How much loans would you need at each school? Be aware that you cannot borrow more than the federal direct loans ($5,500 first year) without a cosigner, and cosigned loans are generally a bad idea for both you and the cosigner.
Whether you would fit in depends on what kind of social life you are looking for.
Cal Poly is a GREAT value for CA residents (and for out of staters for that matter). Especially if you want to live in CA after you graduate (big companies will recruit at all of them, but most of the companies will be from the respective regions of the schools), you’d be hard pressed to say the extra debt would be worth it.
When it comes to racial demographics, about 6% of students are African American at GT and CMU, whereas only about 1% are at Cal Poly. San Luis Obispo is pretty homogeneous too. Pittsburg and Atlanta on the other hand have a much larger percentage of African Americans.
ok i think i kinda narrowed it down to berkeley vs slo, both for mateng. i understand the theory vs application and the academia vs industry approach but would i be taught by ta for non GE classes in mateng at berk? how big is the mateng program at berkeley
The usual model at UCB is to have a faculty member do the main lecture, but TAs do smaller discussion sections and labs. Frosh/soph level math, physics, chemistry courses are large (except perhaps for honors courses) because they are shared by students in many majors. Junior/senior level courses are smaller, but you want to check in the on-line schedule at http://classes.berkeley.edu/search/class/ to see if they are what you consider small.
Berkeley is known around the world – SLO, while a very respectable university, isn’t the same level of prestige. If you got into Berkeley and can afford it, go there. The campus, city and surrounding area of Berkeley are also more diverse, with more going on.
Berkeley is know around the world BECAUSE OF THE RESEARCH THEY DO. It will translate very little into what your experience as an engineering undergraduate is like. Your experience will be very different between the two, some better some worse, at each. Berkeley advantages are student body diversity and access to potential research. For that, your classes will be much larger and labs and discussions will be taught by TAs, some of whom have a tenuous command of English. Cal Poly is isolated, for better or worse. It is also very homogeneous, both the school and the community. It has a more cohesive campus feel. Classes will be MUCH smaller. In fact your largest classes will be MATE 210, because nearly every engineering major takes it. It’s a class of 200. Almost everything else will be 25 or so, all taught by professors, labs and discussions. The biggest advantage is that every engineering class at Poly will have a lab. There’s more than 80 labs in the department of engineering alone, all used for one purpose, teaching undergrads.
Full disclosure, my son is a ME there from out of state. He looked at LOTS of schools and had the stats to be competitive anywhere. After learning about the UCs, he didn’t apply to any of them. He was focused on institutions that placed a high emphasis on undergraduate engineering. Anyplace that had lectures with 500+ students got the axe. Wheeler Hall holds 750, and for CS, they have to use video overflow! No school is perfect, but he’s very happy at Cal Poly. His take was UCB was a great place to do a PhD, but not so great for undergrads.
You need to decide if you want the best education or the most recognizable car sticker. The only way to figure out the former is to go visit both schools. Take official campus tours, official engineering tours, and ask to see the lecture halls, including the largest. Then compare curricula and job placement.
At the end of the day, it’s really all about what you make of your time no matter where you go.
FWIW, I spent a lot of time in SLO and three of my relatives all graduated from there (two are Mechanical Engineers; the other is an architect–all well employed). No question, the town of SLO (and most of the Central Coast) is not real diverse! But overall it tends to be a progressive area, like most college towns along the coast. And local businesses tend to support the local grads quite well.
I also have friends and family at Berkeley. Extremely bright minds who have been disappointed in the bureaucracy (from the undergrad viewpoint). One of them grew up a couple miles from Cal Poly SLO and finds Berkeley to have off-puttingly chilly vibe, especially in comparison to SLO.