<p>I think each person experiences each university differently. I was an undergrad and grad student at MIT, grad student at Harvard, lecturer at CalTech, and have spent time at Stanford and worked with people from there. I can’t do an “apples to apples” comparison, but my observation is that Caltech has a unique undergrad culture due to its very small size, and the fact that undergrads are such a minority. I think it is the most intense of the four places (I don’t think I would have fit in very well there as an undergrad); however, it’s like MIT in that everyone (almost) is a STEM major. MIT used to call itself a “university polarized around science.” Of course the joke was that it was “paralyzed around science.” It shares that characteristic with CalTech - S&T permeate everything. Harvard and Stanford are very different; they are much broader and the “we’re all in the same boat mentality” is not there in quite the same way. I have heard it said that at Harvard College if you’re not a jock, a wonk, or a preppy, you are a nobody. I don’t know whether that is really true, but it seems possible. Socially, MIT is a really egalitarian place. It also has a dynamic atmosphere I’ve never experienced any place else. It’s sort of like NYC - it never stops. I remember being in labs at 3 or 4 a.m. and running into lots of people in the halls. Stanford always seemed more “laid back” to me. On of my friends who went there for grad school from MIT moved back to MIT because he disliked the relative lack of intensity. IMHO, MIT and Harvard have Caltech and Stanford beat locationally. California is warm and sunny relative to Boston, but Pasadena and Palo Alto can’t compare with the richness of the Boston urban landscape, and it’s much easier to get around Boston than around either of the other two places. Like every other tech tool since the beginning of time, I suffered my waterboarding at the fire hose, but I had a good time, made lifelong friends, and received a truly excellent problem solving education that has worked well in post-grad life. As usual, all generalizations are false, and YMMV.</p>