<p>I am a prospective PhD student in Electrical Engineering at either UIUC, Northwestern, or Rice. I know this decision may seem obvious at first, however, my circumstances have made this decision difficult. I am an undergraduate student in ECE at UIUC, and while the department here is excellent in terms of rankings, I've gotten rather tired of the city and environment.</p>
<p>I've gotten offers from all three schools. The financial aid is pretty much the same for each school. In addition, each school has a couple of faculty members I'd really like to work with. </p>
<p>I would ultimately like to work as a researcher in industry. I would appreciate it if you, the readers, could give me your honest opinion on which school you think I should pick given my circumstances. </p>
<p>For example, you could say "suck it up and spend another 6 years at UIUC, it's a great place to be an engineer."</p>
<p>Frankly, I always advise undergraduates to change universities for graduate school. It is better to move to a new environment as it gives you a clear transition between being an undergraduate and being a graduate student. Having a gradual transition might work against you.</p>
<p>You seem to have good choices. Unless there is a specific reason to stay at UIUC go to one of the other two. When I graduated from UIUC many moons ago (I grew up there too), I moved to UCSD and I never regretted it. I don’t know about Rice, but Evanston is a great place to live and go to graduate school.</p>
<p>Northwestern overall is a pretty prestigious school. Rice is also pretty underrated for engineering in general, but it’s no Northwestern in terms of prestige. But I know nothing about ECE.</p>
<p>While I did not do my undergrad at UIUC, I interviewed at both UIUC and Northwestern for grad school in ECE, and chose the former. Here is why:</p>
<p>Northwestern was beautiful and located in an interesting area and treated me very nicely. The faculty were knowledgeable and researching some very interesting things. UIUC was decent, located in a somewhat blandly pleasant area, and treated me okay. The faculty were ALSO knowledgeable and researching some very interesting things.</p>
<p>The differences were in the details: When I talked to the professors about the length of the program, they were giving me estimates more than a year longer than UIUC - they were not as focused on getting people through the program as UIUC was. When I talked to the faculty, they said they were really focused on industry, providing the training and background that they thought industry needed - UIUC was focused more on academia but still sent tons of people to industry. When I talked to the grad students at Northwestern (after the prof had left), they told me first that they (even the experienced ones) had not really published anything, whereas the UIUC grad students all either had publications or were in process. I asked those same grad students who had also been accepted at UIUC, and why they had chosen Northwestern… and every single one said “because I was funded here”.</p>
<p>I went to the two schools not sure which I would prefer (Northwestern would have been a lot more convenient for me), and after visiting it was an open-and-shut case for me. You may have different priorities and therefore a different “best” school, but this was my experience.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the thoughtful responses, I appreciate it. </p>
<p>Cosmicfish - Thanks for telling me why you choose UIUC. I am actually quite surprised by some of the details you discussed. I have yet to visit NW but from their websites, I see a lot of publications each year, especially the Center for Quantum Devices ([Center</a> for Quantum Devices - Journal Articles and Conference Proceedings](<a href=“http://cqd.eecs.northwestern.edu/pubs/journals.php]Center”>Center for Quantum Devices - Journal Articles and Conference Proceedings)). I’ve actually spoken to the graduate students in my research group at UIUC and they have told me they haven’t published anything yet (one student is a 3rd year.) I suppose this type of thing varies from group to group.</p>
<p>I am relieved that it was an obvious decision for you after visiting. I hope after my visit in late February, deciding will be easy.</p>
And exactly how would a gradual transition from undergrad to PhD work against a student? Wouldn’t the transition be made somewhat gradual to begin with, since the first year is still heavy-laden with coursework, with limited time to do research, and the second one has much less coursework but more time to do research?