Ask HN: Getting into masters at Stanford/MIT

One of the things that I really want to do is to go to a university of the likes of Stanford and MIT. I don't want to go to them to say I have been there, but to see what the atmosphere is like. I am bad at explaining, but PG has a kind of relevant essay[1]. My problem is that I have already done my bachelors (in EE, finished last year). It was done in a not very highly ranked uni in Australia and my GPA wasn't amazing - its about equivalent to 3.5/4.

I know HN is full of people who have been to these universities so I thought I would ask here for advice. My current plan is to try out some ambitious side project with high altitude UAVs (which I wanted to do regardless) and somehow use that in my application. But really I have no idea.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html