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Imperial or MIT?

MIT. It is a fantastic university in a university city, has great prestige and teaching and has (some) of the most brilliant people on the scientific side of things at it. For subjects like engineering, it is even better than Harvard and Oxbridge. Go for it.

Reply 21

eulerwaswrong

13

mit is better - no doubt - but the question is how much better.

is it worth spending all that money - for a only very slightly better degree?

that is the question

Reply 22

Master Polhem

15

Donald Duck

MIT. It is a fantastic university in a university city, has great prestige and teaching and has (some) of the most brilliant people on the scientific side of things at it. For subjects like engineering, it is even better than Harvard and Oxbridge. Go for it.

The fact that you mentioned Harvard and Oxbridge (and not only Cambridge) shows how little you know about engineering institutions. The fact that you study engineering at Cambridge should make alarm bells ring with reference to your post.

Reply 23

feroz

When I was making my choice on what country to apply to, I didn't apply to America because I felt the UK would suit me better...differs from person to person and maybe I sound a bit snobbish but that's the way it is.

Reply 24

Donald Duck

15

Master Polhem

The fact that you mentioned Harvard and Oxbridge (and not only Cambridge) shows how little you know about engineering institutions. The fact that you study engineering at Cambridge should make alarm bells ring with reference to your post.

lol, just for yoru info:

I'm applying for engineering and got an offer for Oxford, so of course I'm not gonna say Cambridge is better :wink:

Harvard is seen as the best university in general in the world, it might not be the absolute top for engineering specifically, but MIT already is, so that should from from there...

Reply 25

Unknown User

MIT has an excellent reputation, However if you want to do physics, I say go for Imperial, as there are very few universities in the world which can even equal imperial in this subject. If you're think about switching to engineering or something got to MIT.
Also from a purely league table perspective Imperial comes in at 5th and MIT comes in 11th overall (the new ones)...but this shouldn't affect you decision.
If youve been to both universities, I say just go for whichever you liked more because i'd say theyre about equal, Imperial would be the MIT of the UK and vice versa

Reply 26

Chemical_Scum

14

Donald Duck

lol, just for yoru info:

I'm applying for engineering and got an offer for Oxford, so of course I'm not gonna say Cambridge is better :wink:

Harvard is seen as the best university in general in the world, it might not be the absolute top for engineering specifically, but MIT already is, so that should from from there...

Harvard is the hardest western uni to get into but did you know that Shang jio or whatever its called is like a few orders of magnitude harder to get into than Harvard!then theres IIT also alot harder (indian institute of technology) statistically speaking offcourse. that doesnt mean **** though as we have seen MIT,Berkely,Yale,Stanford,Columbia,Penn state and plenty of others consistently throwing out world class academics and research. Harvard is btw nowhere near top for engineering. it basically offers the same course as oxford and cambridge and the top engineering spot is furiouslly fought for by MIT and Caltech so MIT is not the absolute king of engineering but is usually the one that comes out on top. very similiar to the competitiveness of oxbridge. Stanford and berkely are the next two with columbia and duke a bit behind. the difference in the US is that they dont think "the best go to Harvard and then all the left overs go to the other goodish schools". in the US they have stereotypes regarding the various major unis such as you go to MIT if engineering is your life an nothing else and your a tad sucicidal (terrible reputation for that at MIT hence suicide prevention mondays lol!) wheras youd hit caltech if you where more into the caifornian, outgoing lifestyle. Princeton and Harvard for the maths nutters but Berkely for the hardcore chemists and again the more outgoing sciientists (still as hardcore but appreciate an active social life). yale or brown=rich kid lol. though its very stereotypical and probably vey inaccurate im sure theres some truth in the stereotypes even if they are self fulfilling. i also far prefer that look on unis to the UK and European one but 800 year old habbits die hard eh. we are very lucky that there are so many fine institutions to choose from.

Reply 27

Donald Duck

15

solo2wolf

Harvard is the hardest western uni to get into but did you know that Shang jio or whatever its called is like a few orders of magnitude harder to get into than Harvard!then theres IIT also alot harder (indian institute of technology) statistically speaking offcourse. that doesnt mean **** though as we have seen MIT,Berkely,Yale,Stanford,Columbia,Penn state and plenty of others consistently throwing out world class academics and research. Harvard is btw nowhere near top for engineering. it basically offers the same course as oxford and cambridge and the top engineering spot is furiouslly fought for by MIT and Caltech so MIT is not the absolute king of engineering but is usually the one that comes out on top. very similiar to the competitiveness of oxbridge. Stanford and berkely are the next two with columbia and duke a bit behind. the difference in the US is that they dont think "the best go to Harvard and then all the left overs go to the other goodish schools". in the US they have stereotypes regarding the various major unis such as you go to MIT if engineering is your life an nothing else and your a tad sucicidal (terrible reputation for that at MIT hence suicide prevention mondays lol!) wheras youd hit caltech if you where more into the caifornian, outgoing lifestyle. Princeton and Harvard for the maths nutters but Berkely for the hardcore chemists and again the more outgoing sciientists (still as hardcore but appreciate an active social life). yale or brown=rich kid lol. though its very stereotypical and probably vey inaccurate im sure theres some truth in the stereotypes even if they are self fulfilling. i also far prefer that look on unis to the UK and European one but 800 year old habbits die hard eh. we are very lucky that there are so many fine institutions to choose from.

True, but I'm not so certain about those eastern unis. You said it was several magnetudes harder, but how do you measure that, by the amount of applications they accept out of the total amount of applications?

Because Oxford lets in about 25% of its applications, but there are quite a few nearer to 10% and they are not easier to get in to.

Reply 28

Chemical_Scum

14

Donald Duck

True, but I'm not so certain about those eastern unis. You said it was several magnetudes harder, but how do you measure that, by the amount of applications they accept out of the total amount of applications?

Because Oxford lets in about 25% of its applications, but there are quite a few nearer to 10% and they are not easier to get in to.

i did say satisticaly speaking. quantifying genuine intellience is an absurdly difficult task and the only stats we have to attempt such a feat are exam grades. shang jio is THE BEST uni in china. all the top chineese apply there and so have the highest grades but unfortunately for China there are A LOT of people and thus applicants to shang jio (and other unis). my Chineese friend said he only applied to western unis (applied to cambridge, Imperial, Caltech,Berkely,Duke and MIT) because he couldnt get into shang jio. that doesnt make it better!im not claiming that at all! i have learnt a huge amount about china from these friends and i cannot see how science can be force fed. science is an art of sorts at the research level. you must love it to be able to think about it 50%+ of your conscious life lol. creativity is squanderred by learning the way the chineese are usually taught. but yes like i say it isnt a better place to go but it is most definately technically harder. they dont interview like 90% of applicants so youre looking at 95%+ in EVERYTHING just to get the interview. its a huge deal in china if you get in though, you become a sort of celebrity in your province and i have been told people can give you cars and **** just for making the province look good lol.

Reply 29

Master Polhem

15

Donald Duck

lol, just for yoru info:

I'm applying for engineering and got an offer for Oxford, so of course I'm not gonna say Cambridge is better :wink:

Harvard is seen as the best university in general in the world, it might not be the absolute top for engineering specifically, but MIT already is, so that should from from there...

My apologies, I remember reading that you had got an offer from Cambridge.

Just because Harvard is the best in the world, as perceived by the general public, does not mean that it is best or even good for engineering. They have a massive budget but their strength is in the social sciences and not in engineering. They are expanding their engineering department like crazy as we speak, but it will be at leat 20 years before they will be anywhere near as established as the engineering departments of MIT, Cambridge or Imperial.

Reply 30

Gimperial

11

**** this ****.

Imperial is the best in the world, number 1. Thats right, you heard me right. Prove me otherwise bitches.

Imp > Harvard > MIT > Cam > Ox > Caltech > *

Suck it

Reply 31

casparma

riwki

Hey there,

I'm trying to choose between these two places - what do you think?

I don't mind living in America or England.

My interest is physics, and maybe physical chemistry.

R

Hey, congrats on being accepted by MIT!!!

If all else being equal (financially), I would say, go to MIT. To be honest, MIT is NOT behind Imperial for its engineering or physics. There are many Nobel prize winners professors at MIT, and it will be phenomenal to study and do research in physics with these professors. Secondly, if you are interested in humanities (political sciences, and economics etc), you can cross register courses at Harvard, which is great too.

As far as cost is concerned, well, MIT is one of the few top schools in US offering financial aids to international students in the same way as they do to their American students. As long as you can make it in, they will make sure that you are not held back because of financial situation. I have a friend here who went to MIT and he only paid like 10000 USD max including living expense because of MIT's generous finaids.

Obviously, it's pretty tough getting into MIT as an international student. Of course, the choice is yours, but make sure you ask some of the places around which you consider you would like to work for about these two schools, Imperial and MIT. I don't know about Europe but in Asia, MIT is very well known in the academia, and businesses there as well (maybe due to their famous MBA program), because I think many businesses have big connections with MIT. Just an interesting fact, if the current companies and firms around the world owned by MIT grads or faculties are totaled together as a nation, it's considered the 25th most powerful economy in the world. This info comes from 1997 btw.

Personally, I also get offers from Imperial, but like you, I am an international so it's very expensive for me to study at Imperial. If Imperial is much cheaper for you, then just go to Imperial, then go on to some good US grad schools later if you want to study/research further. A handful of people from Imperial do their postdoc researches (maths + physics + medicine), at schools like Harvard, and Princeton (according to Imperial's website), so I think, like MIT, Imperial is also a great place for undergrad education, even more so, if it ends up being cheaper than MIT.

I don't know if it's true, but I heard that native British people pay 10 times less than internationals do at Imperial, right?

Reply 32

Teddy Pain

MIT wins hands down, but Imperial is still worldclass.

Reply 33

Master Polhem

15

casparma

I don't know if it's true, but I heard that native British people pay 10 times less than internationals do at Imperial, right?

Engineering fees at Imperial are ~ £20,000 whilst we pay £3000. So that is in fact 6.67 times more than home students, but I am sure you know why the system works like this and I will not give you a description of it here.

Reply 34

casparma

Master Polhem

Engineering fees at Imperial are ~ £20,000 whilst we pay £3000. So that is in fact 6.67 times more than home students, but I am sure you know why the system works like this and I will not give you a description of it here.