Georgia Tech, Illinois, Purdue, or Maryland? (maybe michigan)

<p>I was fortunate enough to get into Georgia Tech, University of Illinois (urbana-Champaign), Purdue, and University of Maryland (college park) (all of them i got into the engineering program) and I was wondering which one would be the best choice.
I want to do Aerospace or Mechanical engineering and Georgia tech is ranked highest for both of those, but a lot of people say that those rankings dont really matter.
UMCP is my state school and it would be a lot cheaper. Are higher rankings worth paying more? because umcp has kind of a reputable engineering program.
i was also told that urbana is a much better college town than Atlanta and that students are genrally happier and more well rounded.</p>

<p>i got waitlisted from michigan, so i need a college to pay the deposit on so that i have somewhere to go if i dont get off the wait list</p>

<p>help!!!</p>

<p>Go to College Park,and save money.UMCP still one of the best for Aero:) Otherwise i would pick Gatech. Personally i had to choose between UIUC,GaTech,Umichigan,Utexas,purdue etc.I chose gatech cause was cheaper(i am out of state in all of them).
Hope that helped</p>

<p>As an AE student, ranking definitely matters in my opinion. I visited the career fair last September, and every AE company you can think of was there (Boeing, Gulfstream, NASA, GE, Pratt and Whitney, Sikorsky, Rolls Royce, Lockheed Martin, Space X, etc.). A lot of our professors are really well known in their field, and pull in a lot of money for research from industry and the government. </p>

<p>But…on that note, it really depends on how much everything costs relative to each other. If you’re going into more than say $70000 in debt after your undergraduate if you go to GT, you should go to somewhere else. Michigan and UIUC are fairly comparable for AE. </p>

<p>And on that note, you can defray a lot of your expenses/pay down debt at Georgia Tech. Students make about $8000-10000 per semester they intern or coop. You can become a peer leader or become an RA and get free housing (saving ~$10000 a year). You can TA classes and make money that way. And since you’re out of state, studying abroad at least once makes a lot of sense. For out of state students who study abroad, they pay in-state tuition that semester, saving them a significant amount of money even with other expenses (travel) added in.</p>

<p>georgia tech it is then
lakshmi sankar is the best!</p>