Georgetown doesn’t have engineering , not sure about Emory either…
Relative to one another, I think these are each school’s strengths and weaknesses:
Williams
Strengths: Smallest classes, tutorials, the most attention from profs, probably the most bucolic.
Weaknesses: In the middle of nowhere, fewest majors and classes offered, probably the least amount of cutting-edge research going on.
Yale
Strengths: “Shopping period” for classes, biggest rep (if that is important to you…), biggest endowment, residential colleges.
Weaknesses: New Haven (pizza exempted…), hardest to get into for most kids (for an applicant, a weakness…).
Cornell
Strengths: Best balance of the rural outdoors and town/city life, you can study practically anything under the sun (part of the school’s founding mission), maybe the best food.
Weaknesses: Probably the most academically competitive, the most difficult for changing majors (especially moving from school to school), largest average class size.
Columbia would be another good choice for her range of interests, potentially.
Also Barnard, which has one of the most feasible 3-2 programs, IMO, because it is with Columbia which is across the street. Barnard students are taking boatloads of courses there anyway.
With these interests she might also want to check out MIT, believe it or not. (If she’s applying to Prniceton, and considering Yale…)
And maybe Wellesley. She could take some MIT courses from there…
Forgot to mention Columbia/Sciences Po is high on her list. She loves the two years of study in France option. she is becoming less enamored of NYC after her time in the wilderness of New England.
What is a 3/2 program?
One of her closest friends at school is applying to MIT. Originally they were going to apply to some of the same schools but I think the friend has decided that from an admissions standpoint, it may not work in their favor to apply to the same schools
re#21:
“Weaknesses: Probably the most academically competitive, the most difficult for changing majors (especially moving from school to school)”
This is incorrect. The most difficult for changing majors from school to school is Williams. Because it has no specialized schools to switch to. If you are attending Williams, and decide you want to major in engineering, for example, you have to leave. Period. You cannot switch to a specialized school within Williams because it has none. You have to leave. There is no option for switching.
As for changing majors within an Arts & Sciences school itself, I don’t know that there is any difference. Cornell’s Arts & Sciences college in itself offers the full range of majors that a typical arts & sciences college offers. I have never heard that its process for switching majors, within the college, was any different than anyplace else. I think it is typical.
Additionally, I have no credible evidence that Cornell is actually any tougher than these other schools, in comparable majors. IIRC from that old Berkeley law school regression Berkeley used to bump GPAs when evaluating law school candidates, Williams seemed every bit as tough. And the students at Yale are on average smarter, and so driven that they got into Yale in the first place. If they have any curve at all, it will be no picnic there. And I have been told as much, by a few of its graduates.
re#23:
https://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/learn/academiclife/engineering/combined-plan-program
https://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/combined_plan_affiliates_2016-17.pdf
https://engineering.dartmouth.edu/academics/undergraduate/dual/
http://catalog.rpi.edu/content.php?catoid=8&navoid=177
I thought these were interesting too, hadn’t noticed them before. Even though D1 almost went to Wellesley. Maybe they didn’t have all these back then.
https://www.wellesley.edu/advising/classdeans/engineering/dd
https://www.wellesley.edu/advising/classdeans/engineering/dual-degree-with-olin
This last highlights some of the problems with these programs generally, look at th low #s who go through with it:
https://www.wellesley.edu/advising/classdeans/engineering/ddfaqs
A 3/2 engineering program is a joint program between a general liberal arts school (of any size) and an engineering school. For example, 3 years at Williams would be followed by 2 years at a university that offers engineering. From Williams’ Course Catalog:
3/2 programs are generally not recommended as, among other issues, students usually prefer to graduate with their class. In that event a graduate degree in engineering is another option.
Engineering is a professional program that is usually entered into from day one. Even if the undergraduate university has a school of engineering, it’s not so easy to transfer from liberal arts to engineering and still graduate in 4.0 years.
Re: 24
I meant changing from one major to another at the same college. If you wanted to change from, say, History to Biology at Williams, that’s probably going to be easier than changing from a major in one of Cornell’s schools to a major in a different Cornell school. Cornell has those divisions; Williams doesn’t. That was my point.
Of course, if there’s a fair chance that a student would want to major in an Engineering discipline, Williams probably is not a great choice… unless the student wouldn’t mind Physics, Chem, or Math (etc.) instead. 
^^not necessarily true. Below is a link outlining criteria to change from one college, say CAS, to CALS in Cornell. Not very complicated. Top two criteria? Must be a Cornell student and must have two semesters completed at Cornell. Of course there is a min gpa requirement 2.0 up to 3.0 depending on the major in CALS
Not to mention that you can major in Bio and History in CAS, so there is no switching schools. There are several majors that are in several schools, so you don’t necessarily have to change schools when you change majors.
However, someone switching from history to biology can encounter issues if s/he had not previously taken the prerequisite courses for the biology major. If s/he needs to “catch up”, then that may delay graduation or require overloading to graduate on schedule.
@ucbalumnus – Would the same not be true at most colleges? I agree with others that transferring between the colleges at Cornell is not all that difficult, assuming one meets the GPA requirement. Transferring into Engineering or Architecture would be challenging and result in additional semesters of study.
Switching majors in to something such as engineering will nearly inevitably bring a delay in graduation. Not necessarily a delay but certainly an extension of the amount of time spent in school. That would be assumed to be likely.
Re #32
Yes, that would be true generally.
It is something usually omitted when people here write “it is ok to be undecided, since you do not have to declare a major until late second year”. But undecided students need to take courses to prepare for any possible major of interest to avoid being behind.
re #28:
@prezbucky:
I am clearly missing you somehow. I will reiterate the following points:
-Cornell CAS has the full range of typical CAS majors itself.
- Switching majors within CAS is likely no more difficult than at most other liberal arts/ arts & sciences colleges. As far as I'm aware. I've never heard anyone ever suggest otherwise.
- Most of the majors at Cornell's specialty colleges are not found at most liberal arts colleges, at all. Therefore they can't be switched into, from most other liberal arts colleges, at all. Forget difficulty, forget internal transfer process, they don't have it, period.
To use your example, I have no reason to believe that switching majors from History to Biology at Cornell - both of which are majors in its Arts & sciences college, just like anywhere else- is any more difficult than doing likewise at most other schools.
If you wanted to switch majors from History to Fashion Design (which is a major in the College of Human Ecology);or Hotel administration; or Architecture; those would indeed involve an additional process at Cornell. Because you would have to do an internal transfer to the other college…
But it would still be easier to do this there than at a typical liberal arts college. Because that college will not offer majors in fashion design; hotel administration, architecture, etc, at all.
So to beat this to death, and be as clear as I can be:
- It is likely no more difficult to switch majors within the typical liberal arts subjects (eg History to Biology) at Cornell than at most other schools.
- it is easier to switch from a liberal arts major (eg history) to most specialized field majors (eg Fashion design) at Cornell than it would be to do the identical switch of majors at most liberal arts colleges. Despite the need to do an internal transfer at Cornell. Because most liberal arts colleges don't offer most of those specialized majors at all, in the first place.
If you are at an LAC and decide to change to such specialized major (Fashion Design; hotel,…) you have no option but to do an external transfer to a different institution that actually offers that major, and uproot yourself. Which is all harder than doing an internal transfer at Cornell, and staying put. Not easier.
If this doesn’t cover it, I give up.
re #32, 33, 34:
I am not current on this, but back in my day at least, the first year of engineering school requirements at Cornell were heavily weighted towards fulfilling foundation mathematics , physics and chemistry courses, and a computer science course. And also fulfilling general university requirements (freshman writing/literature seminars).
The science and math courses were actually taught by Arts & Sciences college faculty; they were listed as CAS courses. There were largely analogous courses offered within CAS for its students planning to major in the physical sciences. There were analogous CS courses there too. And CAS students also had to take freshman seminars. So the freshman year courses of study could be very similar, between an intended CAS physics major and an engineer.
In my opinion somebody who took the course sequence recommended for prospective physics majors within CAS, and then decided to transfer to the engineering college after freshman year, could do so without delaying graduation. They might have had an intro engineering survey course to make up, is all.
A transfer after sophomore year might require an additional semester, because even though the CAS math and physics sequences continued for engineers into sophomore year, a lot of actual engineering content started being introduced as well.
There was a CC poster, some time ago, who transferred from CAS to the engineering college. But I don’t recall the details, or whether he/she even stated them.
It certainly worked going the other way though. I knew several engineers who transferred to CAS without delaying their graduation.
DS has been ME major and just switched to a physics major at a different school. He did not want to have to do any time but the ME major was untenable for him. If he can survive the physics, he will not have gained more than the need for a few extra courses.
Correction: he did not want to do any EXTRA time . School is not his thing.