<p>I'm just going to copy my stats from a different thread to give you guys some basis of my choices. </p>
<p>Ethnicity: White
Gender: Male
State: GA
SAT: 2170
ACT: 34
Class Ranking: 22/730
GPA UW: 3.9ish
W: Higher, lol. 4.something</p>
<p>Ok, let's say I want to be an engineer (still choosing between engineer and doctor at the moment). If I were to be an engineer, I'd either do something mechanical or biomedical. It has always been my dream to go to Duke. Now, Duke would be a great choice for biomedical, but for mechanical probably not so much. Stanford is another dream of mine and it would be good for both, BUT I am pretty sure I couldn't get in. MIT, of course, would be awesome, but who am I kidding, there is no way I would ever get in. Other schools that I am not sure about include Johns Hopkins and Columbia. The real problem is when it comes to GATech. GATech would be a great school for any of my hopes to be an engineer, I am already accepted there technically (taking college calculus there next year), and I would get the HOPE scholarship. My issue is that I really don't want to stay in state. Don't get me wrong, I like GA a lot, but I'd much rather experience something new and away from home. I'd rather explore.</p>
<p>What I am asking for are comments on the situation or perhaps suggestions for other options. Thanks!</p>
<p>Unless one of the other schools is free, GT should be a no-brainer.<br>
Great school for your field and free! </p>
<p>“Explore” with summer jobs, study abroad, grad school. Duke would hardly be “exploring” if you live in Georgia now, anyway.</p>
<p>How so? It’s a new place with different people. GATech is practically a more difficult version of my high school considering most of the graduating class goes there. I’d rather not go back there lol</p>
<p>You would have a really good shot at Duke if you applied early decision. I think half the engineers at Duke end up not being engineers (they go to medical school or into finance), so you would be in good company if you’re exactly sure about being an engineer. You’re right about the mechanical program not being highly-ranked though, but those rankings tend to focus more on the graduate level, and the difference at the undergraduate level isn’t nearly as pronounced. For this reason, I think that it’s better to pick based on where you actually want to be than the strength of departments.</p>
<p>The Triangle area is hardly the typical south, and Duke students come from all over the world and the United States, so it might be more of an exploration than ThunderG suggests.</p>
<p>proace, My statement is largely based on my opinion that meeting new people is largely overrated as a reason to change geography. Having traveled around the country and the world most of my life I’ve found that, for the most part, people are very similar regardless of where they live. You are just meeting them for the first time. If there is some value in that to you, great. But for me, what I’ve found changes more than the type of people you meet when you move are sights, smells, sounds, and rhythm of life.</p>
<p>Not too much will change in these areas going from one ACC college to another between Georgia and NC. Similar weather, southern culture, college lifestyle, big sports, smart kids, lots of studying - especially in your chosen fields of study. The main difference between these two schools is city vs fairly rural feel to the two colleges. </p>
<p>As far as GT feeling like HS extended, this is a pretty common fear for most HS students, but I think it is overblown if you go to a large university. GT has about 20K students. Even if there are 2000 students in your HS and a third of them go to GT (I doubt it’s that high even at a top HS), that would still be less than 1000 of the 20000 students. There will be plenty of new folks to meet if that’s what you want. As a top Engineering school you can count on people from all over the country and world studying there. You can chose to stick with your HS classmates or branch completely off. Nice to have that choice.</p>
<p>My main point, though, was that for very few of those who not very wealthy, the $150k difference after 4 years would not be worth the opportunity to explore new areas/people when their are much cheaper ways to do that.</p>
<p>Just my thoughts. By the way, my son is also interested in engineering (Stanford dream school) and neither he nor I are interested in GT for him because he doesn’t like urban schools and the male - female ratio is poor for males. Just didn’t want you to think I was a GT booster by my comments.</p>
<p>No, I clearly understand your thoughts. The only difference between me and your son is that I wouldn’t mind an urban school (I think the NYC atmosphere at Columbia would be great). The male to female thing bothers me too, and though my strengths are in math and science, I couldn’t see myself as that stereotypical nerd that plays video games and is a recluse (I have seen this a lot at visits to Tech). I know I would excel there, but I am not sure my ideals match up with that of a tech school.</p>