I’m a high school senior, and the time is fast approaching when I’ll have to choose (and be chosen by) a university to attend. The main two I’m considering are University of Michigan and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
My views at the moment are that University of Michigan offers a wider range of courses, a more diverse (in terms of interests especially) student body, and probably a better deal financially, what with in-state tuition and potential merit awards.
MIT, on the other hand, has greater prestige, a better science and math program, research opportunities, and more students with similar interests to mine. Also, the location is probably more interesting.
Some background info: I’m currently interested in Math and Physics as prospective majors, but I’ve always liked History and Literature and would hate to neglect my education in those areas.
So now I turn to the collective wisdom of the SDMB. Could anyone who has attended or otherwise been affiliated with either of these fine institutions refute, support, or supplement my views? Thank you all in advance for your opinions.
Choose your school on how it best fulfills your educational interests, and provides an education sufficiently broad and diversified that you can live and prosper in a world under constant change.
Forget the prestige crap, unless your career path requires you to brown-nose and play those petty games.
Both Michigan and MIT are top notch schools. You have a difficult decision.
The difference in prestige is negligable, dependant upon your major. A degree from U of M - Ann Arbor looks very, very good both to employers and graduate schools. You’re right about the price difference, if that’s something you need to take into consideration. I think if you can get into either school, you probably have a good shot at at least a partial scholly to them.
Look at www.fastweb.com for scholarship opportunities, they have the best user interface of any of the scholarship sites.
Let me say that I am not affiliated with either school, nor have I attended them. As my user name will tell you, I go to Western. I do know a few people that have gone to U of M, and none of them have hade any trouble with their chosen paths after graduation.
There is one hitch. If you want to go to graduate school eventuall at U of M, do not do your undergrad there. A friend of mine did her undergrad there and could not get into their law school, even with her high GPA. The reason? They want to expand their alumni base, so it is more difficult for a U of M grad to get into their grad schools.
MIT alum here. The usual assumption about MIT is that it’s all math & science, but that’s not necessarily true. There’s a requirement for all students to take 8 humanities courses, so there are certainly history and literature courses, which you could even major in if you wanted. You can read more about them here and here .
Still, IMHO they’re a little light in the classics. Luckily, you can take classes for credit at other colleges in the Boston area. They’ve got a special setup at Wellesley, but you can probably get others if you argue well enough. I couldn’t find anything on the website, but it was true 10 years ago.
The issue of finances is definitely a big one - not only tuition, but air fare to and from and the cost of living in Boston is just higher. OTOH, schools with a bigger endowment can sometimes offer more financial aid. The only way to find out is to apply.
U of Mich is a good school, so you can get a good education either place. The more important issue is the right place for you. I loved MIT, but it’s very much not for everyone. To give you an idea, even some of the humanities classes have an engineer’s perspective. For example, one of my anthropology profs compared the stripes on a Venetian’s sleeves to resistors. Now, you’re either thinking that’s cool or very strange, which goes a long way toward telling if it’s the right place for you.
You might want another Northeastern technical school to apply to. Unless you are UNBELIEVABLY well rounded, have a connection, or are famous, you’re likely not going to get into MIT. Just as an example, my interviewer gave 15 interviews: 14 were rejected on the first pass, and I was waitlisted, and rejected later. Not ONE of her applicants got in. I have heard plenty of similar stories from others.
I’m not saying you won’t get in. You may be exactly what MIT is looking for. But even if you have 1600 SATs (I was damn close) and are on 3 varsity sports teams and in all the honor societies, it’s not a slam dunk. It would really, really suck to be left with no options because of such a turn of events, so I urge you to cover your ass in case of such an eventuality. And, good luck
Well definitely apply to both schools if you have the intrest. The choice might be made for you if one of the schools doesn’t pick you. A word of warning: MIT’s admissions people are VERY selective. In my school, 3 of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met (1’s now going to Harvard and another to Cornell) were rejected despite more being VERY VERY well qualified in all aspects. So don’t get your heart set on MIT.
Anyway, assuming you get into both schools, I’d go to MIT unless there are financial obstacles (which is very likely, unfortunately.) I just visited a (student) friend of mine it today and its quite a nice place if you fit in. Plus, they’ve got the coolest administartion I’ve ever seen in a college; just as quirky as its students.
UofM alum checking in here. Never been to MIT, cant weigh in on that one. Ann Arbor has some great cultural entertainment, restaurants, record stores, movie houses, etc…and the Engineering campus is top notch. My buddy, mechanical engineer, went on to work for Bosch in their suspension and braking design systems dept. He now gets to “evaluate”(lucky bastard) high end auto parts on ride alongs with a French-Canadian ex race car driver. The downtown main campus is beautiful. The name recognition goes over very well with employers. On the downside housing is ridulously priced, you most likely will need a job unless you have a large amount of cash hidden away, or are on a full ride. As far as the annual autumn migration of Detroiters into the city goes, your front yard(no matter how small a patch of dirt it is) can double as an overly priced parking lot…buy tickets at student discounts, resale value is very good, stay home watch the game on TV.
I also think you should apply to both. If you get picked by both, you should go to UofM if you are into football. Otherwise, pick MIT. MIT has need-based financial assistance, which makes it a better deal if you happen to have poor parents like me.
Need based financial assistance is available to people in MI, too, The Controvert. I wasn’t exactly a trust-fund baby, either. But I definitely went for the football, yeah, thats it, the football.
I can’t say anything about Michigan, but I loved my four years at MIT.
as Pigs in Spce has noted, it’s not all geeky math-and-science. I not only studied a pretty fair amount of humanities there, I also wrote a play and had it produced, acted in the Musical Theater Guild, was Props Master for the Shakespeare Ensemble, worked out with the fencing team, attended casses at Wellesley, and performed undergraduate research that resulted in articles in Scientific Aerican and the American Journal of Physics. I got to do stroboscopy in Doc Edgerton’s lab, karate with Ron McNair, and playwriting with A.R. Gurney. There were a lot o opportunities available, and you could get involved in word-class research and other endeavors, if you worked at it. The opportunities for such contacts were better at MIT than at the other schools I attended.
Who do you want to hire you? Lots of people doing hiring tend to like people who went to the same school as they did.
Also, MIT on your resume looks good to people who went to neither.
As someone who has done a lot of hiring in the past, I never thru away any resume from someone who was from Harvard or MIT, esp if it was undergrad. I always dug into it real deep for such people, and usu brought in the candidate to talk to him or her. If nothing else, to find out why MIT or Harvard was so interested in that person. (There were so many resumes I saw from Uof M that it was not the same thing, even if the person was just as qualified).
As far as getting an education or actual learning, you can get one from either, or even from a very small school. A motivated intelligent person may come from any school.
I was an undergrad at UM in math (a while back, admittedly), and had no trouble being accepted into their grad school. I wasn’t the only one.
I ended up going elsewhere, though. I was encouraged to go elsewhere for grad school, for the different experiences. The advice I was given, and it’s pretty good advice, is that all other things being equal, your undergrad and grad schools should probably be different. YMMV, of course.
As far as your other interests, don’t worry about it. I also spent a huge amount of time in MTG and doing other theater work that I never would have got to do as a CS major in most other schools. Humanities classes (including my lit classes) - were still academically excellent (I also had more than a few friends who were poli-sci majors. They didn’t notice anything lacking in the department). The school used to stress students having interests outside of class - both research opportunities and student interest clubs. If there’s an interest you want to explore - there’s probably already a club that does it, and if not putting one together and getting funding is almost too easy. And quite frankly, my undergrad loans aren’t bad at all. In fact, they’re hardly worth mentioning. OTOH, I hated Boston with a grand passion. Could not get out fast enough.
However - can you answer the following? What do you want to do when you grow up? Or where do you want to be in seven years?
If you know, apply. It doesn’t matter what the answer is - I had friends who really wanted to be writers, archaeologists, musicians, lawyers, and work in professional theater, as well as the chemists, engineers, mathematicians, and the things you’d normally expect from MIT. They all had a much better time than those of us who kind of stared at people who asked that question - or answered vaguely with something pat (“I want to have a fulfilling career”). It is not necessarily the best school for exploring your choices, it is a great place for refining and developing the ones you’ve already made.
Apply to both, visit both, and worry about it after you get the acceptance letters.
Personally, I wouldnt go to MIT. Although I would fit in perfectly with the people, I can’t take the cold weather… or Boston. I dont know much about U of M, but I do know about Ann Arbor. I found it much better than Boston. There was so much more ‘culture’. The hip-hop scene (if you care) is possibly the best in the country. If you’ve never been to Cambridge, I would definately go before making your decision. Just wondering… what area of physics are you interested? I’m a high school senior (interested in the same stuff as you) looking around for the best place to spend the rest of the decade.
I’ve gone to neither school, but know several people that have. Both are superb.
I understand that MIT is actually extremely good in the humanities, so I wouldn’t worry about that. U of M has many fine programs, but with any school of that size, some are better than others. I would check how it does in the particular areas you are interested.
One thing that Michigan has is an extremely strong alumni network. It seems that an overwhelming percentage of its graduates have very strong positive feelings toward the school and their fellow alumni, which can be helpful when networking later on.
Although I don’t think that MIT grads are typically as rah-rah as the Michigan alums, wearing the brass rat (the MIT school ring) is a powerful symbol to both MIT grads and others in technical (and non-technical) fields where it is commonly recognized.
Both are excellent choices, and quite competitive in admissions. Good luck on deciding and on your senior year.
I was a freshman at U of M last year (I’m a sophmore now, naturally), and I can reccomend it highly.
However, I appear to be quite the oppisite of you when it comes to classes - I’m more of a humanities guy. And by “more of”, I mean “almost exclusively”. Still, great school and great town.
I’m not sure if you have ever visited the east coast and new england. I love it up there, don’t get me wrong, well in the summer anyway. It’s just a different culture and a different way of life. What I am getting at is, you may or may not like the hustle and bustle of Boston.
If I had it to do all over again, and I had unlimited funds, I would consider a school in the south east, Clemson and Duke come to mind. Georgia Tech is a world-class physics kind of place too, but then again it’s in a big city.
But you asked about UM or MIT. This may sound somewhat unusual, but because of the higher standards of admission at MIT you have to remember you are probably going to be “about” average there. I say this because I had a friend that was first in her class all her life, graduated early from high school, and attended the U of Chicago. The stigma of being “about” average there caused her great distress.
I work here at U-M and love the school; I have two graduate degrees from here as well. I did not go here for undergrad because I really wanted a small-school experience.
Most students who go here really seem to like it. I know that some people from elswhere in Michigan get annoyed with the huge contingent of SE Michigan students (Oakland county, etc) and the fact that there seem to be 750 Jeep Cherokees with NY plates on campus (snort), but there is, in truth, a lot of geographic diversity represented here. Ann Arbor is unlike anywhere else in Michigan and has a lot of international and east-coast flavor.
Great history department. Don’t know that much about the math department, but I serve on a committee with one of the math faculty and he’s a fabulous person.
But boy, to live in Boston as a college student (when you could actually afford it)! How fun and how broadening.
Apply to both, hope you get in to both, and then have the agonizingly pleasurable choice of deciding which fine school to go to.
