Carnegie or Chicago? - please help

College Search & Selection
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<p>I've been admitted to the Tepper Business School at CMU and also as an undecided major at UChicago. I have visited both places and each have their own qualities that I like. The students were about the same, all like minded hard working and friendly. I got a good vibe from both campuses. </p>

<p>Tepper is a highly ranked business school, but frankly I'm not even sure If I want to major in business and I feel Chicago has more options regarding major choices. I have been pursued to play a sport at each school and Carnegie seems to want me more for my sport. I just am having a hard time deciding because I do not know how important a undergraduate business degree is vs something like public policy from Chicago. Any input or advice is greatly appreciated. </p>

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<p>Were you admitted to Tepper under ED? </p>

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<p>It depends on what you want to do with it. Honestly, what will get you a job is not your major - it is your skills and your experiences. An English major could get a Wall Street finance job if she knows how to crunch numbers, set up quant analyses and has 2 summer internships with top firms. Employers want people who know how to do their work, not just people with a specific set of classes.</p>

<p>People will disagree with me on this, and note that my opinion is colored by my experiences at a liberal arts college. But personally, while I definitely believe that college students should have an eye towards the practical, I think that they should explore their interests first and foremost. College is a time that you’ll never repeat - four years in which you’re allowed to take classes in a broad range of interest areas and learn from giants in the field. Both Chicago and Carnegie Mellon are great places to do that. Moreover, for the vast majority of fields - as I said - your exact major doesn’t matter. What matters are your skills - what you can do - and your experiences. So I think that a major choice should be one of passion - one in which you think you want to delve deeply, understand in depth, think about, read about. When you do that, college comes alive and is really vibrant for you. Otherwise it just becomes this pre-professional drudge.</p>

<p>So what do you really want to study? Do you want to delve deep into the study of business, understanding it, learning it? Some people are not just interested in a business major for the perceived workforce benefit but because they just really love the study and application of business. Are you? If you decide you don’t want to major in business after a semester or a year, how easy would it be for you to transfer into the liberal arts college part of CMU? Do some of the options offered at Chicago appeal to you a lot, so much that you really want to explore them?</p>

<p>Furthermore (and again, people will disagree with me) I think that all other things being academically equal, one’s college choice should be primarily about other factors - the social environment, the location, the amenities, the resources, the happiness factor. Chicago and Carnegie Mellon are both great schools, not far apart in the rankings in any significant kind of way, well-known to employers, with good recruitment programs at both. So the question is, where do you want to spend your four years? At a Chicago university known for being sort of intellectual, quirky, nerdy, weird-in-a-good-way? Or at a Pittsburgh university also known for being nerdy, but in a different way - kind of techie? If you can visit, that should help. If you can’t, then spend a lot of time hanging out on the websites.</p>

<p>Assuming that the costs are about equal I don’t think there’s anything wrong with going with your gut here.</p>

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<p>I applied to CMU regular. </p>

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<p>Go to CMU if you enjoy a really small campus with a lack of support for sports. Chicago can possibly open more opportunities in investment banking or consulting because of its name brand. I’m not very sure about sports culture at UChicago.</p>

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<p>carnegie is for real students.
u of chicago does have some real departments and has a rep for being intellectual. but it is a better fit if you are a know it all spoiled kid, who will drive your bmw your parents got you for graduation to the rally for minimum wage increases. (IMO of course)</p>

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<p>Be aware that if CS is one of your interests, it can take a competitive admissions process (with a minimum of 3.5 college GPA, but no guarantees even then) to change major into CS at CMU:
<a href=“http://www.csd.cs.cmu.edu/education/bscs/transfer.html”>http://www.csd.cs.cmu.edu/education/bscs/transfer.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I would pick Chicago for the all round academics and the interesting student body, and Chicago is pretty fun.</p>

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<p>zobroward, that is the most off-target description of the U of C I have ever seen, bar none.</p>

<p>I think julliet and BrownParent are on the right track. Are you a techie type, or an intellectual type? </p>

<p>Personally, I’d pick Chicago unless I was interested in CS and knew I could get in to that program. </p>

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<p>Since you are not quite decided on your major, consider both the choices of possible majors (which may favor CMU, depending on your interests) and the ease of changing majors (which probably favors Chicago for many majors). While CMU has a top end reputation in CS, it is very difficult to transfer into the CS major there. Chicago appears to have a respectable offering of CS courses: <a href=“http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/courses/description”>http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/courses/description&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Chicago has a strong liberal arts economics major that is relatively heavy in math. There are, however, a few elective courses that overlap with topics commonly found in business major curricula (24400, 24410, 25000, 25100). <a href=“Economics < University of Chicago Catalog”>http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/thecollege/economics/&lt;/a&gt; . Other social studies departments also tend to have courses overlapping with some of those found in business major curricula, although accounting courses are typically unique to business departments. Of course, the liberal arts emphasis means mostly studying how such things work (in businesses or otherwise), rather than application in the running a business as emphasized in business majors.</p>

<p>Of course, net price also matters.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure if there’s some truth to this. Chicgago apperently is less represented in IB and MC. As a result, the school is also less represented in top MBA programs. Tepper doesn’t appear to be exceptionally ahead though. But if the OP is seeking a career in IB or MC, I think CMU is the slightly better choice.</p>

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<p>Stated by @juillet - “Moreover, for the vast majority of fields - as I said - your exact major doesn’t matter.” </p>

<p>Very true statement. When I hire people, I could care less about their major. And no executive I know cares about majors either. The question is can you do what is asked of you above and beyond the other guy; I could care less if you crawled out of a hole yesterday if you could do that.</p>

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<p>^^^ I guess it depends on the job. If you’re hiring an electrical engineer, for example, wouldn’t you care if someone who has a History major applied for the job? </p>

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<p>^^ Not in the least, if he has the experience for the job and performs above everyone else. </p>

<p>Look at it this way - the balance sheets have not a clue and does not record your school or major, but it does record if you get excellent “production” out on time based on revenue stream. Majors are nice talking points at lunch or cocktail parties, not relevant however to on-the-ground performance. </p>

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<p>However, it is quite rare for that to happen in that particular example. If you were recruiting new graduate electrical engineers, you would get more yield recruiting at schools where there is an electrical engineering degree program that has a reasonable number of students than at school where there is no electrical engineering degree program.</p>

<p>For experienced people, there are additional ways into the field without having gotten a degree in electrical engineering, although it is still most common for experienced electrical engineers to have started with a degree in electrical engineering.</p>

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<p>^^ Please note my qualifying point - “…if he has the experience…” </p>

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<p>^ You’re talking about extreme cases not what’s generally taking place in the real world. English majors wouldn’t do jobs that EE grads do as they’re not even trained for it, in the first place. Which school, for example, would train History majors for EE jobs? lol…</p>

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<p>Thanks for the comments. I was under pressure by CMU to make a decision by the weekend. It was a tough one but I picked Chicago. Main reason, which was stated by a poster above, is what happens if I’m not digging business and want to switch? I’m not a techie type so I would be left trying to switch majors to another one of their colleges… Chicago makes more sense since I’m like a lot of kids and undecided about a major. Besides, If I eventually like business, that is something I can focus on post grad. Both schools met need and the net price is about the same (sorry, I don’t own a BMW and my folks aren’t rich snobs). Cheers</p>

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<p>@RML If you look at the point being made, I do not think it is as extreme as you think. It is easy to pick a super technical field like doctor or EE, but that was not the point. </p>

<p>The point was for most jobs majors do not matter. The key word was most; it did not say all. And for all my years hiring that is true. If you want to hear that in very technical fields the major matters, then sure. but it only matters because of the difficulty of getting an initial job for the experience building. </p>

<p>So, I do see it just the reverse as you do - the exception and rare cases are the technical fields, but outside the technicals, majors rarely, rarely matter. And only 15% or so of the jobs are in the technical fields, so I posit the major does not matter holds true for 85% of jobs available. (Give or take a few percent points)</p>

<p>And I even preface the technical fields carefully because some of the best computer programmers and designers are self-taught. Google even made an issue of pointing that out in a recent article. A lot of Google’s top people are ones who never went to college., i.e., no major in sight. This is magnified down the business chain.</p>

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<p>Thanks for reporting back OP. But wait, isn’t CMU ED? Are you breaking your ED agreement?</p>