
Ask HN: College Decisions MIT, PSU, Stanford - Unsureee
Finishing up junior year in high school, I am in a position where I need to choose which college I would like to pursue for engineering. I am fascinated by Aerospace Engineering but my AP physics 1 teacher has me thinking about majoring in physics. He is a very savvy teacher and he has  opened my eyes to the path of physics. I am currently in the position of most likely being accepted into MIT, Penn State, and Stanford. I have a 4.5 GPA thus far throughout high school and scored 1540 in SAT (800 math, 740 Reading) and a 34 ACT (36 math, 32 English). I am fully confident that I will be accepted  into those schools yet I am clueless on where to go. The outlier of the 3, Penn State is where I have deep family alumni connections where I am being nudged towards that College. The campus is beautiful but I do not know If I will get the &quot;greatest&quot; education there. MIT is hands down the greatest engineering school in the world and when i visited it was also amazing. Stanford however is located in California with another great engineering program.
I have no idea where I should go to ensure a great future for myself. All help is greatly appreciated.
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davidxc
Make sure you apply to more schools than the three you listed (MIT, Penn
State, Stanford). Based on the information you provided in your post, you're
definitely not guaranteed to be accepted to MIT or Stanford (there's a very
significant chance that you'll be rejected). MIT and Stanford both reject many
applicants with profiles similar to yours (or better than yours) each year.

I'm partly speaking from personal experience. I had similar stats to you (4.8
GPA weighted, 3.9+ GPA unweighted) in high school and a 2330 SAT (780 math /
780 reading / 770 writing). I also had very high standardized test scores in
other areas and numerous extracurriculars / state and national level awards.

I ended up getting rejected from both Stanford and Princeton (though I did get
into Yale). Basically, the top colleges are a crapshoot even with stellar
stats, and you should really apply to 7-10 colleges with some backups mixed
in.

As far as where to go, I'd just give the general advice of making sure you
don't take on a significant amount of debt. If you're middle class, MIT,
Stanford, and the Ivies should give a lot of financial assistance. It's
debatable whether prestigious colleges actually provide better education than
good state colleges, but the prestige associated with a top school will help
you a lot in the future (like it or not, most of the world is not anywhere
close to an approximate meritocracy, which means that prestige will play a
significant role in the opportunities open to you after college).

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siegel
A) Apply to more than 3 schools. You sound like you have great credentials,
but these things are unpredictable. B) Why only these 3 anyway? You want a
great engineering school? What about Caltech? Harvey Mudd? I can name others.
C) Not to be a snob, but MIT and Stanford will open up doors that Penn State
will not. I can imagine someone choosing Penn State over the other two. D)
Other than academics, what do you want from your school experience? -Do you
want to be close to home? Far away? In between? -Do you want a very large
school? A small school? Something in between? -Do you want to be in a city?
Rural area? Suburbs? -What other interests do you have and can you pursue them
at the schools you are considering?

Your credentials give you an abundance of choice. Take advantage of that by
looking at all the options available and thinking about all the things you
want.

~~~
Unsureee
The truth is I honestly do not know where to start. I am from outside philly
and I truthfully cannot determine if I want to stay close or not. Those 3
schools I only mentioned because they were the first 3 I visited.

~~~
siegel
Well, if you can't decide, I would venture to say that you might want to stay
within driving distance. Stanford is great, but you will not be able to visit
home (or be visited by people from home) all that often. But you have great
options within a, say, 6 hour driving radius.

What about socially? Are you looking forward to parties, joining a fraternity,
anything like that? Sports? A school with a big sports culture (like Penn
State)? Or is that not at all what you want?

In what type of environment do you think you would thrive? A large place with
infinite options (academically, activities, people)? Or a smaller, more close-
knit environment?

Those are good places to start thinking.

And, please, go visit more schools. You will start to see things that seem
more comfortable or attractive to you.

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oldmancoyote
Consider if you are over thinking / over planning this. Much of life is a crap
shoot. I'm sure you will do well wherever you go and be glad that you made
that choice. I remember one very successful professor who admitted he got his
degree at Stanford because he liked the weather. Loosen up a little. The
benefits/costs of any choice are down in the noise. You can't make meaningful
decisions with this precision.

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wmoser
I'm going to preface this by saying I don't know much about aeronautics
engineering but I am familiar with another niche engineering industry, Naval
Architecture and Marine Engineering. Another avenue to consider is to find out
what the professional society(s) are for the type of engineering that you're
interested in. Look on there website for biographies of leaders for the
society, example president, committee chairs, etc. You will likely find a few
universities that are more representative than the others. That's a good sign
people are actually working in the field. Another good place to just get an
idea is the US News and World report site. I know filling out all the
applications is a pain, but in the long run it's worth it just to see what you
get offered and perhaps there will be another school that seems to be a better
fit.

A few other good local/ interesting engineering schools you might want to
check out: Lehigh University, they were doing some jet engine research there
when I was looking at schools. I think Pratt of Pratt and Whitney fame may
have been an alumni.

If you're interested in foreign language and globalism, university of Rhode
Island has an international engineering program where you double major in a
language and an engineering discipline. They also had an international
internship component.

Again I don't know if it's a good program but Embry Riddle is always the first
school that pops into my head when someone mentions aerospace/aeronautics
engineering.

I know good engineers from Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech too.

Good luck, it's really a tough decision to pick a college but really it's a
pretty personal one. I think like most things in life there are more than one
right way to do things but definitely wrong ways. You seem to at least be on
the right track.

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itamarst
MIT is amazing, yes. But...

1\. Hiring is for academic credentials and research, _not_ teaching.
Professors will sometimes have no interest or skill in teaching.

2\. You get worked insanely hard, not in a good way. Different people deal
with this better or worse, but I suspect it's a problem for many.

Don't know as much about PSU but... does it have a teaching focus? You might
have better learning experience if it does.

Also, if you need student loans you might be _much_ happier in 5 years if you
took out smaller loans.

