I know why I want to go to MIT, the hacker culture. People at MIT go extreme lengths to do dumb and funny stuff, like putting tetris on a building. Thats exactly something I would do, and I think I fit in perfectly with that group of people. However, my other reaches are mainly on prestige, what do you recommend I do? Should I start my list from scratch, or do you think I can find things about these schools that I would enjoy.
Thats what I originally thought when deciding my major. I know I want to do aerospace in the future, I particularly want to work in the JPL for NASA. I’d also heard that I can go for Mechanical Engineering but with aerospace electives.
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Thanks for all the advice you’ve given. I’ll really try to implement these concepts when crafting my admission portfolio. Its really given me another perspective on the application process.
I would not worry about a lack of awards for admissions to MIT.
MIT is a somewhat unusual school. It is a LOT of work. Some people love this, some hate it, some love it part of the time and hate it part of the time, or even love it and hate it at the same time. If you are the number one top student in your high school, you are likely to be pretty close to average at MIT. If you got 800 on the math part of the SAT test, and if you found that there was not even one single question on the math part of the SAT test that was remotely challenging, then again you might be pretty average at MIT.
As a freshman at MIT it was natural that I talked to a lot of other freshmen about what they had done that might have helped them get admitted. There was a huge range. A couple had raced sailboats. Several played chess. I remember one student who for an art project had built a machine that just ran around randomly in an enclosed space while he filmed it. After about 20 or 30 minutes the machine had gotten tied up in its own power cord and unplugged itself. One built a tiny hovercraft. There was a huge range in terms of what each student had done, but there were at least two common features. One is that the students I met at MIT had done very, very well in their math and science classes. This did not necessarily mean jumping ahead. Some (including me) were just starting calculus in our first semester at MIT. However, the students who were starting calculus as a freshman at MIT had mostly showed up with very solid A+ grades in the various prerequisites for calculus. In terms of ECs, we had each just done whatever was right for us, and had done it very well. Some of this involved competitions, but some of it did not.
“Designing and building stuff that helps people” sounds to me like a good approach. This is the sort of thing, if it is right for you, that can help you get accepted to a school that is a good fit for you, regardless of whether that is MIT or somewhere else.
I quite like the “applying sideways” blog that @NiceUnparticularMan references above. I summarize this as “do what is right for you, do it very well, and treat people well”. This is what I did and what my family has done, and it has worked for us. It got the four of us into eight different universities (one each for undergrad, a different one each for graduate school), and only one of the eight was MIT. Thus this seems to be a good approach for other very good universities also, and there are a LOT of very good universities.
One thing to think about is how academically challenging of a university do you want. MIT is really a LOT of work. You need to want to do it. The desire to work that hard needs to come from inside yourself. Other top schools such as Caltech and Stanford are similar.
Another thing to do is to think about what makes a school a good fit for you. This can be tougher to figure out. Visiting a few schools might help. Think about where you might be comfortable.
Also, you need to pick out at least one and preferably two safeties. These might be in-state public schools. Otherwise these might be more difficult to pick out compared to reach schools. There are only a few reach schools on the MIT, Stanford, … level, and they are mostly famous. There are a lot of schools that might be safeties for a strong student. However, “safety” should include both getting admitted and being able to afford to attend, so budget can also be an issue for many of us when choosing safeties.
Hopefully this thread has given you something to think about, even if have not clearly answered all of your questions.
Best wishes. To me it sounds like you are doing well, and are starting to think about some of the right things.
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You can make an email any time and if a school piques an interest, add it. You can always unsubscribe later.
In my mind, breadth is good early but you don’t need to start with the emails now. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself but certainly early next year.
Personally, I think you have time to start very broadly.
You’re right you probably want to be looking at places strong in Mechanical Engineering. If they have an Aerospace major, that might be a bonus, but definitely not necessary.
That’s not very limiting, though, so as I mentioned before, I think you would want to consider things like focus–engineering can be everything from a relatively niche program to the focus of the undergrad program and everything in between. So, like, at MIT, around 1/3rd of the graduating class is in some type of Engineering. At Princeton, it is around 1/6th. At Harvard, about 1/20th. There are some engineering colleges where it is 100%.
Then there is size. Because Harvard has a relatively small program, it only graduates around 100 engineers a year. Georgia Tech graduates around 2000 engineers a year. In fact, Georgia Tech graduates around 250 in Aerospace alone.
Obviously different institutions are in different parts of the country, in everything from cities to suburbs to rural areas, and so on. Whether any of that will matter to you, I don’t know, but it ends up mattering to some people, sometimes in ways they don’t expect.
The best way to get some idea of what might work best for you is to visit a sampling. Near where you are located (near at least by my standards), Hopkins is sort of in the Princeton category. Virginia Tech is sort of in the Georgia Tech category. Maryland is a good example of a large public with a big engineering college, but not as big as one of the “tech” publics. Pittsburgh is actually pretty close to you, and you could check out CMU for a private tech-focused option. Bucknell could be interesting to check out among smaller undergrad-focused colleges (sometimes called Liberal Arts Colleges, except Bucknell in particular has Engineering and Business as well).
Once you know more about what you really are looking for, you can then fill out a list based on those preferences.
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And in addition to this fine advice- consider how important it is to you to be able to explore your non-engineering interests. At some colleges (MIT is one of them) there is an extensive core that everyone takes- math, the core sciences, etc. regardless of your major. And then there are broad choices for your HASS requirements (Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences). So nobody blinks if you are an engineering major minoring in music, or a math major minoring in poli sci.
At other colleges, your access to the courses that are not required for your major is more limited and minoring in one of the humanities disciplines is an exercise in Jenga– hard to fit it in, logistics of scheduling courses, etc. makes it complicated.
For some kids it doesn’t matter- they don’t want a minor anyway and if they do, they want one that’s related (so bio and cognitive science, or applied math and CS).
So this is part of the exploration I was encouraging upthread.
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Why not take AP Physics C in junior year?
My school only allows us to take AP Physics C after completing an entry level physics first, such as Honors Physics or DE Physics.
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Can you take calc based physics as a DE course?
No, our DE physics is Algebra based
Virginia Tech is not in the Georgia Tech category.
So keeping in mind I was referring to the size of the engineering program, in the latest NCES data, Virginia Tech graduated 1568 people with primary majors in Engineering, Georgia Tech 2035. Specifically in Aerospace, it was 202 for Virginia Tech, 248 Georgia Tech. This was in contrast to Maryland, where it was 917 total, 130 in Aerospace.
Of course one could also say Virginia Tech was a little over halfway from Maryland to Georgia Tech. Hence the “sort ofs”.
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There will be many from Va Tech that outperform Ga Tech….all think differently about these things….but while most won’t see it at the same level, there will be many cross hires…as there will be from other schools.
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No, but it is moving up rapidly. In 10 years, it will be one of those schools that people think came out of nowhere.
I think in engineering, Va Tech has always rated high. But it’s like my kid at Alabama who interned with 2 from the other school mentioned. One of the three was invited back. It was the low ranked school.
People think - higher ranked school = assured higher levels of success. It’s bunk. We had a regular poster here whose kid couldn’t get hired out of Ga Tech - finally got a contractor job after, I think, ten months. It’s a great school no doubt - but these things aren’t as black and white as people make them out to be.
Ga Tech in 2024 showed a median salary of $83K with 75% of those seeking jobs employed at last check (for engineering). I’m not sure when they stopped collecting data (as 25% seeking weren’t employed) We don’t know the knowledge rate for engineering but for the school it was 35%. My feel - don’t report, make less.
Va Tech in 20024 - 62% working with 19% still seeking - so a higher % of grads employed. The knowledge rate is 65%, nearly double Ga Techs - so Va Techs grads are more “loyal” to the school, willing to report. The Median in engineering is $77K.
Because each major pays differently, you need to look deeper at the counts of each major.
No one will say, Ga Tech isn’t deemed world class.
But the actual outcomes are not near as far apart as folks think. And in some areas (% employed and with more complete data) - in some areas, they outperform.
So they’re not equal subs but I don’t think they’re near as wide a gap as many think.
And I think Va Tech has always been well respected.
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It seems to me that VA Tech is currently a relative “bargain” in terms of being a very strong engineering school yet having an acceptance rate higher than peers. I don’t really know why applicants don’t flock to it in higher numbers and drive acceptance rate down, but perhaps this will change over time.
(I wasn’t able to convince my D26 that it was worth considering, either. Maybe lack of national recognition or not the greatest marketing or maybe there’s something else unsexy about it to high schoolers from across the country.)
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Profile of accepted students coupled with admit rate are still just a little unexciting for those looking at the top tier. That will not be the case soon; it is changing in front of our eyes.
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IMO
- Blacksburg is secluded so not for everyone
- Strong in state competition from UVA and W&M
- OOS cost is $65k? which makes it less attractive for many.
compare to Penn State. Same student profile, same level, similarly secluded, slightly cheaper for oos.
but do not disagree.