What should I do to get into MIT, CalTech, etc?

[twofish-quant]

Great post. You offer a lot of useful information for deciding whether to attend a top school or not to.

It's not a decision you make.

If you have good scores and a decent high school record, there's no harm in applying to MIT. The problem is that there is a 90% chance that you won't get in. If you have a *perfect* record, there is still a very good chance that you won't get in.

The information on the website is correct. There is absolutely nothing that you can say or do that will guarantee admission to MIT. That's a little depressing. One reason that people like myself are really interested in alternatives to MIT, is that I think that there is a very good chance that if I had to do it over again, *I* couldn't get in, and this topic comes up constantly at alumni gatherings.

Applying is only a waste of time if you have a transcript that is so bad that you have zero chance of getting in. For example, if your SAT math is 600, don't bother applying to MIT, you aren't getting in. If it's 700, then your odds of getting in are average. But even that adds to the stress. Sometimes it feels good for someone to tell you that "you've lost." If you have an SAT math of 600, you aren't getting in, give up. The trouble is that just as it is impossible to find something that guarantees admission, once you've filtered out people that obviously don't have the skills, it's hard to find things that will guarantee non-admission.

Also, "top schools" are very different. The culture of MIT is very, very different from the culture of Harvard, and Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, NYU, UChicago are all very, very different from each other. One thing that is very different about MIT is that MIT people tend to talk a lot about MIT, whereas I don't see Harvard people spending as much time talking about Harvard. I can't stand Harvard undergraduate culture.

One of the reasons that I talk about MIT is that I was at an alumni gathering in which the President of MIT told people that they should talk about MIT.

 

[TMFKAN64]

I just don't feel like getting an Ph.D. in astrophysics is the way to become rich.

No one ever suggested that if you want to become rich, getting a Ph.D. in astrophysics is the way to go. Rather the contrary.

If money is what you want, go chase money!

You'll make a comfortable living with a Ph.D. in astrophysics, though.

 

[TMFKAN64]

A lot depends on what you want to do out of life.

Amen.

 

[Anonymous217]

It's not a decision you make.

If you have good scores and a decent high school record, there's no harm in applying to MIT. The problem is that there is a 90% chance that you won't get in. If you have a *perfect* record, there is still a very good chance that you won't get in.

My assumption, of course, supposed that you were accepted and you were now choosing which university to attend. I faced a similar issue last year for undergrad: I was accepted to MIT, Princeton, Yale, and Berkeley (among others). However, I chose Berkeley for undergrad for reasons similar to what you have already stated, although I also wanted to attend both a public and private university to experience both cultures. So, then, why not Berkeley for undergrad and perhaps HYPMS, etc. for grad (obviously, I haven't found a concentration yet, but this is the general concept)?

 

[Omega_Prime]

Two-Fish I thoroughly enjoyed your edgy, quasi-Yoda-like contributions to what may have been just some ordinary necro thread!

 

[Cuauhtemoc]

For me, the answer was not only yes, but HELL, YES! Much of it is that I don't see doing academic research as "losing years of my life" any more than I see industrial research as "losing years of my life."



Sure, but I hate fast and easy. I like challenge, and so if someone just gave me money, it wouldn't be any "fun". I am a tightwad, cheapskate that hates spending money. I also don't like gambling. If I put money in a slot machine, and get a ton of money, that's also not "fun."

I get some sort of weird thrill looking at the numbers in my bank account, because for me, money is "keeping score." It's like a massive video game, in which I use my brains and skills to make that number go up. That's actually why I hate spending money, because if I spend money, my "score" goes down.



It is, but I want to make money the hard way.

A lot depends on what you want to do out of life.

Ah, I get it now. It's just that I have a irrational hate against anything related to academia.
I came from a pretty wealthy family myself so becoming rich was never my main focus, but I did graduate in chemical engineering because I enjoyed it, but no way I was going to do academic research haha.
Some people said it was also an waste of time since I could have just ventured into the family business(farming, which I enjoy btw, and I specialized in fertilizers and soil chemistry) but I throughly enjoyed my course, but that was it...graduate soon and leave university.
What I did see although during my student years was that people who went into academia(even if they didn't end becoming professors, but tried getting an phd) didn't end up poor but they have a lot tougher path than people who went into industry. But I think we agree at this point.
I'm also not american so things are a little different down here, large scale monoculture farmers get a lot more money here in Brazil than phd's.

 

[Mépris]

The information on the website is correct. There is absolutely nothing that you can say or do that will guarantee admission to MIT. That's a little depressing. One reason that people like myself are really interested in alternatives to MIT, is that I think that there is a very good chance that if I had to do it over again, *I* couldn't get in, and this topic comes up constantly at alumni gatherings.

What did you say and do? Did you apply to Princeton as well?

On that note, there are probably people who've had their grades inflated and another bunch who're having their essays by people who know just how to write them (i.e: confidently write about things the students haven't even done)...how do you compete with that?

I went on their admissions' website a few days ago and saw this 20-year old video, with some Nirvana song in the background, about MIT and they claim that they've been "consistent" over the years and not much has changed since. What do you think of that?

Another thing, at your work place, are you working with other MIT alums? Or are they present in other departments?

I will begin my application soon enough. Gotta create accounts on MyMIT and CommonApp.

 

[Mépris]

http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/there_is_no_formula

Reading this gives me the impression that they take the remaining applicants, the right fits, put their names in a box and randomly pick out a thousand of those...

 

[Vanadium 50]

It's funny. Students demand to be evaluated as individuals and "not a bunch of numbers" - but they also want an exact formula with complete certainty.

 

[Mépris]

It's funny. Students demand to be evaluated as individuals and "not a bunch of numbers" - but they also want an exact formula with complete certainty.

Ha! I prefer this way, it allows me to play to my strengths but before rushing into anything. I'd rather have a clear (as clear things would allow) understanding of what I'm up against. So far, the general idea that I've gathered is that if one is looking at it from a perspective of trying to figure out what is *expected* of him, he's already moving in the wrong direction. Initiating things independently, on the other hand, is a trait I've observed in people who have actually gotten in. (just reading through the forums here and the MIT admissions blogs)

I've seen this guy who got accepted into MIT, Harvard and a couple other schools with horrendous grades. He was, however, a refugee in the US who set up various clubs related to his culture and interests. (some Muslim-related club...) He also went to Somalia and helped build three wells in two different towns. While all of this is very impressive, I don't think that's what got him in. I haven't read his essay(s), but I suspect he got in because of them. His essay was about what he did/experienced in Somalia and my guess is, he wrote about what he loved. I'd go as far as saying that if that guy managed to write about scavenging or playing with a yo-yo in the same way he wrote about Somalia, he would still have gotten in. Anyway, that's just my own opinion on what I know so far and what I think may be wrong. In any case, unless one personally knows people in admissions or are part of the committee themselves, there's no way to know.

Other question:[b/] What do you think of the interview process? Have you interviewed anyone at some point? (Vanadium, twofish, any other MIT alum)

Also:
Anybody wanting to go to a "big school" where there's an exact formula for entry can always go to the UK, assuming they have the funds for it. ~$25k for tuition fees/year, depending on where one's going. The formula is usually displayed on the school's program website under the entry requirements section.
Interestingly, no one UK university (as far as I'm aware) gives half a toss about an applicants performance throughout the year. If you have great A-Levels, you're in. Some places require interview though. And if we're talking medicine, then things start getting more complicated but for everything else, it's all very straightforward.

 

[twofu]

What I want to know is, what is going on at MIT Physics that isn't going on at UIUC or University of Minnesota or William&Marry (random order) ?

What has came out from these "top" universities in the past 50 years that isn't coming out at the "garbagety, underrated, nobody has-heard-about *insert underrated University*"

If the answer to anyone of these is "nothing", then is it all just a huge gimmick? Is it all about pride and prestige?

This isn't a sarcastic post, I really don't know what the big deal is. I understand the *wow* factor but am I learning inadequate graduate physics at a state school? Or do most other schools just not have as much money as those prestigious ones?

 

[Mépris]

What I want to know is, what is going on at MIT Physics that isn't going on at UIUC or University of Minnesota or William&Marry (random order) ?

What has came out from these "top" universities in the past 50 years that isn't coming out at the "garbagety, underrated, nobody has-heard-about *insert underrated University*"

If the answer to anyone of these is "nothing", then is it all just a huge gimmick? Is it all about pride and prestige?

This isn't a sarcastic post, I really don't know what the big deal is. I understand the *wow* factor but am I learning inadequate graduate physics at a state school? Or do most other schools just not have as much money as those prestigious ones?

I highly doubt this.

As for as I'm concerned, what matters the most is the following:
- financial aid
- who I'll be studying AND living with on a daily basis (student diversity is important for me)
- location

I could elaborate more on why I would like to go to these schools. In the case of MIT, it's especially the second point. I also get bored very quickly and at a school like MIT, I won't have that "luxury".

Note that I don't specifically want to go to MIT and MIT alone. If I were to find out that the University of Lesotho was *like* MIT (in some respect), I would want to go there as well.

 

[twofish-quant]

What did you say and do? Did you apply to Princeton as well?

It's interesting history what I did to get into MIT, but it may be irrelevant since 2011 is not 1987.

On that note, there are probably people who've had their grades inflated and another bunch who're having their essays by people who know just how to write them (i.e: confidently write about things the students haven't even done)...how do you compete with that?

You accept that the world is not fair and sometimes you are screwed. (Seriously)

I went on their admissions' website a few days ago and saw this 20-year old video, with some Nirvana song in the background, about MIT and they claim that they've been "consistent" over the years and not much has changed since. What do you think of that?

The last time there were radical changes in MIT admissions policies was in the mid-1980's. There are a lot of tweaking and internal politics, but I don't think that there have been fundamental changes in how MIT does admissions since 1980's because the changes that were made then were so controversial that no one really wants to go through that fight again.

However, even if MIT hasn't changed the world has. The admission rates at MIT have gone down as the number of qualified students has gone up. Also, remember in 1987, the internet didn't exist for most people, so that I couldn't go online and read about how to create the perfect application.

Another thing, at your work place, are you working with other MIT alums? Or are the present in other departments?

There are a decent number of MIT alumni, but I've never felt as if having an MIT brand helped me at all.

One irony is that while MIT is trains a lot of people in quantitative finance, but the actual amount of QF research at MIT (with the exception of Andrew Lo) is awful. One problem is that that the course 8/18 (physics/math) people and the 14/15 (economics/management) people aren't on speaking terms. The other problem is that MIT tends to focus management courses toward starting new companies in which quantitative finance is largely irrelevant.

 

[twofish-quant]

What I want to know is, what is going on at MIT Physics that isn't going on at UIUC or University of Minnesota or William&Marry (random order) ?

I don't know anything about UIUC or University of Minnesota. I did spend one summer at William and Mary, and I came away with a very good impression of their physics department. One thing I liked about William and Mary is that it's a small cozy department in which everyone knows everyone else.

MIT physics is big and it can be lonely.

My experience has been with MIT and UT Austin, and there are some differences...

1) The most important thing that MIT teaches you is a culture and a set of values. You are taught that some things are important and some things aren't. This doesn't happen through any class, but you get exposed to an environment, and you absorb certain ideas. For example, one thing that you learn is "openness is good" and "social hierarchy is bad".

The culture is important. One thing that MIT has done is to put out all of its courses for free. That gives you the skeleton, but then you have to put together the meat, and part of what I'm trying to do is to teach the culture of MIT.

2) You get a lot of freedom. A lot of schools tell you to do X, Y, and Z, but the attitude of MIT is that "you are smart, do what you think is best, we trust you."

3) You get cool technology a few years before anyone gets it. One of the most important things that I got at MIT was an e-mail account. This is boring in 2011, but I went to school in 1987, and most people had no clue what e-mail was. I was one of the first people in the entire world to use the world wide web in August 1991.

4) There are no weed-out classes at MIT. The weeding out gets done at admissions, so you can go through freshman year, seriously, seriously screw up, and you still end up with a physics degree.

What has came out from these "top" universities in the past 50 years that isn't coming out at the "garbagety, underrated, nobody has-heard-about *insert underrated University*"

The internet. Just to name one thing.

One thing that MIT is pretty strong at is to take technology and then turn it into money makers. That's one reason that MIT is much less siloed than other places. If you try to start your own company, you have to learn about a 100 different things, and if you just get stuck in the one department, it's not going to work.

Also looking at the last fifty years might give you a bad perspective. If you compare MIT and UT Austin in 1955, then UT Austin is not even in the game. What happened in the 1970's is that you had a lot of graduates from big name east-coast universities end up in the mid-West and they started their own departments.

This isn't a sarcastic post, I really don't know what the big deal is. I understand the *wow* factor but am I learning inadequate graduate physics at a state school? Or do most other schools just not have as much money as those prestigious ones?

Graduate and undergraduate is very different. One thing to remember is that with graduate physics programs you typically have a very small number of students. If you have twenty people, then the quality of one person can make the department shine or sink and that one person is you.

Also physics doesn't work via tiers. There are some areas in which MIT is totally incompetent at.

 

[twofu]

I don't know anything about UIUC or University of Minnesota. I did spend one summer at William and Mary, and I came away with a very good impression of their physics department. One thing I liked about William and Mary is that it's a small cozy department in which everyone knows everyone else.

MIT physics is big and it can be lonely.

My experience has been with MIT and UT Austin, and there are some differences...

1) The most important thing that MIT teaches you is a culture and a set of values. You are taught that some things are important and some things aren't. This doesn't happen through any class, but you get exposed to an environment, and you absorb certain ideas. For example, one thing that you learn is "openness is good" and "social hierarchy is bad".

The culture is important. One thing that MIT has done is to put out all of its courses for free. That gives you the skeleton, but then you have to put together the meat, and part of what I'm trying to do is to teach the culture of MIT.

2) You get a lot of freedom. A lot of schools tell you to do X, Y, and Z, but the attitude of MIT is that "you are smart, do what you think is best, we trust you."

3) You get cool technology a few years before anyone gets it. One of the most important things that I got at MIT was an e-mail account. This is boring in 2011, but I went to school in 1987, and most people had no clue what e-mail was. I was one of the first people in the entire world to use the world wide web in August 1991.

4) There are no weed-out classes at MIT. The weeding out gets done at admissions, so you can go through freshman year, seriously, seriously screw up, and you still end up with a physics degree.



The internet. Just to name one thing.

One thing that MIT is pretty strong at is to take technology and then turn it into money makers. That's one reason that MIT is much less siloed than other places. If you try to start your own company, you have to learn about a 100 different things, and if you just get stuck in the one department, it's not going to work.

Also looking at the last fifty years might give you a bad perspective. If you compare MIT and UT Austin in 1955, then UT Austin is not even in the game. What happened in the 1970's is that you had a lot of graduates from big name east-coast universities end up in the mid-West and they started their own departments.



Graduate and undergraduate is very different. One thing to remember is that with graduate physics programs you typically have a very small number of students. If you have twenty people, then the quality of one person can make the department shine or sink and that one person is you.

Also physics doesn't work via tiers. There are some areas in which MIT is totally incompetent at.

Thanks for the perspective. My stubborn self would like to think that if you were going to be successful in physics, technology, etc., you would do it at any school you go to, e.g. the school doesn't make the scientist. I think we all get lost in meaningless things like prestige, so it's nice that the school meant something to you besides "we're #1".

In the end, it really is a lottery. I've reviewed profiles of people with great research, perfect GPA's and 95th percentile GRE's that were rejected from MIT. This, of course, has deterred me from ever applying or even thought about applying for top 5 universities, even though I have a good record here at UIUC.

I guess to the OP, you can learn that a lot isn't in your hands, but I'd like to think that there are many great universities despite the "big names".

 

[twofu]

The internet. Just to name one thing.

Not that this matters but just out of curiosity,I thought it was groups at Stanford and UCLA that first introduced the internet to the general public. Maybe you didn't mean invention.

 

[Fizex]

You guys are thinking too hard. To get into MIT all you have to do is walk onto the campus.

 

[twofish-quant]

Thanks for the perspective. My stubborn self would like to think that if you were going to be successful in physics, technology, etc., you would do it at any school you go to, e.g. the school doesn't make the scientist.

I know this isn't true. I lucked out in that I was born in the United States. If I was born in China or Mexico, I wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as I have. One thing about the US is that it has a very strong research system. In some ways talking about Harvard vs. University of Minnesota is like talking about whether you want your jewelry to be made out of gold or platinum.

If I had gone to University of Florida or Harvard or if I had joined the army or if I had run off to Iceland instead of MIT, I'd be someone else.

I think we all get lost in meaningless things like prestige, so it's nice that the school meant something to you besides "we're #1".

One curious thing about MIT thinking is that it goes against "we're #1." There are about a dozen things wrong with MIT, and when I graduated I was seriously mad and angry at the place. I didn't realize for a few years that the very fact that I was (and still am) very dissatisfied with MIT is that I had great teachers.

If I had left MIT a "satisfied customer" then I wouldn't be thinking about how to make it better. So there is a weird love-hate relationship that I have with the place, that is pretty common among students. One big problem is that MIT does not scale.

The other thing is that prestige is not meaningless. Prestige can and does get you money and power. If I say "give me money for this cool new thing" and if the President of Harvard does it, then the fact that he has prestige and I don't means that he gets the money.

In the end, it really is a lottery. I've reviewed profiles of people with great research, perfect GPA's and 95th percentile GRE's that were rejected from MIT. This, of course, has deterred me from ever applying or even thought about applying for top 5 universities, even though I have a good record here at UIUC.

Don't understand. The fact that is a lottery means that you *should* apply. You might just get wildly lucky.

Also two things about MIT physics graduate admissions.

1) as a matter of very strong policy, MIT graduate school will not admit MIT undergraduates. Richard Feymann even mentions this in his book.

2) according to the person that ran MIT graduate physics admissions when I was there, one of the larger factors in whether you get admitted is what type of physics you are interested in. They have a funding for a number of places in each of the different divisions, and some divisions are oversubscribed and some are under-subscribed. Of course as an outsider you have no idea which is which.

I guess to the OP, you can learn that a lot isn't in your hands, but I'd like to think that there are many great universities despite the "big names".

The thing about physics is that the "big names" are not where you think the are, and one of the things that you really have to do as an undergraduate is to figure out who the big names are. In nuclear physics, MSU and SUNY Stony Brook. In radio astronomy, University of Virginia. Optical, University of Arizona and University of Hawaii.

 

[Vanadium 50]

What do you think of the interview process? Have you interviewed anyone at some point?

I've interviewed over 100 applicants. If you are serious about MIT, I would get interviewed. "I'm really, really, really passionate about going to MIT" and "I can't be bothered to spend an hour doing something which demonstrably improves my chances to get in" are not exactly compatible statements.

 

[Vanadium 50]

1) as a matter of very strong policy, MIT graduate school will not admit MIT undergraduates. Richard Feymann even mentions this in his book..

This is utterly false, and I really wish you would stop saying this.

First, Feynman got his undergraduate degree 70 years ago. What was true then is irrelevant to what is true now. But I am not even sure it was true then. Marty Deutsch is a counterexample.

Second, a quick search in Spires alone shows 69 people who got SB's and PhD's from MIT - and these are limited to people who have at least one HEP publication. Some names: Ray Weiss, Dick Yamamoto, Paris Sphicas, Burt Richter, Cherry Murray, Gail Hanson, Shirley Jackson, and Brian Cole.

I don't particularly think it's a good idea to do this, and I know many MIT physics faculty agree with me (or at least many of the ones I talk to). But it is certainly not "very strong policy".

There are 433 people on Spires with an MIT PhD, 275 with an MIT BS, and 69 overlapping. There are at least 10,000 people in that database. Do the statistics yourself - you'll discover than an SB from MIT in fact makes you more likely rather than less likely to get a PhD from there. But it's still a bad idea.

 

[Mépris]

I've interviewed over 100 applicants. If you are serious about MIT, I would get interviewed. "I'm really, really, really passionate about going to MIT" and "I can't be bothered to spend an hour doing something which demonstrably improves my chances to get in" are not exactly compatible statements.

Have you interviewed via Skype? Is the interview process usually something like http://www.emma.cam.ac.uk/admissions/videos/interviews/?showvideo=24"? Or is it a much more casual, "hey, apparently I should get to know you and tell the big boys what I think of you, so let's get talking, shall we?!" kinda thing?

 

[twofu]

I've interviewed over 100 applicants. If you are serious about MIT, I would get interviewed. "I'm really, really, really passionate about going to MIT" and "I can't be bothered to spend an hour doing something which demonstrably improves my chances to get in" are not exactly compatible statements.

That's I guess the main issue; If I was asked "Why MIT?", I wouldn't know how to answer it because I feel I'd be just as happy there as I would be at Cornell, Harvard, William&Mary, UIUC, the list goes on. Maybe since I'm still an undergrad, I don't see the big differences.

Any other attempt at a response would be some soliloquy I pull out of my ***; "Amazing things happen at MIT, revolutionary things, and I want to contribute," blah blah blah.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I don't know what's on your link. Interviews are fairly informal.

 

[twofish-quant]

I don't particularly think it's a good idea to do this, and I know many MIT physics faculty agree with me (or at least many of the ones I talk to). But it is certainly not "very strong policy".

And I know of one professor on the graduate admissions committee at the time that said that he would explicitly veto any application coming in from an MIT undergraduate, and that you (meaning me) shouldn't bother applying. I remember the statement being that if he sees an undergraduate MIT application, he would immediately toss it into the trash. It turns that that he has been outvoted on this, but it was apparently a rare event.

I can give names and dates in private if you are interested.

Now it's possible that he was misinformed or what he said was restricted to theoretical astrophysics, but I'm not making this stuff up... I wouldn't be surprised if things were different in HEP, because I don't know of anyone in astrophysics with "dual degrees" and this is in part because pretty much everyone in my peer group was strongly dissuaded from applying by that particular professor.

Also, if it turns out that he was flat out wrong, and the lesson is not to believe everything that a professor tells you well, that's not the first time stuff like this has happened.

One other thing that I have seen on hiring decisions outside of MIT, is that a lot depends on who is on the committee. Personally, I put a low value on "school brand name" but I know of people that I work with that put a high value on this, and so whether you get hired or not depends a lot on the luck of the draw and who reviews your application.

 

[twofish-quant]

That's I guess the main issue; If I was asked "Why MIT?", I wouldn't know how to answer it because I feel I'd be just as happy there as I would be at Cornell, Harvard, William&Mary, UIUC, the list goes on. Maybe since I'm still an undergrad, I don't see the big differences.

Graduate school rarely has interviews. As far as undergraduate, MIT is a *VERY* different school from Harvard and W&M (which I have direct personal experience from), and I think it's also different from Cornell and UIUC.

If you don't know the differences, then you probably need to do more research, asking people that have been to MIT is one way of doing that. This also apply to graduate school. If they all look the same to you, then you need to do more research.

Any other attempt at a response would be some soliloquy I pull out of my ***; "Amazing things happen at MIT, revolutionary things, and I want to contribute," blah blah blah.

Let me tell you one thing that a lot of people are worried about.

It's a cold December morning. You are two thousand miles from home, and you feel rotten. You aren't making friends, you are getting extremely low scores in 18.01, and for the first time in your life you are not only not the smartest people in the room, but you feel as if you are the dumbest.

What are you going to do?

 

[twofish-quant]

Looking at the stats, I found a very interesting thing which is that most of the people with dual MIT undergraduates/Ph.D.'s graduated in the 1960's. The other cool thing is that there don't seem to be anyone recent with dual MIT undergraduates/Ph.D.'s in the database.

The reason I find that interesting is that when I knew him Professor "I will toss applications from MIT undergraduates into the trash" was a junior professor, but I just did a google and he has since been promoted to a pretty high position within the department, and the dates match up with the Ph.D. graduation dates.

 

[twofu]

It's a cold December morning. You are two thousand miles from home, and you feel rotten. You aren't making friends, you are getting extremely low scores in 18.01, and for the first time in your life you are not only not the smartest people in the room, but you feel as if you are the dumbest.

What are you going to do?

Was that you by any chance? What a bad feeling of isolation :(. I guess suck it up and work harder :/ as far as scores are concerned. I mean if scores are that low... something must be up.

As far as friends and 2 thousand miles from home are weird because I hate my home; I've been away from that hell hole for 3 years and I love it. But I get your point.

And I probably haven't done enough research. I get all my information from my advisor. "get good GPA, perfect GRE, take grad classes. Competition for astrophysics is very STIFF at competitive departments."

I'm told to apply to these wonderful schools, I guess I should take their word for it. I just want to learn about the cosmos (intensively), get a decent job doing something that isn't unbearable, and die knowing something. I don't plan to revolutionize Physics and I know I'm not capable so top schools won't maybe aren't the place for some. I've gone on a little rant here but it's always fun talking to you twofish =P

 

[Robert1986]

Just come be a ramblin' gamblin' hell of an engineer at Georgia Tech. We are a lot of fun and we call our degrees "B.S." and "B.A." not this "S.B." and "A.B." nonsense. Oh, and we don't do any of that magna cum saude laude whatever it is; we just say "with honours" or "with high honours" or "with highest honours." Also, we're in the south, which is much better than any other place :)

 

[twofish-quant]

Was that you by any chance?

It's pretty much everyone that ends up at MIT.

One thing that you makes MIT different from state schools is that if you are a high-school uber-genius in high school, you are likely to be one of the smartest people at a state public university. However, this has a flip side in that most people at MIT find themselves below average or struggling for the first time in their life.

What a bad feeling of isolation :(. I guess suck it up and work harder :/ as far as scores are concerned. I mean if scores are that low... something must be up.

This is a bad idea.

What will likely happen is that if you are depressed and your grades are low, and you work harder you'll find that your grades will stay low and you will get even more depressed. Hopefully, things will bottom out, but there have been situations in which things got really, really, really bad.

One reason that MIT has a "no record" (i.e. failing a class is not recorded) policy for freshmen is that it takes time to get used to the expectations and work-load. One good thing about MIT is that it will work you at your limits, but when you are your limits and things aren't going well, then "work harder" will cause more problems.

One thing that this is good training is that by the time I was in graduate school, I was cool with being "inferior." One problem with people that come out of a state school environment is that it delays the "day of reckoning" until graduate school.

I get all my information from my advisor. "get good GPA, perfect GRE, take grad classes. Competition for astrophysics is very STIFF at competitive departments."

One thing that you should do is to start looking at the web pages of schools that you are interested in and see if they do the type of research you are interested in.

I'm told to apply to these wonderful schools, I guess I should take their word for it.

You are training to be a scientist. The last thing that you want to do is to take someone's word for it.

I just want to learn about the cosmos (intensively), get a decent job doing something that isn't unbearable, and die knowing something.

1) Go into graduate school expecting that you will not get a research professorship.

2) Expect to be more confused about the cosmos leaving graduate school than entering it. One thing that becomes more and more obvious when you do graduate research is that there are some things that you will never understand.

 

[twofish-quant]

Oh, and we don't do any of that magna cum saude laude whatever it is; we just say "with honours" or "with high honours" or "with highest honours."

MIT doesn't have honors degrees at all. The philosophy is just making it through is an honor. Also, you have so making people that are pushing themselves to the limit, that giving people something to fight over is just going to make the environment worse.

 

[Mépris]

It's a cold December morning. You are two thousand miles from home, and you feel rotten. You aren't making friends, you are getting extremely low scores in 18.01, and for the first time in your life you are not only not the smartest people in the room, but you feel as if you are the dumbest.

What are you going to do?

Laugh at myself while I reach out for my pack of Reds. Go out, do something fun. (like, going to a cafe with my favourite book and observing **** happen) When I get back in, I'd sit down, figure out what I did wrong exactly. Or whether it wasn't directly my fault and it was something else. Maybe whoever grades the papers, does it in a harsh manner for some reason. If it's a "me" thing, I'll see where I faulted in my learning. And the minute I understand what I'm doing, even if I get a B- and not an A+ because of crappy exam technique (for the most part), I don't care anymore and I move on to another topic of study or go more advanced. Note that it would depend on why I got the B- exactly. If it's for something like exam technique and I couldn't finish the exam on time, I wouldn't care. If I truly don't understand the material, I'd do it again.

What did you do?

 

[Mépris]

I don't know what's on your link. Interviews are fairly informal.

It was mock interview by Emmanuel College, Cambridge for a Mathematics student.

Yeah, that's what I concluded when I tried looking for more information. Somebody on college confidential (another MIT interviewer) said that "Why do you want to be at MIT?" is a question that many ask. Would you agree that, in general, this is correct?

Interestingly enough, the question is not "why do you want to study at MIT?" or "why do you want to study X subject at MIT?", it's about "being at MIT"... (which, I must say, is more convenient for me)

 

[Vanadium 50]

I would draw no inferences whatsoever from what I read on College Confidential. The posters there have had zero or one interviews themselves.

 

[Robert1986]

MIT doesn't have honors degrees at all. The philosophy is just making it through is an honor. Also, you have so making people that are pushing themselves to the limit, that giving people something to fight over is just going to make the environment worse.

Yeah, that makes sense. I spend much time listening to the MIT lectures on OCW and I can say, without a doubt and with few exceptions, that much more material is covered than at the corresponding classes at GaTech.

 

[twofish-quant]

Yeah, that makes sense. I spend much time listening to the MIT lectures on OCW and I can say, without a doubt and with few exceptions, that much more material is covered than at the corresponding classes at GaTech.

The institute term for this is "drinking from a fire hose".

However curiously even though there is more material covered, in some ways the courses are easier. What happens at UT Austin is that the physics department has weed out courses at the lower divisions, whereas one good thing about MIT physics is that there really are no weed out courses. People have rather high (and perhaps unreachable) standards, but one thing that I liked about MIT is that people there are extraordinarily helpful.

 

[Fizex]

Yeah, that makes sense. I spend much time listening to the MIT lectures on OCW and I can say, without a doubt and with few exceptions, that much more material is covered than at the corresponding classes at GaTech.

And no one attends the lectures at cal tech even though they are taught by nobel laureates (which doesn't correlate to pedagogy skill). I think the main advantage to going to great schools are the people and resources, not the lectures.

Where do you even find many lectures on OCW? They seem to only have a few video lectures for the basic classes.

 

[Robert1986]

I absolutely love Georgia Tech. We have a lot of profs who are at the forefront of their respective research areas. One of my absolute favorite profs was Dr. Prasad Tetali who has done a lot of well-known research. On top of that, I have NEVER experience a prof who is just bad at teaching. To me, it really seems that the department does a good job of hiring good teachers. As for OCW, I only listen really to the CalcI-III/ODE lectures. I listen to about 4 lectures a week and there is more stuff in those courses than we cover. (I also watch various other courses but not regularly.) I really like listening to Prof. Mattuck's ODE course; no matter how many times I listen, I think he is really funny and interesting. However, while I think MIT is above GaTech, I think that GaTech and CalTech are on equal footing when it comes to engineering. In fact, GT ranks a bit higher than CalTech in the US News and World Report Engineering rankings. Anyway, I would have really enjoyed going to MIT, but I couldn't have gotten in.

 

[Pyrrhus]

I have always thought that it is more important to know what you are going to study and why rather than where are you going to study it unless there's a major reason for it. In some countries, the difference across universities is so sharp that where matters as much as what. In my country, only 3 universities can be considered good enough to inernational standards. In the US, my experience is that usually the top state school does a pretty good job.

 

[twofish-quant]

And no one attends the lectures at cal tech even though they are taught by nobel laureates (which doesn't correlate to pedagogy skill). I think the main advantage to going to great schools are the people and resources, not the lectures.

One point here. There is this idea that if you meet a Nobel laureate that you will be awesomely inspired and will receive nuggets of wisdom. Sometimes meeting a famous person is useful even when that doesn't happen.

One thing that affects my view of the world is that I've met Nobel laureates that turn out to be first class jerks. If you read the public literature, no one is going to say publicly that so-and-so is a brilliant scientist but a miserable human being, but this is the sort of thing that you can figure out if you have some social interaction with them, and when you get hooked into the rumor mill, you figure out that everyone else thinks that person is a first class jerk also.

Also, something that also is inspiration is that sometimes you meet a "great person" and when you look at them close up, they look just ordinary. The media makes so-and-so look like the god of business, but when you see them, they just seem like ordinary people. This is weirdly inspirational, because you get it into your head that if so-and-so can start a multi-billion dollar company, then so can I.

And then there is the license to complain. Since I went to a big name school, if I start talking about how bad big name schools are, that will be taken more seriously than if I didn't.

It's these sorts of social interactions that make going to a big name school useful. It would be nice if someone could make these social interactions more generally available.

Where do you even find many lectures on OCW? They seem to only have a few video lectures for the basic classes.

One of my complaints about OCW is that I don't think that MIT is pushing it as hard as it could or should. Part of the problem is that OCW was a very high priority project of the last president Charles Vest, but I don't get the feeling that is really high on Hockfield's list of projects, which is a shame. Vest came out of a major public university so the idea of "educating the public" was very high on his agenda. I've never got the sense that it was high on Hockfield's agenda.

Also one issue that MIT has seriously been struggling with is the question "if you can get an MIT education via OCW and Khan Academy, then why pay $XXXXX to go to MIT?" One reason I admire Vest and some of the other professors that were heavily involved in OCW was "the values of MIT make it essential that we do this, and we'll figure out the money part later." However, since MIT had a budget crisis, money becomes more important, and so a project that will kill your own revenue stream has more resistance.

What I think is going to happen with OCW is that it will be sort of like the GUI. Xerox PARC came up with the idea, but it was Apple that made this mainstream. I think that someone other than MIT will take OCW to the next level. I can't do it because I've got a million other things to do, but if anyone listening wants to do it, then I'll do what I can to help.

 

[atyy]

If you read the public literature, no one is going to say publicly that so-and-so is a brilliant scientist but a miserable human being, but this is the sort of thing that you can figure out if you have some social interaction with them, and when you get hooked into the rumor mill, you figure out that everyone else thinks that person is a first class jerk also.

Have you seen http://prl.aps.org/edannounce/PhysRevLett.100.070001? "If a physicist wants to work in such a collaboration, she or he must be sure to have a tough mind and sharp elbows" Wow! I don't think they run the army like that.

Watson also has a famous self-indicting book.

Also one issue that MIT has seriously been struggling with is the question "if you can get an MIT education via OCW and Khan Academy, then why pay $XXXXX to go to MIT?" One reason I admire Vest and some of the other professors that were heavily involved in OCW was "the values of MIT make it essential that we do this, and we'll figure out the money part later." However, since MIT had a budget crisis, money becomes more important, and so a project that will kill your own revenue stream has more resistance.

Good for Vest! But don't they consider it a form of advertising? Everyone else has their notes on the internet now. Surely MIT has to at least keep up?

 

[twofish-quant]

I absolutely love Georgia Tech. We have a lot of profs who are at the forefront of their respective research areas. One of my absolute favorite profs was Dr. Prasad Tetali who has done a lot of well-known research. On top of that, I have NEVER experience a prof who is just bad at teaching. To me, it really seems that the department does a good job of hiring good teachers.

When I was at MIT in the late-1980's, I had some teachers that were bad and in some cases spectacularly bad. One irony is that because the students are all very good, having an incompetent teacher didn't do that much damage. People grumble and get annoyed, but in the end, people end up learning the material anyway.

One thing that MIT does do which I think is a good thing is that they put the best teachers in lower division core classes. The reason for this is that if you have a bad teacher in an upper level class, the students have already learned the basics so they aren't going to do much damage, and having upper level students go through a bad lecture is outweighed by the benefits of having that student interact personally with the professor in the lab. If you have a bad teacher in a lower division class then it's a disaster because it means that students can't master the basics.

One other thing is that if you have a class of 300 students, you need pretty good administration skills. There are a few professor that I can think of who are decent but not spectacular lecturers, but they are really, really good at making a class of 300-500 students run like clockwork. Also MIT puts a lot of effort and resources into lower division. One thing that MIT does which is one of those simple things that is not so simple is that it hand grades all tests, so that you have a real live human tell you what you did wrong. It's an logistical challenge to hand grade 500 calculus I tests rather than just do multiple choice, but they think its essential.

In a lot of schools it's the reverse. The lower division classes are "weed out" classes and so the school has no particular reason to put good teachers there.

I really like listening to Prof. Mattuck's ODE course; no matter how many times I listen, I think he is really funny and interesting.

Arthur Mattuck is certainly a "personality." One of his good points is that he really, really, really cares about teaching, and when we had a issue in running the course evaluation guide, he was one of the important people we'd go to.

However, while I think MIT is above GaTech

If you've never had a bad lecturer then GaTech is better than MIT in that area.

I think that GaTech and CalTech are on equal footing when it comes to engineering. In fact, GT ranks a bit higher than CalTech in the US News and World Report Engineering rankings.

I don't trust those rankings at all. One problem with rankings is that in order to compare Caltech, MIT, Gatech, you really need to have someone that has taken classes and gone through those schools.

 

[kamikaze1]

Hey, I'm a college freshman who applied to MIT, Caltech, and GaTech last admission cycle, and got in 2 of them (Caltech and GaTech). As an incoming high school student, here are the things to look into.
1) You should get top grades in math and science classes (if not all classes) and SAT without much efforts. Standard hs AP curriculum is terribly easy and provides a really poor foundation, imo, especially if you want to become a mathematician.
2) If you truly love math and science, you need to explore and pursue math and science endeavors outside of classrooms that challenge you and open your horizon of knowledge. Here is some ideas:
- Math and science comps such as AMC/AIME/USAMO, USNCO, USABO, USACO, USAPho etc.
Doing well in these competitions are no jokes, especially for the math series (AMC/AIME/USAMO), you need proper training, background, and talent to do well in math comp., but if ur a math count national qualifier/state champion etc. You are in a good position to do well. If haven't done math count in middle school or haven't heard of math count, then you should try to take the AMC anyway, but don't expect to make USAMO, if AIME, on ur first try. imo, math competitions are the hardest and most stimulating experience, regardless of wat ur interested in science, u should at least take the AMC and do math competitions throughout high school, and win, if not place high on them.
- USABO is the easiest, intellectually, tho u need to spend lots of time learning bio from Campbell bio book. However, making finalist round, and the IBO team is much harder and requires hardcore studying. Many of those have taken advanced college classes. I don't know much about USApho, and others. if ur good at math and have a good physics knowledge, u should do well in it, at least making semifinalist round.
3) Look into Siemens/Intel STS, research based competitions (this should be a good experience too, if u can find a mentor and start ur research project early)
4) Science/math camps
- SSP
- Promys
- MITES/YESS
- RSI (this one is incredibly hard to get in)
- MOSP (top scorers for USAMO) etc
5) Admission matters
- MIT is incredibly unpredictable, since they follow the Harvard model in creating a diverse class. To get in as a science, pure academic standpoint, u need to tank out on the comps i mentioned above and basically become the best in the field. Others got in because of other artsy talents etc.
- Caltech is more predictable: u need to be the most hardcore of the applicant pool in terms of academic standpoint and potential to become a good scientist/mathematicians/engineers. U need basically to be an academic beast, here is another helpful link
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/california-institute-technology/1182824-suugest-reading-two-threads-before-you-post-chance-me-caltech-type-request.html

Based on what u've posted, u seem to have good credentials and on track to get in those top schools. As u learn more materials and hone ur test taking skills, u should be able to massacre the SAT/ACT reading/writing.

Many got in the two elite schools without any of the things mentioned above (excluding 1). I didn't know about those in my senior year; those are just some idesas, not formulas. If ur in a good and well funded public hs, private schools, u may very well be exposed to the competitions above. I hope this helps. (Edit: i forgot this is a zombie thread, awkward)

 

[twofish-quant]

Have you seen http://prl.aps.org/edannounce/PhysRevLett.100.070001? "If a physicist wants to work in such a collaboration, she or he must be sure to have a tough mind and sharp elbows" Wow! I don't think they run the army like that.

The immense amount of politics in high energy physics is the main reason I stayed out of that field. In part the politics has to do with the nature of the field. HEP experiments are massive engineering projects. One thing that is good about computational fields is that you can spend decades putting together a simulation, but once you have written the code, you can just duplicate it to anyone who wants it, and that makes it possible to have collaborations of three or four people, rather than hundreds.

Watson also has a famous self-indicting book.

One reason that its good to go to MIT so that you see things first hand. It's different to read about something than to have it happen to you personally or people that you know.

Good for Vest! But don't they consider it a form of advertising? Everyone else has their notes on the internet now. Surely MIT has to at least keep up?

Why does MIT need to advertise itself? It's not as if people don't know about it. :-) :-) :-)

Also, decision making at MIT is surprisingly slow and bureaucratic. The reason is that MIT works by consensus, and consensus decision making tends to be slow. Also, MIT doesn't have a very strong tradition of community outreach. Finally, things like distance learning just isn't a high priority for Hockfield. Her vision of MIT is focused on making it a premier research cross-disciplinary institute, and so that gets first priority.

Something else to point out is the fact that MIT is slow helped it. Columbia and NYU were a lot faster to embrace distance learning, but what they came up with (google for fathom) just blew up and they had to shut it down. The thing about OCW is that it still exists.

But one good thing about MIT is that it's part of an general "technology ecosystem". If the next step in distance learning can't happen at MIT, people can just take those ideas and make it work somewhere else.

 

[twofish-quant]

- MIT is incredibly unpredictable, since they follow the Harvard model in creating a diverse class.

It is unpredictable, and diversity is really important to have MIT function. One thing that MIT has found from experience is that if you want to come up with new and original ideas, you just have to have people from different backgrounds. If you have five stereotypical science nerds in a room, they are just going to come up with the standard "science nerd" ideas. So if you want something original, you have to people in the room that are smart but *aren't* stereotypical science nerds.

Also having a diverse student body is important because it gives you more choices. If everyone on campus is a science nerd, they life will suck if you don't want to be a science nerd, but one good thing about MIT is that because there are so many different types of people, you can find a group that you can fit in, or you can decide to do something original and combine the best of all the groups.

The other thing that I liked about MIT is that there is a lot *less* competition than in a lot of other universities. If you have only science nerds in a room, you end up competing over who is the "nerdiest", but what ends up happening at MIT is that because you have lots of people that say "hey, I don't care about being the nerdiest, and I want to be the most artistic."

Something that helped me a lot was that at MIT, I had a whole bunch of teachers and peer pressure to do X, but also a whole bunch of teachers and peer pressure to do not-X, which meant that in the end, I have to figure out for myself what I wanted to do.

The problem with this is that because the freshman class is only 1000 people, you have to reject a lot of people that would just do fine at MIT, and this problem is getting worse over time. Looking at historical admission rates, I'm pretty sure that MIT could double admission rates without reducing student quality, but the problem is that MIT just doesn't scale.

This is why I think MIT faculty and alumni are trying very hard to figure out how to get the MIT experience without getting admitted to MIT, and which is one reason I'm posting as much as I do. If you didn't get into MIT, I want to give you enough information so that you can build MIT or build something better than MIT where ever you do end up.

 

[atyy]

In a lot of schools it's the reverse. The lower division classes are "weed out" classes and so the school has no particular reason to put good teachers there.

Do weed out classes really exist?

A similar rumour is that some universities admit more graduate students than they can take so they have TAs. Then they flunk them out during qualifying exams.

Is there any publicly available evidence for such things? If they exist, aren't they unethical?

 

[twofish-quant]

Do weed out classes really exist?

For undergraduates. They do at University of Texas at Austin. They don't at MIT or William and Mary.

A similar rumour is that some universities admit more graduate students than they can take so they have TAs. Then they flunk them out during qualifying exams.

I can tell you publicly that at the University of Texas at Austin, the *astronomy* department doesn't do this, but I can't vouch for other departments there. If you are interested in rumor and hearsay, e-mail me in private, and I'll tell you what I've seen.

Is there any publicly available evidence for such things? If they exist, aren't they unethical?

This is why it's a good idea to talk to upperclassmen. As far as being unethical, you can argue the point.

One reason that UT Austin has weed out classes and MIT doesn't is that UT Austin has pretty open admissions whereas at MIT people are "weeded out" before they set foot on campus. One absolute firm and total requirement for an admission to MIT is that you have to convince people that you can get through the basic calculus and physics classes.

The other difference is that if you are UT Austin, and you flunk out of physics 101, there are a ton of other majors you can do, whereas at MIT if you can't pass 8.01 you can't get a degree in anything since physics and calculus is a required topic for all students.

 

[Mépris]

One reason that UT Austin has weed out classes and MIT doesn't is that UT Austin has pretty open admissions whereas at MIT people are "weeded out" before they set foot on campus. One absolute firm and total requirement for an admission to MIT is that you have to convince people that you can get through the basic calculus and physics classes.

The other difference is that if you are UT Austin, and you flunk out of physics 101, there are a ton of other majors you can do, whereas at MIT if you can't pass 8.01 you can't get a degree in anything since physics and calculus is a required topic for all students.

While I do think that this makes sense, it isn't explicitly stated anywhere on the website. It can, however, be inferred from that page which says that even if they do offer "humanities" majors, one has to have the pre-req courses to graduate. And the page which says that mathematics up to the level of calculus should've been studied before.

Why is that so? I suspect it's because that might complicate things for them because there'd be more well-prepared people applying. Alternatively it could mean that people who aren't, wouldn't bother applying.

??!?

 

[twofish-quant]

Why is that so? I suspect it's because that might complicate things for them because there'd be more well-prepared people applying. Alternatively it could mean that people who aren't, wouldn't bother applying.

This is some educated guess work, but I much of it is that they don't want to scare off people that have decent math skills, but huge amounts of math anxiety. If you talk about math and physics too much, then you may scare off applicants that would do fine in 18.01 and 8.01, so the philosophy seems to be "give us your application and we'll figure out if you can make it through the general institute requirements."

Something that MIT has obviously tried to do is to broaden the types of people applying, but by having more people applying you run into the problem of too many good applicants, and not enough spaces.

 

[atyy]

This is why it's a good idea to talk to upperclassmen. As far as being unethical, you can argue the point.

One reason that UT Austin has weed out classes and MIT doesn't is that UT Austin has pretty open admissions whereas at MIT people are "weeded out" before they set foot on campus. One absolute firm and total requirement for an admission to MIT is that you have to convince people that you can get through the basic calculus and physics classes.

The other difference is that if you are UT Austin, and you flunk out of physics 101, there are a ton of other majors you can do, whereas at MIT if you can't pass 8.01 you can't get a degree in anything since physics and calculus is a required topic for all students.

What exactly is a weed-out class?

Is it one that is badly taught so that only those who already know the subject can pass?

Or is it one that is well-taught for the stated pre-requisites (like high school algebra - which I believe is the pre-requisite for one version of MIT's freshmen physics), and those who haven't reached the equivalent of 10th grade mathematics flunk out?

It's interesting though, that the most mathematically accomodating version at MIT is given over a longer time, and restricted to 100 students. (I think it's 8.01L of http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m8a.html#8.01l). Perhaps the public schools don't have the resources to have so many different versions of freshman physics?

They also have a version called 8.011 "Designed for students with previous experience in 8.01". Would you know if that's for those who took the course and didn't pass, or is that an advanced version for those who studied the subject in high school but want to do it again to make sure they've got the basics securely?

 

[twofish-quant]

What exactly is a weed-out class?

It's a class in which many/most people who talk the class are expected to fail and drop out. A lot of schools put some tough classes at the beginning to try to reduce the number of students that continue on in that major.

It's interesting though, that the most mathematically accomodating version at MIT is given over a longer time, and restricted to 100 students. (I think it's 8.01L of http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m8a.html#8.01l). Perhaps the public schools don't have the resources to have so many different versions of freshman physics?

What MIT is doing with freshman physics is one of the reasons that I think people should apply.

When I was an undergraduate, there were a few different tracks for 8.01 but they were all "big lecture class, recitation, test, and problem set." What MIT has been doing over the last few years is to totally rethink and redesign how 8.01 is taught, and today most frosh can take several different versions, some of which are taught in very different ways than when I was there.

Now I'm sure that the way that MIT teaches freshman physics will eventually end up to be the standard way at most universities in a few years, but you get it at MIT first.