<p>Which would be best for an undergraduate?</p>
<p>I know nothing about Hopkins but my son did look at RPI and Cornell for comp sci and is coming to Cornell. Decided not to apply to RPI at all.</p>
<p>RPI has a strong comp sci department as well as engineering and other technical disciplines but is not as "well rounded" a school as Cornell. At Cornell you will experience a lot more diversity in terms of the majors and interests of the students--no comparison really. And Cornell has a strong comp sci department too. </p>
<p>I'd pick Ithaca as a place to spend 4 years over Troy any day. I also wasn't wild about RPI's campus--it seemed very gray but that might have been influenced by the weather the day we were there. Ithaca has much more to offer as a town and is in a beautiful setting.</p>
<p>If it matters, the proportion of males/females is much more equivalent at Cornell, although not necessarily in every school or major, but overall. RPI has a pretty skewed male/female ratio.</p>
<p>I have a daughter at Cornell and a son going to RPI next year. He had no interest in Cornell but easily could have been admitted if he applied. Personally my husband and I (PhD educated engineers from elite engineering school) are more impressed with RPI's teaching methods and smaller class sizes. Cornell has a very talented student body but the large impersonal classes (where you have to really go out of your way to be known) and boot camp mentality seem old fashioned and unnecessary by comparison (even MIT seems more progressive with pass/fail the first semester). My vote would be for the school at which you feel more comfortable (big fish in a smaller pond or smaller fish in a big pond) and leaves you the least in debt. This day and age the goal is to get out of graduate school, not undergrad. That's when the fancy name in the diploma matters. And you have to be good enough to get into that fancy grad school. If you think you'll sink to the bottom at Cornell, you'll be limited to Cornell Masters' program or less. BTW, RPI is getting more and more selective each year, kids with 2100+ SATs were wait listed this year. As far as Troy, there's not much reason to leave campus unless you are going to concerts, skiing, etc. Cornell is more isolated from city/shopping, etc. As far as guy/girl ratio, they say it works out pretty evenly at RPI if you subtract the ones glued to the video games. Cornell has its share of nerds too. If you tend to be a happy person, you'll be happy at either school.</p>
<p>we have a GREAT cs program...one of the best. but despite our wonderful program somehow our course enroll interface always sucks!!</p>