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Ahhh that’s good news about CSAIL if I decide to go into EECS… </p>
<p>Hahaha it’s hard to imagine any MIT student not stellar in mathematics at least, but I guess I believe in stereotypes too much. Your opinions are very appreciated! I’ll take them into account.</p>
<p>One more question about MIT - given how rigorous I’ve heard the coursework is, how difficult is it to get an “A” in class? I guess like a lot of the freshman I’m used to getting stellar grades in high school… but could you give me some insight on that? From freshman - senior level classes. I don’t expect to be a valedictorian, but how hard would maintaining say a 3.80 + be?</p>
<p>So far MIT is sounding pretty good…
Any Yalies feel like putting some sense into me? :p</p>
<p>Yale’s residential college system is a good place to start. Someone with more experience should elaborate; I can merely state that they are invariably touted as an integral component of Yale’s quality undergraduate experience. Additionally, if the idea of fraternities doesn’t appeal to you, Yale would offer a more appealing social scene than MIT’s. Additionally, consider the environment you want the school to be in (I know its not a listed priority); New Haven, despite the fact it is a city, is much smaller in feel than Cambridge/Boston. I’m not sure I can offer Yale programs to counter those of MIT, other than to note that Yale offers the classes you would be cross-registering for at Harvard on their campus - that is, cross registering is an inconvenience when factoring in travel times. If you are liking the prospect of taking Harvard classes a lot, you might want to go to Yale instead.</p>
<p>With that all said, I think, as someone noted, they are rather equivalent in terms of academic quality (although yes, MIT is probably harder in terms of workload). If you really aren’t set on engineering, then you probably should consider the various other aspects of the college, such as the social scene, location, and housing options, on the same level as the academic programs</p>
<p>The residential college system DOES sound cool, I guess the fact that I can cross-register at Harvard fulfills a lot of what I wanted from Yale…</p>
<p>Anyone shed some insight on my questions about coursework difficulty at MIT?</p>
<p>Well, first semester freshman year at MIT is graded pass-no record, so in some sense it’s not possible to get an A – you either pass and get credit, or fail and don’t have the class show up on your transcript.</p>
<p>The average GPA of MIT seniors is a 4.2 on a 5.0 scale, but the difficulty of maintaining a very high GPA varies by major. However, if you’re thinking you want to go to grad school in engineering, your actual GPA doesn’t matter too much as long as it’s a B average or above.</p>
<p>Alright, so I went to CPW & Bulldog Days… and was extremely impressed with both schools. I didn’t think Yale would be so alluring but I really admire the focus on undergraduates - from the extravagant, tight-knit residential colleges (housing at MIT was no comparison) to the faculty attention, especially for those studying the less popular engineering/applied sciences fields like I intend to. Yale also seems to really encourage all students to have a diverse education, and has the resources to do so.</p>
<p>However, MIT’s quality of education for what I want to study seems superior… not to mention probably more rigorous. The challenge is also quite irresistible, and while Yale is always categorized with other liberal arts universities like Harvard and Princeton, MIT really seems to be in a league of its own. I feel like graduating from MIT I would be truly ready for graduate school/work. Finally, Boston >> New Haven in my opinion, but Yale’s campus makes up for that. </p>
<p>I don’t think you need to worry about being ready for graduate school… Both are top-notch educational institutions and you will have no problem in any graduate school. And I think you can get a good science/engineering/mathematics education at either place.</p>
<p>Of course, MIT is arguably better in disciplines by the nature of the school. But I also think their culture is not for everyone and can be very unhealthy at times. From what I can gather, it’s a series of tough classes/work days followed by wild (and by this, I mean extremely wild) parties. </p>
<p>I’ve never been very interested in Yale, but I feel like it’s got preppier feel to it. I hope some Yalies can share their experience here.</p>
<p>To me, they are two very different places in terms of culture… So you should think about in which setting you can see yourself in.</p>
MIT’s living groups aren’t generally extravagant, but they are certainly close-knit. I wouldn’t worry too much about physical beauty – after a few weeks, any dorm/residential college you choose will feel like home, and you won’t notice whether it’s beautiful or not.</p>
<p>I’m not sure anything really compares to the sense of community engendered by the residential colleges, so you should probably still give Yale the advantage in that category.</p>
MIT’s student/faculty ratio is pretty favorable, and there’s plenty of funding available for undergrads – many students are funded through their research advisors, but there’s also MIT money to pay undergrad researchers. There’s enough money to go around.</p>
?</p>