MIT Track distance

Neural networks can and will take on many of the sophisticated jobs humans currently perform, and at a superhuman level. Diagnoses in radiology, operating motor vehicles, solving complex protein folding sequences, etc. Solving open-ended problems in computer science is tedious, exhausting, and more or less a never-ending process with some number of loose ends always in the mix. AI assistance will make engineers more productive and likely cut out the need for the endless hours of internet research and debugging that clog up the process as it currently exists.

If companies begin producing extremely sophisticated language models that allow for the productive and fast automation of the engineering space's current cutting-edge problems, then in a similar fashion to the invention of the wheel, these intelligent tools will allow for the rapid advancement of the kinds of things engineers can do and produce highly evolved solutions to our current and future problems. Which will lead to the automation of many expert jobs in other fields before it leads to computer science becoming obsolete.

- biased person whose day job is machine learning

You must be from my era. As I mentioned in an earlier post, MIT didn't recruit athletes during the '70s. In fact, when a new athletics director was hired from Princeton in (I believe) 1979, he was shocked to learn that MIT didn't recruit athletes and didn't give the athletics department any say in admissions decisions. I was sad to see that change in the '80s, although I'm open to the possibility that recruiting, as currently practiced by MIT, may enhance the overall environment of the school without lowering academic standards, especially since the recruited athletes (at least in distance running) still need outstanding academic records and test scores. I was fortunate to attend MIT when there was no recruiting -- I wouldn't have met anyone's recruiting standards -- and cross-country and track were no-cut teams that anyone could join by just showing up for the first practice. That's what I did. I wasn't good enough to be a top-seven cross-country runner at MIT until my junior year, but I continued to run off and on after college, and eventually became fast enough to run sub-30 at 10k and 2:18 to 2:20 in the marathon.

I admit that MIT runners have generally seemed not to improve much in college, but I don't know whether that has more to do with coaching or the difficult, very time-consuming academic workloads. For me, a big problem was just getting enough sleep; chronic sleep deprivation was widespread. I'm guessing that the changes I mentioned in an earlier post have made life considerably more manageable now, although your time-management skills will be almost certainly challenged, especially if you're in a sport like distance-running.

For comp sci, Carnegie Mellon seems a better choices than any of those you've listed (except MIT).

MIT is really hard to get into even with a perfect transcript... WashU in St Louis seems to have a consistently good cross country program and is a top 50 school.

Honestly, at that level of college it doesn’t really matter. Yes, CMU is better for CS, but Penn’s overall reputation is still very high and their CS program is still very good. CMU has better placement into startups from what I’ve seen, but Penn does slightly better with more “traditional” (think CS-related roles on Wall Street - like trading) jobs. Of course, that’s likely due to different schools’ students having different goals.

If you can get into MIT you go to MIT. Track is just secondary to an education and there are very few institutions in the world where you'll get a better education than MIT.

If I had a guaranteed spot on the track team at a place like NC State (women), NAU, or Oregon but I can go to MIT I would pick MIT every time. Same goes for the sprint schools.

This ^

In fact if you can get into MIT and can't run still go there. It is better to go to MIT and just skip college athletics entirely as opposed to running at at Ivy, Stanford, or anywhere else.

Yeah, the only difficult choice would be not running at any T5. Then it all comes down to personal preference.

You guys are saying that the NC State women made bad decisions to win national championships and get an education for free rather than run D3 and pay $300K? How do you ever overcome that headscarf in life?

Head start not scarf. Auto correct doesn't like head start as one word.

MIT is hard to get in, but you don't need a perfect transcript. From experience: a kid who is not even top 10% in a very academically rigorous school and with an SAT in the 1560-70 range can get in and do very well, whereas kids with perfect GPA from less competitive schools can struggle.

When you say "he's not sure about going cross country," I assume you mean that he's not sure about running xc in college. Caltech is D3 so there is no pressure for your son to run for scholarships, and a large number of people quit the team after freshman year to focus on research/classes/social life. Sure, quitting the team mid-season will likely annoy the coach, but quitting after the season is over is perfectly fine. As for the personal college counselor, the only thing they could help you with is constructing essays that are memorable and also say a lot about your son. Having some close friends who are currently at the elite schools help brainstorm ideas or look at his essays should be more than enough.

Do you know how much top jobs pay out of college nowadays, and do you know how well they progress? Let’s use two examples: Econ major who goes into banking, and math or cs major who goes into trading.

1. Gets a job at Goldman Sachs or a boutique, starts off at about $200k including bonus. Works for 2 years, total salary increases to $300k and then you leave for private equity/ venture capital or stay at your bank and make $500k at 27-28. If you become a higher up (MD or just below) you’ll easily make $3 million per year, or you can make even more in a boutique.

2. Gets a job at Jane Street, starts off at $400k on the low end (not even exaggerating). Performs well and makes $1 million at 25-26.

Top tier companies only recruit from top 20 (preferably top 15 or top 10) colleges if you don’t fulfill “institutional goals”.

The average starting salary of a Harvard grad is $96K. So if there are some at $200K, that means that the vast majority are under $90K.

People going into grad school directly count as $0. If you’re a high performer and go into a “prestigious” (finance, startups, trading, etc) field, you’re making at least $170k

You are right that there is limited academic diversity. I would recommend that Fatherofjunior and his son briefly skim the course catalog and look at the departments available. The computer science major is very flexible, and there are actually humanities and social sciences majors available. There is also a program where Caltech students can take classes at nearby Occidental College and the ArtCenter of College of Design.

As for Caltech being weak in athletics, the new athletic director has really changed things to make being a student-athlete more feasible. And the xc program has been consistently one of the best out of all the Caltech sports programs. Their men placed 9th at DIII West Regionals and their women placed 6th.

there are so many arrogant losers in this thread. There have been several studies that prove your college does not matter. the biggest determining factor in income is high school grades and test scores. A 4.0 and 36 ACT will make the same money whether he goes to Harvard or MIT or UMass Amherst. It is clear you feel superior to everyone else.

The idea that it is noble to sacrifice sports just for the imagined notion of getting a better job is LAUGHABLE. Athletes get jobs at higher rates because they know teamwork, leadership, work ethic, and time management.

The experience of being on a college team is invaluable. Most would argue you learn a lot more about life and build a lot more character on the playing field rather then in a classroom.

You have 4-5 years of opportunity in college to be on a team and test your physical or mental limits. You are going to work for the next 50 years of your life. When you are 90 years old would you rather look back and reflect on how much money you made before you turned 30, or look back at the 4 years of amazing memories of being on a college team, something that less than 99.99% of humans get to do?

No. Average undergrad starting salary is just that. People entering grad school are excluded.

My nephew graduated with a 4.0 from a good P5 school and went for free ro MIT for his masters in CS. He graduated 2 years ago and had many offers and he took the best one starting at $110K on the west coast.