<p>I'm a junior in high school in Naperville, IL. I want to major in civil engineering and I'm having a major dilemma. I'm going to have to choose between quality of school and how much I'm going to enjoy my college experience. Just a little background... my family is kinda in a financial struggle right now so I can't spend ridiculous amounts of money for me to go to school. I have a 3.7 weighted gpa and a 30 ACT. I have the opportunity to possibly be a part of something called Engineering Pathways where I would go to my local community college, College of Dupage, for the first 2 years and then have guaranteed admission into University of Illinois for the last 2 where I would only pay for 2 years from U of I instead of all 4. It's a program that is a great opportunity, but I just don't fully want to do it for the reason that I don't want to go to a CC and I want to be independent, have the full going away for college experience. My parents want me to do this very much because of course it is the best civil engineering program in the country. My other option would be to go to an affordable 4 year university that still has a great engineering program, but of course it is no University of Illinois. The school that I have in mind right now is University of Kansas. I just got back from a college visit to both U of I and Kansas, I liked KU incredibly much but I didn't really like UIUC. I know I wouldn't really like UIUC because of the atmosphere and the fact that I'd spend 2 of my 4 years at a local CC. I know I would enjoy going to Kansas, and they still have a great engineering program there, but it's not UIUC</p>
<p>Another problem is that for the Engineering Pathways program, applying for it is in April of my senior year and I wouldn't know if I'm accepted or not until mid-May. I am highly qualified for the program and I'm pretty sure I'd get in but the fact that it all happens so late worries me.</p>
<p>College is all about setting up the rest of my life, so the job market for engineers graduating from each university is important. Does anybody know any information on how much the gap in rankings between each university affects the post-graduation job market? Or simply some advice would be helpful. I'm in a very bad spot right now, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.</p>