Advice for Prospective College Students in the 2020s

This post began as a response to a query on Quora by a young student in India who was unhappy that his parents wanted him to go to one of the premiere Indian institutions like the I.I.T.'s instead of trying to come to the US toppers like U. Chicago.

I think the advice is still relevant to students today, including those in the US experiencing repression from the regime here.

The Query

The question was worded like this:

This resonated with me because I remembered what it was strategizing for grad school without much support or inside information, thinking that whether I agreed with the criteria or not, I must try to excel in the areas that counted most if I wanted to gain admission.

In my day, we rarely talked about the way the cost of college had skyrocketed well beyond the amount of money it would be possible to make when working summers to self-finance school. It led to devastating consequences for students who depended on parents that decided they didn't support their children's education path for whatever reason, but it was this dark side of higher ed hidden out of most people's view while I grappled with it.

My Response

In this answer I assume you’re talking about undergraduate admissions. I hope the following perspective is helpful to you or somebody else reading.

I’m a PhD candidate in Chemistry. If you look at my writing record, you’ll note that I don’t always take the side of parents. In your case, however, I think your parents may potentially be genuinely looking out for your best interests.

First of all, the cost of college in the US has increased exponentially over the last few decades, and the availability of financial aid has faltered. As a result, only 5% of private colleges in the US are financially accessible to the people in the bottom income bracket. By "accessible", the researchers there mean that if your family saved money for the last 10 years AND you can work 10 hours/week (the max amount that’s reasonable to expect of many busy undergrads), you can graduate without a horrendous prison sentence of debt.

The finding that most universities are not actually accessible to the people at the bottom certainly matched my experience:

I grew up in the US, went into college with no money, and couldn’t attend the state schools in my home state (which are subsidized), so I went somewhere that gave me their top scholarship, and still I starved and lived on the edge of homelessness for 2 years. I got smart and applied to the places that give out the most financial aid in general. I was offered admission in several places again, but only one college offered me enough financial aid to make it mathematically possible for me to finish my degree without starving.

So I went to the one place I could graduate from, and fortunately it was a good place for my interest in scientific research. But there was a price: I still graduated with $20k of debt (majority from College #1), which (alarmingly) is a pretty average amount for borrowers in my time, and my chronic health issues had worsened during my years of extreme poverty.

I only got through college because I had a very small amount of money available from my grandparents, amounting to a small fraction of the typical university tuition here. That money went a lot further once I transferred somewhere with more financial aid, so I wasn't going hungry any more. What kills me is that in hindsight my family could have paid the entire cost for me to attend IIT Bombay as a foreign national. But in the US, where college expenses are literally an order of magnitude higher, I was restricted to the very few colleges that cancel most of those expenses with grants and loans for students from poor families.

Of the colleges you mentioned, MIT is the most likely to be in that aforementioned financially-accessible 5%. We are on one of the famous top-affordable-college lists. We have a lot of pockets of money financially disadvantaged undergrads can take advantage of to meet various financial needs. Yet I have still seen undergrads fall through the cracks and, for example, have to choose between medication and groceries. And we still have a well-documented food insecurity problem in the US, which has manifested horrifically for students.

(TW: suicide) Beyond that, I think MIT is a better place to come for grad school than undergrad. Our undergrad programs are notoriously bad for your health, especially mental health. We have such an abnormally high suicide rate that teaching assistants (most of whom are grad students!) have to take special precautions like not releasing students’ exam grades online until the students’ exams have been collected in person. There are too many suicides among grad students too, but I think it hits undergrads harder, and when you're getting your PhD so much of your experience depends on your department and research group rather than your university. In undergrad your university determines your experience. There have been multiple undergrad suicides in my few years here. Each time I wish we stopped operating, just for a moment, to consider whether what we’re doing is really worth the cost of young people’s lives.

Academically, undergrad curriculum is in desperate need of some updates that are only now in process. The problem with institutions that have a lot of clout in the US right now is that they are afraid to make updates to meet the changing demands of the times, for fear of doing something that loses them their seats at the top of the US News and Shanghai Global rankings. Their thinking is all about brand image and control, and it's destroying the academic culture of the country. In the long run it's a failure model.

India's IIT and IISc programs are well-respected internationally. The scholars who come here from India and Pakistan for grad school are some of the best scientists I have had the privilege of knowing. You can follow your parents’ advice, save yourself vast amounts of money, effort and risk, and still have a very successful career. You can still travel and work and study abroad in other ways that aren't so financially exploitative.

With all that said, you would be welcome at MIT at any stage in your career, and please consider the amazing benefits of attending MIT for your graduate studies. My grad school journey was extraordinarily challenging, but I had the experiences I needed to develop into the quality of scientist I want to be. I still think I made the right choice. Grad students at MIT face oppressive behavior from administrators too, but grad students have more paths to use their collective power to force those in power to make amends.

At time of writing, MIT grad students were in the middle of a unionization drive, which ultimately resulted in NLRB recognition and a contract; such contracts can greatly benefit international students. In my opinion, making international connections is potentially more beneficial in grad school, when you already have a strong sense of what direction you’re taking your career. Further, MIT’s grad student body is 41% international (compared to only 10-11% of undergrads!), so you may have more of an international student community by coming here for grad school, and find people who share your experiences. There's a strong sense of camaraderie among grad students. That peer support makes all the difference when your work gets tough, or you face life difficulties.

Finally, earning a graduate degree in the US still makes you eligible for OPT (or STEM-OPT) work authorization when you graduate. In practice, I see folks use that program to either (1) work in the US for a few more years gaining skills and then go back to India or somewhere else, or (2) maintain visa status while working and applying for something more long-term like an H-1B visa. Thus, you can still get the opportunity to work internationally by doing your graduate studies internationally.

In conclusion, I think you should actually strongly consider taking your parents' advice and going to an IIT or IISc for your bachelor’s degree, and after that apply to MIT or the schools of your dreams for your MS/PhD. I wish you the best of luck in your studies and career!

P.S.: Get some extra-curricular activities. Not for the sake of undergrad admissions (I’m unsure how much they actually consider this), but for the sake of your overall health as a human being. The hours you “lose” to doing extra-curricular activities will be more than compensated by the creativity, resourcefulness, and self-awareness you gain, and the resulting increased quality of your work.