<p>So after weeks of thinking, I'm still really stuck on this decision... Please help!!</p>
<p>As a bit of background, I've been accepted to both Caltech and Princeton, and I want to go into engineering (thinking electrical at the moment). I have received a much larger financial aid from Princeton than from Caltech (around $10,000 more). Until I received my financial aid packages, I was pretty sure that I wanted to go to Caltech, but now I am wavering a bit. Is it really worth going to Caltech considering the gap in financial aid, or does my undergraduate education not matter as much as my graduate?</p>
<p>Please offer your opinions/advice! Thanks :)</p>
<p>They’re both very different. Yes Cal Techs engineering program I’d probably the best in the country, but Princeton’s is also amazing and that really shouldn’t be your decision point. Cal Tech is tiny in terms of school size, so you will get a lot more personal attention. However, Cal Tech is almost exclusively engineering/sciences, so it won’t be the “whole package” experience like Princeton. You may not be able to befriend a philosophy major and have conversations with literature majors like you might at Princeton. In the end, they’re both extremely different but excellent. I personally would take Princeton, especially if it’s cheaper.</p>
<p>Not sure if it is $10k/year or $10K for 4 years. Assuming it is $10k/year, it is hard to say, is caltech worth $40K more?
But Caltech is smaller and has better weather.</p>
<p>Cal Tech is very small, with a lot more male than female. I have 2 people in my group who went to Cal Tech and they said social life is limiting. </p>
<p>How confident are you that you will stay in engineering? A lot of people change their mind and switch out of engineering after starting college. Princeton will have stronger non-engineering options. </p>
<p>Thanks for all the responses! Reading them all carefully, they’re all very helpful :)</p>
<p>@artloversplus yeah I meant per year that’s why I have such difficulty choosing</p>
<p>@sacchi I am largely confident I will stay in engineering. At the very least, I am extremely confident I will stay in STEM. If I do ever happen to switch out, I would probably switch to math, but right now my mind is pretty set on engineering, hence why I was considering Caltech more.</p>
<p>All any of us have is anecdotes. I knew a pretty darn near brilliant fellow who headed to Caltech. After his freshman year he didn’t return. He ended up at our state flagship, which remains one of the strongest universities for engineering in the nation. Caltech just wasn’t his cup of tea. He wasn’t the most gregarious guy in the world but he found the social life very limited at Caltech.</p>
<p>The OP seems perfect for Caltech-clearly he cares more about getting the most rigorous STEM education possible and doesn’t care about the benefits of being able to explore the liberal arts or having a more conventional social life in college. Why don’t we all just accept that?</p>
<p>I vote Caltech as the OP knows exactly what he is getting into.</p>
<p>Princeton engineering students are less likely to actually work as engineers than graduates from other engineering schools. Princeton engineering grads are more likely to go work on Wall Street or in consulting, or go to med school or law school, or to an engineering PhD program and go into academia. (I’m an engineering manager who works in NJ, and have good contacts in the Princeton EE department, and have heard this directly from a professor there, so this goes beyond anecdotal evidence.) </p>
<p>If you are really confident about becoming an engineer, Caltech may be the better fit. It might be worth trying to negotiate financial aid with Caltech, based upon your Princeton offer. </p>
<p>^^ … and the Princeton people also end up running a company or a division of a large company. I have to deal with Princeton CEOs (hired two myself) who were engineering majors all the time. I have yet to run into a Caltech or CMU engineer that runs the company. They exist I am sure, but based on my experience of 25 years @sacchi has a point. </p>
<p>Another unique point is Princeton engineering majors, a lot of times, do not use the degree. My two hires were hired for non-enginnering reasons and the job did not require engineering at all. The one person was just a superb planner, thinker, and could execute a difficult task like no tomorrow.</p>
<p>And the other one, her husband was a Princeton engineering grad who went to Harvard Law School and now works for high-yield banking dealing with current trading. Never practiced engineering or law. But was just an all around brilliant guy who could probably do just about anything. You will find a lot of swappable skill set type of people at Princeton, much less so at Caltech.</p>
that’s why I have such difficulty choosing</p>