Trying to help child decided which school to attend. Which is better for mechanical engineering? Why attend one over the other? Is there a significant difference in the education you receive from one over the other?
I think it very much depends on what the student is interested in. Columbia has many more out of college requirements because of their core curriculum. Some students love that, others hate it. GT has a very well supported co-op program and has a lot of focus on career readiness. I would recommend your student do a deep dive on the 4 year plan of study at both schools and see what resonates.
Both are great schools so no wrong answer.
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Here is how I would approach it…
Is you child firm in desiring a career as a Mechanical Engineer? Then GT.
Do you think you child might want to branch out into something else? Perhaps a Quant role in Finance? Then Columbia.
You really can’t go wrong wither way.
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Which is more cost effective. With these two choices I wouldn’t spend more then needed for the degree. Congrats on these choices.
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To illustrate fladadK4Q’s point, you can view a school’s alumni on LinkedIn. It’s a good way to get a sense of where alumni live and work and in what roles.
A quick search/sort of Mechanical engineers alumni show the following:
1,227 Engineering
799 Business Development
528 Operations
445 Research
382 Information Technology
7,907 Engineering
3,221 Operations
2,772 Business Development
1,930 Information Technology
1,693 Research
Looking at the ratio’s, you can see Columbia grads have more of a tendency to go into Business Development, while GT grads tend more to Engineering (though both go into all fields).
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Great use of Linked in 
Both are great schools for engineering.
They do have very different student experiences. It’s a private university in NY vs a public university in Atlanta. You may want to dig more into it. Some kids are a better fit at one vs the other.
Of course cost may be a factor. A lot of us “engineers” are public university grads and naturally do cost vs benefit analyses. But cost is subjective based on the child’s family situation, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Columbia’s cost with finacial aid isn’t that much more than GT’s cost for out of state with no aid. (but still, please try to keep debt to a minimum!).
Very good point about the number of mechanical engineers graduated by Georgia Tech. I have an entering freshman mechanical engineer and when we went to admitted students day they said that they have roughly 1800 undergraduate mechanical engineers. Their plan is to expand to 2000 in the near future as they acquire more classroom space. They have one of the largest undergraduate mechanical engineering programs in the country.
If you listen to rankings, Georgia Tech is the number two undergraduate mechanical engineering school in the country and their resources reflect that. MIT is number one, but graduates many fewer mechanical engineers than GT, as the professor doing the presentation cheerfully pointed out :-).
Also, compare the curriculum of the two schools. Columbia’s core curriculum is unique and a “love it or hate it” situation for many engineers.
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Ok, thanks for all the info. It’s been very helpful. We’ll look more closely at the curriculum. Child recently starting to waffle about what she wants to do. Is getting classes at Georgia tech difficult because of the number of students?