I wrote this last fall. I think it needs to be reposted. It's happening again! And after the supreme court ruling, it's even more true.
man, this gets on my nerves more than most things. Every day I see another half a dozen college threads and they're always about Comp Sci, EE, or some variation thereof (EECS, Comp Eng, etc).
Furthermore, in every thread there is the obligatory "we'll I'm going to apply to Caltech/MIT/Berekeley and if I don't get into any of those three than I'm going to wither up in a corner and die because I never will be anything, because only people coming from those three schools will ever amount to anything in life."
I'd like to dispel a few myths that all you high school senior-bound-MIT hopefuls need to realize. First of all, unless you have straight 1600s, outstanding extracurriculars especially including science fairs (international is the only thing that really matters) and a 4.0+ (4.5+ if your school gives you 5.0 for APs) you won't be getting into any of these private schools, period. That is, unless you are a minority (hispanic or black, don't be calling me racist because most universities outside the 5th circuit's juristdiction do practice some sort of affirmative action, even if it isn't a quota). Every single person in the top 10% of most nationwide high schools wants to get in. Last time I checked, MIT received about 7,000 applications, all of which are from briliant people, and less than a thousand were actually accepted. I would assume CalTech is the same way.
And then there is Berkeley. Most years, Berekeley is ever harder to get into than Caltech and MIT if you don't live in California, because somehing like 90% of the admission spots are reserved for in-state applicants. When I was a senior in high school, we had, in our class of 800, 3 admitted to MIT, 2 admitted to Harvard, and none andmitted to Berekely. Two of the three admitted to MIT were our salutorian and valedictorian, respectively, both of which had nothing but A+s for every course in high school, including Physics C, Calc BC, AP everything, etc., as well as international science fair achievements.
You people need to realize that in all liklihood, you will not get accepted to these schools. And if you do, Tuition, room, and board will run almost $40,000 a year and you will be severely burdened by financial reasons long before you ever graduate. And with Berekeley, I honestly don't think many uber-dorks can even begin to conceive about what Berekely is all about. It's NOT about science and engineering reseach as much as it is being one of the single most liberal havens in the entire country. If you get freaked out about pot and believe that "all drugs are bad, people that use drugs should die and be thrown in a dumpster" then how can you ever begin to make it at Berkeley?
Finally, life after college seems as dependant on your ability to interact with people as much as it is dependant on your intelligence. If you go to a school and stay locked in your dorm for three years, seeing the outside world only for class....you will NEVER be as well-off as someone that can work with people. If you want to graduate and stay locked in a lab all day, that will be fine....but at some point you'll have to deal with people, some which aren't as smart as you, and it seems like most prestigious graduates are so tied up into their own ego that they'll never end up in positions where working with people and teams is their first job priority.
With that last paragraph in mind, a collorary also develops. You can go to a *decent* or even *good* university and still do better than those coming from the most prestigious ones if you can understand people and situations to your liking. I'm not saying every EE program is identical, but for the most part, EE programs give you background and SHOW that you can learn, so when you get to a job where you work on something you didn't study in college, your employer has faith that you can do the job, not that you already know every mundane detail about it.
Thank you for your time.
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