<p>(1) If you plan to return to China, Cornell has far more heft than any of the others.</p>
<p>(2) Duke is quite stingy with financial aid for international students, and those who receive any are few and far between. I am not sure about the others, but I would be surprised if they’re extremely generous. You might want to avoid applying early decision if you’ll need to compare financial aid offers. </p>
<p>(3) Engineering is an extremely egalitarian field. There is very little difference in pay between those with a mechanical engineering degree from MIT and one from Podunk University. The primary advantage to attending a school stronger in engineering is better recruiting, but my impression is that most engineers do not struggle to get hired…though this is not my field, so I may be wrong.</p>
<p>If “MIT CalTech and Stanford are obviously out of [your] reach,” I would not assume that any of these will be much easier – particularly as an international student needing financial aid. </p>
<p>Have you considered any less selective American universities? The University of Minnesota is a reasonably good bargain for out-of-state students and may be worth a look.</p>
You should find a hobby. Being obnoxious is not mutually exclusive of being friendly to strangers and offering directions, especially when you’ve chosen to sample a population of potential Duke students (meaning: one of their own). Someone prone to spend all that time analyzing a selection of random comments should have recognized that fatal flaw and stop before even beginning.</p>
<p>The fact that people felt the need to point out that people weren’t complete ******bags to them actually supports my point with your “data set”, so thank you. </p>
<p>Unfortunately for your position, reputations exist for a reason and those of us with extensive personal / professional interactions with students and alumni (meaning, not just asking how to get to the dining hall) tend to fall on the side that there’s a bit of an attitude problem that permeates the culture. I’ve heard many people make the same unprompted observation. Obviously not everybody fits this, as I’ve known some absolutely wonderful Duke alum.</p>
<p>I have no interest in continuing debating such a silly subject. It was just an aside in response to an obnoxious post from a representative of Duke.</p>