<p>I am really sorry for starting such a thread but I am a little confused at the moment.</p>
<p>I have currently been accepted to a few universities and have shortlisted Purdue, UIUC and USC as my top options as Duke and Rice will surely reject me (no doubt about that) and I have to decide on which university to select. I am interested in majoring in Aerospace Engineering.</p>
<p>Purdue is currently ranked 4th in Aerospace Engineering and is highly regarded and recognized for this particular field. Overall it has a very good engineering program. But the downside is that it accepts 85% of its applicants.</p>
<p>USC is currently ranked 19th in Aerospace Engineering but its overall engineering is ranked 8th (just 2 ranks or so behind Purdue and 4 behind UIUC...if i am right). Overall it is better than both of them and is ranked in the top 30's in USNews Rankings. Plus it is situated in California which will suit the type of weather I am used to. But the downside is the high fees. Even though I would be able to pay for about 3 years in USC I might have to take a loan in the 4th year.</p>
<p>UIUC too is highly ranked in the Engineering department and currently shares 4th place with Purdue in the Aerospace Engineering rankings. It is more selective than Purdue but less selective than USC. But again, it has a higher fee structure than Purdue and lower than USC.</p>
<p>In addition to the Aerospace Engineering I intend to double major in Mechanical Engineering due to the overlap of many courses in the first 2-3 years.</p>
<p>And because I am unable to visit any of the universities to find out which I would feel more comfortable in I would like to know your views on which one of these 3 universities I should select as my university.</p>
<p>You should purge yourself of the hang-up on selectivity. Any one of the three are fine except that I do not know whether you can double major in aero and mech -- double majors are difficult to complete in four years and engineering schools will often not allow double majors that have significant overlap such as aero and mech engineering or computer and electrical engineering. You would need to check with each college for its rules on that.</p>
<p>USC will have the warmest weather year round. It is also in a big city area. You will freeeze your ____s off at UIUC or Purdue in the winter and both are in small, midwestern, conservative cities and outside of those small cities are nothing but farms and trees for many miles. USC will likely provide a more diverse group of students geograhically, e.g., it gets a significant contingent of students from around the nation and internationally. Most at Pudue will be from Indiana, and most at UIUC from Illinois (particularly the Chicago area). Any knowledge of Dubai and the UAE will be less among majority of students at UIUC and Purdue than USC, e.g., not many will know that the UAE is a "friend" of the US or, for that matter, even where the UAE is on a map. Nevertheless, and being from the Midwest, I personally favor UIUC and then Purdue. Purdue is more generous than the others with merit aid for out-of-state and internationals. As with most engineering colleges, all three have ABET (Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology) accreditation and as a result, they have similar course requirements in math, science, and engineering for any engineering major and the subject matters covered in those courses will also be the same. </p>
<p>Getting back to your "selectivity" concerns, you should be aware that a public college like Purdue is going to admit a larger percentage of students mainly because, as a public university, one of its stated goals is to provide to the extent it can a college education for Indiana residents. UIUC attempts to be more selective but it continuously has to deal with legislators, who provide funding, who complain that UIUC is being too selective and should take more state residents. Private colleges like USC do not have those state governmental issues and have the option to be as selective as they choose. Also, be aware that, as to engineering, UIUC's middle 50% ranges (class rank and test scores) is usually higher than both the others and that USC actually accepts a higher percentage of engineering applicants than its overall acceptance rate (this occurs at many universities because the number who apply for engineering are a much smaller group than who apply for arts and sciecnes and those who apply are usually self-selective, meaning they mostly are within or above the middle 50% ranges for the engineering college). Finally, there really is no huge difference between being no. 4 and 19.</p>