I’m a junior in high school wanting to major in Mechanical Engineering. My dilemma is whether to shoot for a “reach” college like MIT, where I would be pushed mentally and academically, or a state college like Michigan State University that is still good in engineering and has an honors college. Because based on what I’ve heard and read on websites like unigo, if I go to MIT, I wouldn’t really have a chance of having a college experience like I would at Michigan State (Football games, being on a formula team, going to parties, sleep), my experience at MIT would be study hard and never play or sleep, which is not what I want. However, I am also worried that if I go to MSU, even though I would be in the honors college, would I be pushed enough? Would I reach my potential?
To clarify, factors like cost, location, and chances of acceptance are not things I’m worried about, but overall which college experience would be better based on my personal interests.
Cost may not be something YOU are worried about but what about your parents? You as a student are limited to $5500-7500/year in loans. Anything else is on your parents.
As far as Mech E, MSU has an excellent program. Don’t think for a second they don’t party at MIT. All colleges have parties. But MIT will not have big games like MSU. A Mech E program will open some things up apart from MSU (outside of engineering) but both programs will do very well for you. And really, apply to both and see if you can get in. At this point you’re counting your chickens before they hatch.
I suggest you put in applications and see how things turn out. If you are a MI resident, you might also consider UM which offers an outstanding engineering program and a traditional college experience. If affordable, some other colleges (ex. Stanford, Notre Dame, GA Tech, UT) could fit the bill as well.
Apply to both, see if you get in…visit the colleges
There is nothing wrong with wanting to push yourself and still get the whole college experience (like at Michigan)…there are always opportunities for top students to do research or coops or other activities that will help you push yourself.
MIT is a big party school too. Kids from other colleges in the Boston area try to get into their parties and the kids there are SUPER creative and have a very good collective sense of humor. If you can get in, go for it. It’s a long shot for everyone, but striving for MIT can only help you get in other places even if you don’t get in MIT itself.
This is false dichotomy because you seem to assume that “College Experience” only includes the non-academic activities like big college sports, partying, sleeping, etc. But academics like taking classes, forming study groups, collaborating on projects, taking part in undergraduate research, etc are also parts of the “College Experience”. You have to decide which aspects about college life are important to you and apply to those schools that will (probably) supply most of those aspects.
You’re a junior in college - your job right now is not to narrow, but to expand. There’s no reason that you can’t apply to both Michigan State and MIT and save your decision-making for next April, when you have some offers and financial aid information on the table. Right now, you have no idea whether MIT is really affordable for your family.
That said, this is really such a personal question. Some students would rather be a big fish in a small pond, or at least be at a place where they feel they can mix academic rigor with a good, lively social life the way they define that. For some students, big sports and a mix of students is important to them. Those students would choose MSU over MIT in a heartbeat, any day. It is - as you mentioned - an excellent school, good in engineering. You can still be pushed academically and mentally there, so I wouldn’t set up any false dichotomies. For other students, though, MIT is the culmination of their dreams. They want to be in a competitive, super-rigorous environment with lots of other competitive, ambitious, elite students like themselves. Like the above post references, for them the “college experience” really represents deep chats with other elite students, cutting-edge research with top professors, complex senior engineering projects, whatever.
And none of this is mutually exclusive or dependent on your standing. There are lots of really really smart, ambitious, elite students who would do very well at a place like MIT who choose, instead, to go to an MSU or similar for a variety of reasons (cost, desire for the social atmosphere, proximity to home, etc.) Sure, MSU has more of a mix of students, but if you want to have those deep conversations and build bridges at 3 am or whatever it is nerdy engineering kids do, you can do that at MSU too. (Of course, the quality and percentage of potential friends who are interested in that will be very different at MSU than at MIT.) Similarly, I’m sure there is a decent contingent of partiers at MIT (although, again…quality and percentage of parties/partiers will be different).