<p>So...anyone have any suggestions of colleges in cool cities that offer civil engineering as a major? Schools like Northwestern, Northeastern, or USC? I'm also looking for schools that aren't JUST engineering schools; I mean schools with a guy/girl ratio closer to 1:1 as opposed to 3:1, and schools that are a little more laid back as far as competition. </p>
<p>Les Stats:
GPA: 4.02
ACT: 32
Rank: 6/460
A few decent ECs...nothing special</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon
University of Minnesota
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin (is Madison enough of a city?)
Rice University
Johns Hopkins
North Carolina State
University of Maryland
University of Pittsburgh</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions…any more?</p>
<p>Case Western Reserve University (possibly not enough women).</p>
<p>USC, UCLA and UCSD. University of Pennsylvania and Cornell.</p>
<p>Yeah, schools like Case Western and Carnegie Mellon fit the stereotype of a tech school too well. Don’t get me wrong, I know engineering is a hard degree, but it would be nice to be able to have a balanced college experience that doesn’t revolve around work. I also don’t want to go to a college with a social scene that revolves around frat parties, which is where the city aspect comes into play.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon is across the street from the University of Pittsburgh and only a couple of blocks from a primarily female college (Carlow). It should offer both challenging engineering courses and plenty of non-greek social activities.</p>
<p>UT-Austin. Austin itself is probably one of the absolute top college cities and UT is top 10 in Engineering and top 10-20 in all its other academic departments/colleges.</p>
<p>Marquette has civil engineering and is in Milwaukee. Good male/female ratio. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I’ve heard that Georgia Tech, an excellent engineering school, has one girl for every four or five guys. After going to all boys school since fifth grade, many of our boys have nixed that one, despite its great reputation. </p>
<p>Also in Milwaukee is the Milwaukee School of Engineering.</p>
<p>Texas A and M has excellent civil engineering, although not in an urban location. Great school, though. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>You might be interested in a place like Vanderbilt Univ. While the engineering school itself (VUSE) is only about 1/3 female, the university overall is approximately 50/50. There is an active fraternity scene–university-wide, about 1/3 of the males belong to fraternities–but membership among engineers is less, I think. At any rate, Nashville is a fun city; the campus is about a mile from the downtown.</p>
<p>As for the ‘laid back’ part: engineering is tough everywhere. I get the impression students at VUSE work together well and there is a lot of collaboration, but grades are hard to come by, as they will be in engineering programs just about anywhere.</p>
<p>Cornell is great but urban it ain’t. Penn SEAS is more urban, and so is Columbia SEAS</p>
<p>Northwestern University (next door to Chicago)
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor (Ann Arbor is a small city)</p>
<p>Northwestern is more sub-urban, but it fits all of your other criteria. </p>
<p>Columbia and UPenn fit your criteria perfectly, except both are somewhat competitive. But both are in cities, penn is 20 minutes from the heart of Philly, and Columbia is in Manhattan and about 20 minutes from mid-town Manhattan. Each has a separate engineering school, with a liberal arts college connected, so girl to guy ratio is pretty much 1:1 (at Columbia with Barnard across the street the girl to guy ratio is more like 60:40)</p>
<p>Even if kids are not outwardly competitive, everyone works hard to compete for grades, internships, etc. Your profile doesn’t make you very competitive for Upenn or Columbia, but they are both reasonably reaches, and your profile doesn’t in any way disqualify you from gaining acceptance to either of these schools.</p>
<p>Yeah, Northwestern is pretty high on my list right now. ^^ As far as I know, Penn doesn’t have a civil engineering program.</p>
<p>UT-Austin. Top 10 engineering school in a great city with an awesome social scene.</p>
<p>Cornell isn’t urban at all.</p>
<p>Berkeley: #1 undergrad civil engineering; SF Bay Area.</p>
<p>Rice has a pretty reputable civil engineering program. We are 10 min away from downtown Houston, the 4th largest city of America. We were also ranked #1 for Best Quality of Life and #8 for Happiest Students by Princeton Review.</p>
<p>Other schools that fit your criteria: Michigan, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon, UPenn, Duke, Georgia Tech (Atlanta), and Washington University in St. Louis</p>
<p>Are Northwestern and Rice laid back?</p>
<p>I’m strongly considering applying to northwestern, but my only concern is that it might be too academically intense. It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s just I don’t know if it’s worth going to school near Chicago if I’ll never get the opportunity to explore the city. I’ve read on other threads that most nu students (especially engineers) spend all their time studying, and I’m afraid that I won’t be able to keep up with the workload at a very competetive school, and I’ll just end up wasting the huge tuition costs. I’m from Michigan btw so i could just go to u of m if I was only concerned with academics…</p>