<p>Going into engineering, does one have better opportunities than the other? Which has better grad school placements?</p>
<p>bump…
I’m looking at aero/astro (not offered at Columbia) or mechanical, if that helps.</p>
<p>What are the salient points of the PC Davis Scholar thing?</p>
<p>MIT’s aero/astro department is great, and the grad school placement is exceptional, particularly if you’re looking to stay at MIT. My husband’s year, almost 100% of the MIT aero/astro undergrads who applied to the department’s master’s program got in – the department is very into training undergraduates and keeping them around as graduate students. My feeling is that the mech e department has much the same philosophy with regard to academic inbreeding.</p>
<p>The scholar thing is offered to about 30-40 people in each class for the fu foundation of engineering at columbia. It has quirks like extra seminars, free broadway tickets, easier access to research, and a smaller group within the larger college. I was told by a current student and scholar that it was a pretty big deal at columbia, but I had never heard of it before I got a letter in my acceptance package.</p>
<p>Btw, thank you for replying. It seems that the MIT/Harvard threads are much more popular.</p>
<p>Hey, I’m in the same boat as you. Do you plan on doing engineering as a career? If so, MIT’s probably better. It has a stronger program and bigger name in engineering.</p>
<p>I just realized that this was the name of the program that I got offered to when I applied and gotten in at Columbia two years ago.</p>
<p>Needlessly to say I came here and it has been really great. =D I probably can’t comment on whether it would have been better at Columbia, but I came here and I don’t regret the decision. I think MIT is a stellar school with an amazing amount of opportunities and if you stand out here as well, you can easily achieve the same kind of recognition as the Davis scholars in Columbia (and a lot more too). </p>
<p>Extra seminars - sure, just go to the advanced colloquiums. If they’re closed, you can always request entrance with the professors if you feel like that’s what you want. The Burchard Scholars program at MIT (for humanities) provides extra seminars as well.</p>
<p>Free Broadway tickets - okay, this is probably not existent at MIT, but hey - if you want to go to Columbia for the tickets, be my guest =p</p>
<p>Easier access to research - I’m fairly convinced that MIT’s UROP program and how incredibly access-friendly to working in a cutting edge lab here (think stem cells, cancer research, international development through technology, and many other physics/engineering topics that I probably don’t even know about) is unrivaled in the entire nation, regardless of what college you go to. You should definitely check out the website ([MIT’s</a> UROP: Current Research > Project Openings](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/UROP/research/openings.html]MIT’s”>http://web.mit.edu/UROP/research/openings.html)) for just a very small sample of all the opportunities available.</p>
<p>Smaller group within the larger college - again, I feel like if you stand out and have the abilities, you’ll find this whereever you are.</p>
<p>I feel like things like the Davis scholar loses its aura after awhile, since this placement is based on your high school achievements rather than your college ability. Sure, it might be possible that having access to this program in college helped you discover your potential, but at the end of the day you might still have a mediocre group who might have been amazing in high school but meh in college. I think working hard to achieving recognition in college by your own merits will probably be worth more in my own opinion.</p>
<p>MIT…obvious. i haven’t even heard of that scholar program.</p>
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<p>No, not Broadway, but free tickets to the BSO abound. Also, the arts council at MIT offers free tickets to concerts, ballets, plays, etc in and around the boston area to all MIT students. Check here: [url=<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/arts/]arts@MIT[/url”>http://web.mit.edu/arts/]arts@MIT[/url</a>]</p>