<p>I do not have anything against MIT. It is known to be awesome, very highly ranked in all aspects and exceptionally hard. Exceptionally high caliber students would be able to get high GPAs there if they work hard enough. But for average person with aspiration for engineering or medicine, who is concerned with difficulty of the program, MIT might be not the best route. That is all I meant. In regard to opportunities for pre-meds, with rare exceptions, you can major in anything you wish anywhere and other opportunities are available everywhere also, it is up to a kid to participate, get hired, and so forth. The top students actually might have more opportunities at state school, being noticed more. This will apply to any opportunities in any major, leadership, research opportunities. This is based on my D’s experience who is sophmore pre-med at state school in Honors and who is challenged much more than she anticipated after graduating at the top of her HS class. Her engineering major friends are very challenged also. These are also top students in honors program, and some of them needed to use tutoring just to keep up.</p>