Emory University and Georgia Tech's dual degree program VERSUS Texas A&M University

Colleges and Universities A-Z Texas A&M University
1

Hi, I am currently trying to decide which university to attend before the May 1st deadline.
I live in Texas, but I would love to travel out of state.
Emory’s path would entail me studying as an undergraduate for 5 years, whereas at Texas A&M, it will be 4 years, but this is not a concern at all for me.
Considering financial aid would be the same, I would really appreciate any insights as to which would be the more favorable, reputable, path to pursue.
Please help me out here???

I would hands down choose Emory University because of its very diverse student body, smaller campus, and overall higher prestige/ranking than Texas A&M in the nation, but what is apprehensive is that Emory does not have its own engineering school. But Emory will let me pursue an engineering degree at Georgia Tech.
Emory will have me complete the prerequisites for the engineering degree at Emory itself while simultaneously allowing me to pursue any degree of my own choice (I will probably choose something stem related), after which I will be graduating early from Emory in three years.

Then I will be enrolled in Georgia Tech automatically and complete my engineering degree there, and graduate early in two years.

It’s kind of interesting to note that I will have graduated with two degrees from two different strong universities in my undergrad if i do indeed follow this Emory/Georgia Tech path.

However, Texas A&M is also a strong enough university with all of its engineering resources available to me in one place, one institution. It is more straightforward, and has enough prestige in Texas. I also heard that the Aggie Network is an actual thing that may help out when trying to get employed.

So considering all of this,
which is a more favorable and prestigious path to pursue, which will allow me to have a high engineering salary after graduation?

In the employer’s eyes, would i be considered as a more competitive candidate Texas A&M graduates if i do indeed pursue the Emory/Georgia Tech pathway???

Any insights are greatly appreciated!!
Thanks

2

Go to Emory

3

@trinley

Since I posted this in the Texas A&M forum, are you an Aggie or incoming Aggie???

If you are, it is especially interesting to note that you say to choose Emory. What is your reason for saying so???

4

@pro@procrastinator I am an Aggie. Class of 92. Based on your past posts and nothing more, it appears that the perception of others is a weighty factor in your decision making process. If the perception of others is that Emory is more prestigious and that clearly is important to you, you may regret not picking the school that has that factor. Just pick the school you like best. Nobody on this forum can tell you what is best for you. Highway 6 runs both ways. Good luck.

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@trinley Thank you for your response! You’re right about me caring (for better or for worse) about the perception of others for my college choice. I probably will choose Emory.

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Something you may want to know about dual degree programs is that financial aid will not normally be consistent. A lot of financial aid only applies to your first degree, so for dual degree programs, the second degree does not receive much if any financial aid. And if you pursue a degree that’s in a completely different field, like say math or only three to five courses May transfer over, you will likely go over maximum undergraduate credits maximum undergraduate credits for losing scholarships as well. You should ask both financial aid Apartments how that happens. In my experience I’ve never found a scholarship that would allow for dual degrees. That’s why so many people think double major instead of dual degree normally .

That’s the only thing I kind of grown uncomfortable of the idea to of Emory. obviously there’s going to be some little things that you’re probably going to notice like how it would be pretty hard to get an internship in your first few years of college if you haven’t taken any engineering courses till your senior year/ super senior year . And a lot of jobs find an internship from a popular or prestigious company means more then going to prestigious schools . Or the difficulty of making good friends or a strong network of collages when you’re only in school for a year or two. Not to mention it will be hard to find things like research, organizations, leadership etc. that jobs look for.

Maybe you should just choose one school. If you like Georgia go to Georgia if you like emory go to go to Emory, but don’t think the prestige is going to matter too much to anyone besides you due to the other things you may be missing out on.

But that’s my 2 cents

7

I am an Aggie engineer who went to graduate school in the northeast. I am very familiar with engineering school rankings, and Georgia Tech is ranked among the highest PUBLIC engineering schools in the country, arguably at least on par with Purdue. If Georgia Tech/Emory have the majors you want, and you are able to pursue Georgia Tech engineering as a regular student to that university, then I would consider going there, yes. I am not familiar with Emory per se, and it is not clear what if any this dual degree program has to offer vs. straight Georgia Tech. BUT GT has an extremely well known engineering school.

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@pro@procrastinator - When my senior Aggie was in high school, we visited many schools including Pomona College, a highly ranked LAC in California, and sister college, Harvey Mudd College. Pomona is in Claremont, California and part of the Claremont Consortium, which also includes Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College, Pitzer College, Claremont Graduate University and Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences. Harvey Mudd is one of the top-rated tech colleges in the country. At that time, Pomona was promoting a 3/2 program with Caltech: three years at Pomona and then two years at Caltech leading to two bachelors degree. On our visit, the admissions counselor had barely heard of the program and did not recommend it. She had two reactions. First, if you want to go to Caltech, go to Caltech. Second, if you want to live in Claremont and go to a tech school, go to Harvey Mudd. You could still take classes at Pomona/Claremont/etc., eat in their cafeterias, and use their facilities.

Anyway, my point is to get some data on how many people select the Emory/Georgia Tech path and how many actually successfully complete it. A concern is that top engineering schools like Georgia Tech and Texas A&M have very rigorous coursework during freshman and sophomore years. Part of this is to weed out those who are not serious about engineering. But courses during these year also build the foundation for success as juniors and seniors. If you don’t go to Georgia Tech and succeed in the foundation classes, you may very well have difficulty doing well if you come in as a junior. You could also get some bad surprises concerning prerequisites for upper-level classes.

Finally, many people start out thinking they will major in one engineering field and decide upon another one after freshman or even sophomore years. For that reason, TAMU engineering admissions are just to the engineering college with students applying to a major at the end of freshman year or during sophomore year. How will you know for sure coming from Emory what major you want to pursue at Georgia Tech?

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Texas has the largest economy in the U.S. and employers recruit heavily from Texas A&M and UT-Austin, among several other schools. You can’t go wrong at A&M. Finding a first job has more to do with location than prestige. Most employers are small to midsize companies. They hire locally and regionally because it’s more cost effective that way.