A love letter to MIT
A lot of this rings true to my memory of grad student days at MIT.  For example, MIT libraries were open, but I wasn't even allowed to browse the stacks in some of Harvard's libraries-- let alone to check out a book.<p>In my memory, one of the things MIT did very well was avoiding barriers between academic departments.  They had lots of research groups comprising professors and students from multiple fields, and there were no limits on what classes you could take based on what department you were in.  (When I moved to Berkeley a few years later, I was surprised to discover I couldn't take a class in the journalism school unless I was enrolled as a journalism student.)<p>On the other hand, MIT did somewhat cultivate an exclusive attitude among its students-- particularly the undergrads.  During my time there, I felt there was a pervasive strain of "We're the best in the world..." getting shaded into "...therefore nobody else is any good."  I imagine if I had gone there after attending Harvard, I wouldn't have noticed so much, but as a midwesterner whose prior academic experience was at University of Cincinnati, it did seem to me that MIT spent a lot of time stroking the egos of its community.