<p>^^ Truth. </p>
<p>There’s more than just quality of lab equipment and nearby companies that differ between them. Certain colleges have better specific engineering programs.</p>
<p>About the nearby companies being a help or benefit after graduating, apparently Purdue is ranked #4 on Wall Street Journals recruiter ranking. Plus, I want to go to California after graduating and work there (thats the plan atleast =D)</p>
<p>@imscared6</p>
<p>Yeah the UC schools there are pretty easy to get into. You’ll need:</p>
<p>1800+ Sat I score
3.3+ G.P.A
A love of learning
A chill personality</p>
<p>1800 SAT - Check
3.3 + GPA - Check (But by not much, also, are you sure, from what I saw it was around 3.8)
Love of learning - Check (I love learning, not really school…and yes there is a difference)
Chill Personality - Check</p>
<p>Certain UCs(Berkeley) are harder to get into than others. </p>
<p>Rankings on WSJ and rankings in general I find to be overrated.</p>
<p>^He is talking about a ranking done by companies on what college they recruit at.</p>
<p>I’m just really stuck on the mom who was “disgusted” by the homeless who hang around Berkeley.</p>
<p>Berkeley isn’t a private college and people are often shocked what a difference it makes compared to say, Stanford.</p>
<p>I am also interested in engineering for college. I am a freshman with 3.9 GPA so far. I am going to do some volunteer work in school this year. One thing my school doesn’t have a lot of is AP classes. All they offer is AP calc and AP Us history. I will do the Ap calc next year or in Junior. I will do Precalculus in summer break for credit. I see lots of you do so many AP classes. Do you take these for college credit or do you take them to impress colleges in applications? Do I need to take lots of AP classes to get into a decent school such as RPI, Purdue or Illinois? Thanks.</p>
<p>AP’s simply remove grad requirements and allow you to pursue double majors and stuff. Your schedule certainly is fine as is and colleges base number of AP’s taken by the amount offered to you at your school.</p>
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<p>Only for fluff majors it’s that easy. For majors like engineering you’ll need much higher qualifications than that.</p>
<p>Lots of good suggestions by many posters above. Two cents:
- Our family did the reverse…son chose Purdue over UC. He did not get admitted to a UC for engineering because his high school stats were lower. He applied early and was admitted to Purdue in Technology–great experience, fantastic supportive administration. You can actually get a PERSON on the phone there.
- A 3.3 GPA won’t even get an in-state student admitted to a UC these days except to UCR and Merced and I don’t know that they have an engineering major there. Popular campuses like Berk and UCLA get 50,000+ applicants each year. Check out the average GPA for admitted students at Berk as I believe it is over a 4.0 with SAT averages lower (which tells you which is more important).
- Purdue opens doors. Happened to my son after he finished a year there and plunked it on his resume. It netted him a couple jobs because Purdue’s reputation out here seems to impress.
- IMO it is not worth the cost/loans to fund an expensive engineering school when you have a fine, low cost alternative in your home state, unless of course you are offered scholarships.
- The public universities in your region ( Illinois, Ohio, possibly Michigan etc) have an interstate agreement for reduced out of state tuition. You could check that out but there could be some restrictions.
Best of luck.</p>
<p>Why do people go to Ivies and top tiers then? If the pay isn’t different nor the job opportunities, do they do it just for the prestige? Is that really worth the extra hundred thousand dollars?</p>
<p>im scared6, If you are really interested you might want to read The New College Reality by Bonnie Snyder. Maybe you can check it out at your public library.</p>
<p>It supports the idea that you consider career first, then major, then college. She analyzes many old “rules” about college and explains how they no longer apply in our economy. It is hard to go against " what everyone says" but this book will really help to plan out your future. Sometime I find easier to figure things out when I have a whole book about it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info 
–Certainly engineering can be done on less expensive universities and that is what I’m going to do, and there are companies that do internships around so I’ll be taking advantage of that while living at home.</p>
<p>I love reasons that go against “prestige” because that has too much opportunity cost to have.</p>