<p>Must decide by May 1st. My son has been accepted to Drexel, Worcester Polytech, Rensselaer Polytech. He wants a good background in Computer Science as well as Video Game Development. all 3 colleges are ranked well for game development.
Not sure how good the computer science degree programs are.
Everybody at Drexel was very helpful. Philly is a great town. Drexel offers 3 6month co-ops which seems great for self confidence, networking and job experience.
RPI is in small town Troy,NY and WPI is in Worcester,MA.
Not sure where my son would be happiest.<br>
Any and all comments welcome.</p>
<p>My son looked at all three schools and liked Drexel best. RPI and WPI are mainly engineering schools without a separate College of Information Science and Technology. Drexel’s iSchool for computer science make it stand out among these colleges. Also, while RPI has a nice campus, Troy is terrible, and therefore the school felt like a prison. WPI is better because it is close the wonderful Worcester Art Museum, but Worcester does not compare to Philadelphia.</p>
<p>I was looking at the three of these schools as well (for CS/Software Engineering for Drexel), but I ended up not applying to WPI. I did apply to and look into RPI, but it didn’t seem like a hopping town. Though they do have a spectacular reputation for computer science, and when I attended an online student chat, the students really seemed to know what they were doing.</p>
<p>But for me, it was the Co-Op program, which really is spectacular. Plus, Philly. I was talking to my mom’s friend’s son, who graduated from Drexel, and he said that although there were times when he was all, “Man, I hate Drexel,” once he realized he was in Philadelphia, he just explored the city and had some great times. But really, the Co-Op deal is something you’re not going to get at the other schools. I mean, it’s paid, plus it’s experience. And I’d imagine getting a game design co-op in a real life company would be absolutely amazing.</p>
<p>It of course depends on the whole deal, the financial aid package, plus the environment, plus the academics, and everything else. Ask your son what he wants. I’m sure he has reasons to prefer one over the other.</p>