What can we tell you that will help you make your decision?

thebaker
Thu, 13 May 2010 22:31:58 +0000

Hi guys! I don’t know if anyone can help? I read a couple pages in the beginning, so sorry if there are repeats to questions. This thread is about a week old, but here goes:

When I received my Waitlist Letter on Pi Day, I was fairly disappointed. I submitted my postcard, didn’t expect to get off, and committed happily to Dartmouth. HOWEVER, i received an email today along the lines of “Welcome to the MIT Class of 2014” - and now, I don’t really know what to do. Don’t get me wrong - it’s not like I don’t want to go to MIT, because a part of me really does. But a part of me also has concerns, pretty deep ones.

I’ve never visited campus (probably bad choice on my part) - do I still have time to do this, and perhaps shadow a student, or is this too late? I’m a big believer in the “vibes” a campus gives off.

I really liked how the people at Dartmouth did not openly flaunt their achievements - are people at MIT generally humble or are they somewhat arrogant?

Also, Dartmouth’s undergrad focus is a huge draw, and I’ve heard some negative things about MIT’s class sizes and freshman experience - for example, some profs that are brilliant but are not very good teachers and are more focused on their own research. Do you have any negative experiences with this? Anything to contradict this?

One thing that drew me to MIT was the academics, its reputation, and research opportunities - do you think the tradeoff between all the negatives are worth it? (p.s. I want to major in econ, not really any interest in engineering, unsure about finance. I want to head a non-profit org someday, but not completely sure)

Also, I’m a very social person - and this will sound really bad - but are there normal people at MIT? Again, I know this is a huge stereotype that is probably false, so this is probably just an irrational fear :P

Sorry, for the lengthy post, I just never expected to get in so now i have all these questions! Thank you so much - also feel free to add anything else, what you loved best about MIT?