<p>Hi, i'm an Australian chinese. i've been accepted to carnegie mellon and michigan for engineering. i've done my homework so i know both a prestigious school, one's a large, public school and the other is private and significantly smaller. i'm still largely undecided so i'd like to get the input of alumni, attending students, parents, prospective students or whoever. the more information the better. feel free to post a feature or whatever is unique about the school here. </p>
<p>at the end of the day, i want to find out which school is a better fit for me. thanks.</p>
<p>Academically, those two schools are peers. Michigan is more well rounded, but CMU is more “intimate”. </p>
<p>Job placement and graduate school placement from those two schools will be roughly identical. CMU has an edge in Computer Engineering, the two schools are roughly equal in Electrical Engineering and Michigan has the edge in all the other fields of Engineering.</p>
<p>Socially, Michigan is livelier and more spirited. </p>
<p>From a personal perspective, I had a great time at Michigan.</p>
<p>Depends on major. Engineering classes would roughly be the same size. Classes in less popular majors (such as the Chemistry, Classics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics) will probably be slightly larger at intro-levels but smaller at intermediate and advancedlevels. For popular majors, such as Biology, Economics, English, History, Political Science and Psychology), classes will most likely be larger.</p>
<p>Overall, I would not worry too much about class size. Classes at Michigan will seldom be so large that the students will be negatively impacted.</p>
<p>I’d strongly recommend Michigan over CMU. CMU is primarily an engineering school, which reduces flexibility with other fields. Michigan has stellar Science, Math and Humanities departments. Almost all of them arguably comparable to HYPSM. If you are worried about class sizes, that shouldn’t be a problem, try to limit yourself to honors classes if you want really small classes. Socially, Michigan will be better since people are much nicer and a lot more open to help others. However, you are international and I don’t suppose international kids get financial aid at Michigan. Choose CMU only if money is a concern or else it’s Michigan all the Way. Go Blue!.</p>
<p>History is actually not a very popular concentration at UM, unless my year is an off one. I don’t remember the exact number, but I remember a friend of mine, who is a studying history, telling me that he was very surprised when he saw quite a short list of fellow junior history majors when he went in for an advising appointment.</p>
<p>Things may have changed. I took a couple of 300 level History classes back in my day and the classes had 50 or so students…much larger than my 300 level Physics and Philosophy classes, which generally had 10-15 students. Either way, classes in Michigan are always adequately sized.</p>
<p>this is probably the most common decision to be made for OOS engineering students. i think its an even split, i’m not sure what your financial situation is, but carnegie mellon is usually pretty stingy with financial aid, and sticker price is higher as well.</p>