<p>There are about as many grad students as undergrads at MIT, so it’s not like there are five billion. There are about 6,000 graduate students and 4,000 undergrads.</p>
<p>The presence of grad students really doesn’t affect the average undergrad’s life a huge deal in general. As to research, professors don’t hire UROPs for the same reasons they have grad students, and most labs at MIT are a healthy mix of undergrads, grad students, and postdocs. The presence of grad students absolutely does not affect the availability of undergrad research positions (and I’m not sure why anyone would imply that it would?). The major effect that the presence of graduate students has is that undergrads are able to take advanced graduate courses along with the graduate students, which is interesting and fun (not to mention that grad classes are tremendously grade-inflated).</p>
<p>Lectures aren’t generally large at MIT – the biggest lectures are usually during freshman year, when all 1000 freshmen choose from a small number of General Institute Requirement classes. My biggest freshman class was 250 people, and of course that was just for lecture. The course was broken up into recitation sections of about 10-12 people. According to the [common</a> data set](<a href=“MIT Institutional Research”>MIT Institutional Research), the modal class size at MIT is 2-9 students.</p>
<p>I’ll accept that there’s pressure – MIT students are very driven, and tend to pressure themselves tremendously. But I won’t accept that graduate students negatively impact the student experience, or that class sizes are generally large. I certainly had a positive experience as an MIT undergrad, as did all of my friends.</p>
<p>EDIT: One thing that might be worth mentioning is that many people prefer to give opinions on MIT which seem to be based entirely on rumor and caricature. Like any caricature, there are elements of truth (people here like math, tend to work too hard, etc), but these elements are exaggerated for effect. I’d encourage admits to visit at CPW and see for themselves if MIT students seem pressured beyond belief (or unable to converse intelligently about literature, or whatever the rumor du jour happens to be). Often people find that MIT students and MIT life are a bit more complex than popular opinion gives them credit for. :)</p>