Even more brutal honesty: MIT has core requirements that are about the toughest in the nation except for CalTech's. One term of calculus beyond the AP BC sequence, calculus based classical mechanics and E&M, one term each of chemistry and biology. No matter what degree you get, you have to get at least C grades based on mastery, not a curve.

And reading between the lines, it sounds like MIT has another "lost class" or two. A few years after I was admitted to MIT, the Director of Admissions retired and was replaced by a professional in the field. And being a professional he followed the faculty's official findings on how to select applicants and all of a sudden MIT was getting calls from schools asking why their best students were no longer getting accepted while the next tier suddenly were. And rather quickly the physics faculty led a revolt because way too many of their students were having too much difficulty with the above above minimum core requirements.

I got to casually know one of these students, she was very nice and of course smart, but boy did she struggle with the required math based core curricula of her major unlike her female peers from my years and thereabouts.