Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT is a Cambridge, Massachusetts powerhouse for science and engineering, built around the motto 'mind and hand': learn the theory, then build something. Undergrads can join research labs in their first year through UROP, and the campus is famous for creative pranks called hacks, like the time a police car appeared on the Great Dome. All first-year students take a shared set of core science and math classes, and first-semester grades are pass/no record to ease the transition.