<p>I am an engineering manager in one of the top EE design companies in the world. I’ve hired 5 top students from GaTech, all of them are top notch. That’s one of they main reasons why our son applied to GaTech, together with MIT, CalTech and other of the Top engineering schools in the nation.
GaTech hands down.</p>
<p>I decided on Tech before hearing from RPI for a quite a few reasons.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I preferred Tech’s larger campus and overall “big university” feel.</p></li>
<li><p>Tech has Division 1 athletic teams and competes in the ACC (for most sports). This makes for some great football games. </p></li>
<li><p>Location in midtown Atlanta makes Tech a hotspot for company recruiters (I heard there is a 3-year waitlist for companies to be a part of the career fair).</p></li>
<li><p>Nationally ranked CS program that has attracts companies from all across the nation.</p></li>
<li><p>A recreation center ranked #1 by Princeton Review and home of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.</p></li>
<li><p>A plethora of research opportunities and world-class facilities (there are some duds like the Howey Physics Building, but overall, campus buildings are modern and packed with technology). </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Examples (just Google):
Klaus Advanced Computing Building
Biomedical Engineering Complex
College of Management
Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons opened in August 2011.</p></li>
<li><p>Waffle House.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Some shortcomings you may want to consider:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Freshman dorms are far from spectacular.</p></li>
<li><p>Tech shares its campus with Atlanta, so you need to take some safety precautions and use common sense (ie. don’t walk around alone after 12).</p></li>
<li><p>Male to female ratio is 62% men, 38% women, though I would guess RPI’s is similar.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Propane - all good reasons to attend GT. While RPI has an excellent engineering program it’s probably best for those who really want to attend a smaller university. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say anything particularly good about Troy…most students spend most of their time on campus. As to GT point #3 - the career fair waiting list - IMO this is mostly a marketing ploy, i.e., creating artificial scarcity for a interview slots. The fact is that GT could eliminate that waiting list right away if it wanted to simply by adding a day to the recruiting fair.</p>
<p>I feel like I should point out in response that between Day 1 and 2 of the GT career fair, there were 336 booths, with not terribly much overlap between the two days. Adding another day to the career fair wouldn’t actually do much, as two days of that definitely can burn folks out. But I would hardly call that a marketing ploy. Most majors also have major-specific fairs; the ECE one was roughly 60 companies a day for two days, including Apple, Microsoft, Intel, GE, etc. Just a side note!</p>
<p>I won’t be too much help with comparing programs since I’m a liberal arts student but I looked into RPI and in the end, chose Tech. I’ve spent a good deal of time on GT’s campus and I just preferred the feel of it. One of the things I like is actually how much individual attention you get. Obviously, your son’s going to have big classes as a BME major but the professors are all required to hold office hours and there’s tutoring in Clough Commons and the freshman dorms. The advisers I’ve talked to have been great as well. Despite being a decent sized school, I feel like the campus is really friendly and there’s much more of a small school vibe. Just with the benefit of lots of clubs, good athletics and more research opportunities.</p>
<p>Can someone compare GT vs. RPI vs. WPI (Worcester)? My S. applied to those three.</p>
<p>ekb242 “Adding another day to the career fair wouldn’t actually do much, as two days of that definitely can burn folks out. But I would hardly call that a marketing ploy.”</p>
<p>OK - I was being a bit flippant. My point was that if GT wanted to eliminate the waiting list they could do so. The have options to get those companies on-site for interviews.</p>
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<p>I’d beg to differ here. Among my group of RPI friends (not an inordinately sized group, mind you) that decided to go to graduate school, I know of two now at Brown, two at NYU/Courant (top ranked school at their field – applied math – for what that’s worth), one at Princeton, one at Stanford, one who overlooked rankings to pass over a multi-year fellowship at Cornell for opportunities elsewhere, among other students at some other very renowned places. Among those who went into industry, I know 3 at Apple, one at Raytheon, one at the NSA, etc.</p>
<p>My experience seems to suggest that at the high end, students from both universities can have wonderful opportunities upon completion of their degree.</p>
<p>
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<p>You can use one-off examples to prove anything. I could point to a couple of college-dropout billionaires and claim that college dropouts and graduates have the same opportunities, but we know at an aggregate level that’s just not true. </p>
<p>You can go to any college and succeed or fail, that’s not being questioned. There’s uncertainty in predicting the future, so all you can do is look at the path that puts you in the most likely place to succeed.</p>
<p>RPI is a fine school, no doubt about it. But it doesn’t have the same companies, recruiters, and high prestige employers coming to campus as GT. So if you had to make an unbiased determination as to which places a student in a better position, you have to go with GT.</p>
<p>To put it another way, I know someone hired directly out of GT to work at Goldman Sachs. I also know someone hired directly out of Harvard to work at Goldman Sachs. At first blush, I could say the schools put people in the same position and are equal. But when you look closer, based on my estimate from their interview blocks, GS hired roughly 5% of GT applicants and 30% of Harvard applicants. While you might end up in the same position from being at either school, I’d rather be a Harvard applicant than a GT applicant.</p>
<p>ive been admitted to tech and decided against rpi because it wasnt a good fit. You honestly couldnt go wrong with either choice. (both offer top engineering programs and are highly regarded enineering schools) Something to consider though(and this is probably not a huge problem)is that rpi over the last few years has been getting worse in the rankings both overall and in engineering. Even though you are only supposed to take rankings with a grain of salt I think they can still be helpful tools in determining where a school stands.(GT has stayed towards the top) Also RPI is very well respected in the northeast so if thats where you want to work then you certainly wouldnt be losing anything in choosing rpi.(GT is well known pretty much everywhere at least by employers) The way I look at it, and take this with a grain of salt, is if you want to go big(not talking about student population size) then go to engineering schools like ut-austin, gt, illinois, michigan, stanford, berkeley, mit etc and if you want to go local then go to schools like rpi, wpi, umd-cp etc. In terms of education quality im sure that gt and rpi are very similar, youll probably only start to see a difference when you consider networking and connections(which gt from what I hear wins by quite a bit) But as long you get the job that you want how much wld the connections really matter after all? hope this helped (my arguement is a bit biased towards gt but hey it is on the georgia tech forum after all lol)</p>
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<p>And you can claim things without any background knowledge. I’m listing about 40% of the people I hung out with (actually, I realized earlier I totally forgot about one, my suite-mate, who <em>did</em> go to Cornell). I wouldn’t call this one-off.</p>
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<p>I’m not saying this isn’t true. I just haven’t seen evidence of a significant difference between the two schools (at least among the subjects RPI focuses on – finance might be a completely different story (though I did once get a nice big parcel of freebies from Jane Street one time ^^)). To be fair, I haven’t really looked anywhere besides the Northeast, DC, and California… perhaps things are different in the South or Midwest.</p>
<p>1214 mom, GT (#2) and RPI aren’t in the same league for BME. At either school your son needs to find the right mentor and research project (sophomore/junior year). </p>
<p>Having said this, distance can be a huge determinant in choosing a school. It’s a good thing to be able to drive and eye-ball your kid occasionally. As you know, college is tough on a lot of fronts even when the kid is a superior student. As a parent, I’d have to say that unless your kid is particularly mature (probably not a first born or only), a close, smaller school is better.</p>
<p>My son just accepted RPI. GT and RPI are both great schools but RPI seems like better fit for him. smaller classes, easier access to people, less bureaucracy than at a large state school were all impt. For us.</p>
<p>1214mom – congrats to you and your son. Both are good colleges – in the end, there is no wrong choice. Most important, your son should feel more comfortable and not get swayed by ranking and hype.</p>
<p>Propane, you forgot:</p>
<ol>
<li>The Greasy V.</li>
</ol>
<p>Wait…on the USNews list UMD is rated much higher than RPI. While this discussion is about GIT vs. RPI - GIT is #10, UMD is #14 and RPI is #47. How does one explain that?</p>
<p>At the end of the day it came down to fit and money. Georgia Tech would have been more expensive, and RPI was the best fit overall. UMD would have been MUCH cheaper, and if you just look at the rankings one could argue better, but RPI is a smaller school with smaller classes, and when he visited he was more engaged there than at the other schools. He can always transfer if it doesn’t work out, but we are both very happy with his choice.</p>
<p>HI 1214mom, i see your reasoning. I am going to see RPI with my son next month. Would you be open to sharing a little more about your admissions experience outside this forum?</p>
<p>Sure, you can private message me if you would like. I think I just responded to a question you had about RPI vs UMD also.</p>
<p>As a rising RPI senior, congratulations on your son’s acceptance. </p>
<p>I just stumbled upon this discussion while doing some research and thought I would share my thoughts.</p>
<p>My freshman year here at RPI I had a great time with some doubts about my choice of schools. I was contemplating transferring during my first semester and my schools of interest for the transfer were Georgia Tech, Michigan, and Stevens. While Stevens did not have my particular engineering discipline, it was closer to home as I am from New Jersey.
By the end of my first semester I had solidified a stronger friendship and found a great group of people and had realized that I truly had made the right decision. </p>
<p>RPI does a very nice job introducing freshman to the campus and the Freshman, and Sophomore Year Experience programs do indeed create a lot of friendships. </p>
<p>While we may not have the best ranking according to websites and the media, the school has a great deal to offer. The class sizes truly are a major positive. The lab facilities, the outstanding research going on, there really is a great deal of opportunities. </p>
<p>There are also a tremendous amounts of activities and clubs. I play and referee intramural Ice Hockey and always enjoy the lower level intramural teams play which are composed of groups of friends who have never played ice hockey before getting together for the chance to have fun and play the game. </p>
<p>If you or your son have any questions feel free to message me and I would be happy to answer. </p>
<p>Once again congratulations!</p>