Didn't expect that my DS would like MIT>Harvard

Parents Forum
1

<p>Visiting Cambridge and did both the Harvard and
MIT info sessions and tours. After the tours, he said he definitely preferred MIT. He wants to major in math, but likes the humanities–particularly history–so I naturally assumed he’d like the university over the institute. But wrong again. </p>

<p>Perhaps it was the tour. On the Harvard tour we were in a group of more than 30. MIT had only 8. On the Harvard tour, we went inside only one building. On the MIT, many. </p>

<p>But his impression was that Harvard was “pretentious.” (He grew up in the shadow of Yale so he’s familiar with that kind of culture.) He thought MIT was more laid-back with kids doing a lot of fun things having a good time. </p>

<p>Totally subjective of course. A friend whose kid was just accepted into Harvard said it was the tour that made the difference. </p>

<p>My son is not super competitive, just likes to follow his interests and do his best. And his impression was that Harvard was more dog eat dog. </p>

<p>I think he feels Yale is less of a hot house too. When we toured Yale, someone asked the difference between Yale and Harvard, and her interesting answer: “Students feel tremendously proud that they’re at Harvard, but the love being at Yale.” </p>

<p>He also said he wouldn’t have to take as many non-STEM requirements at MIT–only 8 courses–so I’ll be able to take just what I like."</p>

<p>I was surprised that 50 percent of the MIT males are in frats, but I didn’t get the impression it’s like Greek life at some heavy duty frat unis. More maybe like this: [MIT</a> Fraternity Accused Of Robot Hazing | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source](<a href=“http://www.theonion.com/articles/mit-fraternity-accused-of-robot-hazing,1935/]MIT”>MIT Fraternity Accused Of Robot Hazing)</p>

<p>Lots more to think about. He’s sitting in on classes at both so that’s more grist for the mill. </p>

<p>But he likes Latin so I’ll put it this way: de gustibus non est disputandum.</p>

<p>One of the great things about kids is that they can surprise you I’m so many ways. </p>

<p>Of course it’s all a total crap shoot. He should be so lucky to be able to turn down one over the other. The MIT admissions officer said, "If we wanted we could fill our freshman class with perfect SAT scores, bit it’s not as simple as that.</p>

2

<p>I’m not so surprised. At MIT, there is a passion for STEM. It is easy to find others who share that interest, as well as board/computer games. Look on the MIT site for threads that describe the different flavors of the fraternities. </p>

<p>As you know, your son would be fortunate to be admitted to both.</p>

3

<p>My S took a very heavy humanities load at MIT (in addition to his major and in addition to the required courses) and LOVED them. So your S may be pleasantly surprised by the quality of the faculty in the non-science disciplines. (My son is a real history nerd!)</p>

4

<p>As a Harvard grad it pains me to say this, but I should have gone to Yale. </p>

<p>I think Harvard’s unwillingness often to articulate what they have to offer beyond “We’re Harvard!” often comes off as pretentious. I didn’t find it at all that way when I attended and the kids from our school who ended up there couldn’t have been nicer.</p>

<p>My son liked MIT better than Harvard too, but it was Harvard that accepted him not MIT. In the end he went to Carnegie Mellon where he was awash in geek culture. Couldn’t have been happier.</p>

<p>Good luck to your son!</p>

5

<p>

</p>

<p>Interesting. </p>

<p>From what I’ve gathered from my frequent visits to both campuses and from HS classmates and colleagues who attended one or both schools for undergrad & TAed undergrads at the other…it seemed to be the complete opposite of their impressions. </p>

<p>MIT students seemed much more competitive and internally driven to be at their best than their Harvard counterparts. </p>

<p>If anything, the impression was that many Harvard students tended to rest on their laurels at times including being content with "Gentlemen’s Cs/B-s because “They’re going to Harvard” in comparison. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>My HS friend and several other Yale students/alums I’ve met have all said they’d probably have been happier at Harvard. </p>

<p>Moreover, it wasn’t because of the name…but the fact Harvard’s located in Cambridge and is a short bus/T-ride to Boston with its excitements and access to friends from many more other campuses whereas Yale’s located in New Haven which they all considered a “dump”* back when they attended in the mid-late '90s. </p>

<p>In short, there’s many more accessible convenient escapes from the Harvard bubble than the Yale bubble. </p>

<ul>
<li>Their word.</li>
</ul>

6

<p>When we toured them my D liked MIT better than Harvard too. Frankly, the Harvard info session and tour that we attended were not great. And at MIT there were more kids wearing tee shirts that spoke to her inner nerd. But, she did a lot more research on the schools she was looking at and she weighed the other information more heavily than her impressions from the tours (which were taken in the summer). She ended up applying to H but not to MIT because she viewed them as equals in her major (physics) while H and the other schools she applied to were stronger in her extracurricular passion and provide a more varied student body in terms of their interests. She is now a senior and she has loved her experience at H. I can’t speak for all majors, but the physics and math students are collaborative, not cut-throat. She has had no problem forming study groups for all her STEM classes and she says nobody discusses grades. Good luck!</p>

7

<p>My impression of Harvard was that it was not at all dog eat dog - many people majored in their ECs more than their real majors. Some of those ECs though were pretty competitive! But lots weren’t.</p>

8

<p>S1 liked MIT better than Harvard. He also wanted humanities, so he chose UChicago. Considered himself darned lucky to even have a choice between Chicago and MIT. There are times he wishes he’d gone to MIT, esp. once he found his peeps there, but it all worked out well in the end. Met his DW in the computer lab at Chicago and it was geek love at first sight (she was a visiting CS/math major from UEdinburgh). He majored in math and is now a software engineer.</p>

9

<p>“As a harvard grad it pains me to say this, but I should have gone to Yale.” </p>

<p>"My HS friend and several other Yale students/alums I’ve met have all said they’d probably have been happier at Harvard. "</p>

<p>The ivy is always greener . . .</p>

10

<p>Isn’t it irrelevant which one he likes better until or unless he has acceptances from both in hand? I mean, I like winning the Nobel Prize over winning an Olympic gold medal, as well, but I’ve got no guarantee I’ll win either. It’s really easy to like all the pretty reach schools.</p>

11

<p>My daughter’s experience was the opposite. A Physics major, she went out on the tours with MIT her clear favorite. We went to Boston to see MIT but toured Harvard and Wellesley too “since we’re there anyway.”</p>

<p>After the tour H immediately vaulted past MIT on her list. And when acceptances came she was faced with the real choice because she got into both. She really wanted H but hated to let go of MIT - she had been focused on it for so long. </p>

<p>In the end she picked Harvard and was very glad for it. She hung around with a lot of MIT kids from her church group, and her impression was that Harvard kids were generally pretty happy to be at Harvard. But she said her impression of the MIT kids was that they were mostly happy too but in spite being at MIT rather than because of it. They were often stressed-out over school.</p>

<p>Everyone’s impression is their own, and there is no one right answer. But she found that pretty much all the negative stereotypes of Harvard people simply weren’t true: entitled, pretentious, cut-throat, rich, snobby, unhappy, etc…they just weren’t true for her.</p>

12

<p>“Isn’t it irrelevant which one he likes better until or unless he has acceptances from both in hand? I mean, I like winning the Nobel Prize over winning an Olympic gold medal, as well, but I’ve got no guarantee I’ll win either.”</p>

<p>Really. Someone, anyone, would have to be pretty overconfident to be pondering the finer points of which one they will choose when you’re talking these kind of schools, before the acceptance is in hand. Give me a break.</p>

13

<p>

</p>

<p>Ironically, the unhappy Yalies I knew weren’t really complaining about the colleges themselves. </p>

<p>Instead, it was mainly about the location as there’s much more to do and many more college students to meet around the immediate Cambridge/Boston area than there is in New Haven. Don’t know about now…but everyone I knew who attended Yale in the '90s had little good to say about the location.</p>

14

<p>“Of course it’s all a total crap shoot” - That’s true. But it’s good that he can use those experiences to sort through whatever options are on his plate in April. </p>

<p>It can be good to have multiple tours on the same trip. My son really like MIT and his summer tour, but in retrospect I think it was because we toured the more liberal artsy Tufts afterward… and that was not his cup of tea. Then in the winter he toured MIT again and didn’t like it as well. This time for comparison he had Olin Candidate Weekend, and Olin’s project-based approach really energized him.</p>

15

<p>It does not matter. H students don’t know how to count. M students don’t know how to read.</p>

<p>[Harvard</a> vs MIT [rec.humor.funny]](<a href=“http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/99/May/harvard.html]Harvard”>Harvard vs MIT [rec.humor.funny])</p>

16

<p>I like this thread - good humor and good information. </p>

<p>OP, is your son a sophomore? When you visited the colleges, did you make appointment or you just went with the group tours? </p>

<p>My D. is a sophomore. Her friends who are seniors told her she should start doing school visit. She was talking about MIT because several of her friends (from a camp) were enrolled there and said all kinds of good things about it. But she is a humanity kid. She’s not sure if MIT will have her place.</p>

17

<p>

No not really. At this point kids are still sorting through what they are looking for in a college. Particularly with my younger kid it often surprised me what he liked or didn’t like in the colleges we visited, and there’s no question that the process of visiting schools helped him figure out what he wanted. I do think it’s kind of amusing that a well-rounded kid would end up liking MIT better - you could have had the same story about Clark and WPI. There’s something about MIT that appealed - so she might want to look at other schools that have similar characteristics. CMU might be one, good art and architecture, music and a fairly well known undergrad business program in addition to science and technology. (Good drama too, but I don’t think others have access to the program except perhaps as techies.)</p>

18

<p>Harvard requires only 8 gen ed classes, which is apparently the same as MIT. Just want to make sure the facts are right.</p>

<p>Some Harvard students are embarrassed to say they go there. I suppose the same could be true of MIT. The cliche is to say “I got to school in Cambridge.”</p>

19

<p>^Or Boston…</p>

20

<p>I never really understood the point of the “I go to school in New England/MA/Boston.” The next question is always, “Oh, which school?” Then it seems even more pretentious to have not said it from the start.
I was on a plane on my way home for winter break this year, and the guy sitting next to me asked where I went to school:
“A little school in Connecticut.”
“Oh, which residential college are you in?”</p>

<p>About this:

</p>

<p>Given that about 350 kids fall into this category every year, clearly the quip about MIT students not being able to read has some truth in it. :)</p>