MIT's geeky reputation is probably why many would-be 'tuters apply here in the first place. Students cannot fail to realize how far out of step their acquired thinking on such matters is when they return home for breaks and vacations. Perhaps there are some few exceptions, but for the most part nobody off campus understands anything about the playful geek culture we all so willingly embrace. Particularly skeptical students might even begin to scratch their heads slightly at the idea that anybody not of MIT could understand Dilbert, an icon that seems so representative of geeks in general. Geeks are definitely out of the mainstream as far as popular culture goes, although varying degrees of geekiness are, at varying times, quite fashionable indeed.
Technophobes are at the mercy of geeks, and they know it.
So we now have an interesting sort of equilibrium whereby Joe Blow simultaneously reviles and fears, is baffled by and depends upon, Ben Bitdiddle and Alyssa P. Hacker. We do not yet have a situation where MIT is held up as a model of higher education by parents' associations who collectively urge their slacker kids to apply. Sure, MIT ranks third in the U.S. News and World Report survey of colleges and universities, for whatever that useless piece of propaganda is worth. It's still not in the same league as its academic peers in terms of outside perception. A geek, in other words.