Hi I was wondering if anyone could give me advice for my impending college decision. I’m deciding between Columbia, Brown, and University of Southern California for biomedical engineering. I have a presidential scholarship and was named a Viterbi Fellow at USC. I’m worried that Columbia’s curriculum will be too stressful and rigid, which is why Brown appeals to me in that aspect. I am drawn to the research opportunities being offered to me at USC, however. Help!
My daughter faced a similar choice, but after visiting schools, she quickly eliminated Columbia from contention. She also did not like the Core Curriculum there. She is now a sophomore at USC and loves it. She is very thankful that she made the decision to travel from FL to USC. The opportunities at USC and within the greater LA area are almost endless. The USC alumni network is also amazing. To me personally, I would have only encouraged my daughter to potentially consider Stanford, Yale, Princeton and Brown over USC. My younger daughter, now a HS junior, has already decided that USC is her first choice. And I am very thankful regarding her decision. As a parent, my impression of USC has only grown over the last two years. They are excellent at all of the things that are important to parents… from communication to financial aid to all of their various online portals related to registration, assistance, tracking, housing, etc. They are just quite simply a well-funded and well-oiled machine. USC has mastered the college experience, in my opinion, including everything related to the exchange of information. My final suggestion would be to look at the survey details provided by students themselves comparing the two colleges at https://colleges.niche.com/rankings/best-colleges/ I have found their rankings and parameters to be far more useful than other college ranking services. Good luck with your decision…