<p>I have been fortunate enough to gain acceptance into both of these schools. They are the two main option I am seriously considering at this point. I am a PA resident. My major is biomedical engineering. Tech is superior in engineering, especially BME. PSU is cheaper, but I don't know if it's enough to justify passing up an opportunity like Tech. From an outside perspective, which seems more attractive?</p>
<p>so how much cheaper is it, OP? do you like a good work/play or male/female balance?</p>
<p>I don’t mind about the balance. Tech is in the heart of Atlanta so I can deal with the gender inbalance on campus. It would be a little over 10k more per year. I don’t mind ~50k of debt coming out of school. I am confident that I can repay any debt relatively quickly.</p>
<p>If you go to GT, you’re not going to be going off campus. You’re going to be dating the people you did your homework with last night. It’s a pretty intense workload with not a whole lot of play. I’ve spent a lot of time playing at PSU, and they find a nice mix usually. Put that money on your first Tesla.</p>
<p>I don’t mind a heavy workload at all. i just don’t want it to be completely overbearing.</p>
<p>Did you attend Tech? How noticeable is the imbalance? From what I have read, there are two times as many guys as girls.</p>
<p>That’s right. One female for every two males. Sounds like nobody could be happy with that arrangement, and that’s what I hear about GT students. They grind their libido into labor. No, I didn’t go there. This is all hearsay.</p>
<p>My understanding is that PSU is not quite as good in engineering as GT, but is still really good. This I hear from my family members who went there and my uni colleagues. I’m hoping some other posters will get on here and give you a little less hearsay. I can quote rankings and such at you, but I don’t put much stock in them. I think one should go to a school one can more easily afford and one where the school enables the type of student you are to maximize their success. PSU has those kind of internship, career office, research office, and alumni network that can be really helpful to your career.</p>
<p>I am leaning towards State, but I would like to hear about campus life from current Tech students.</p>
<p>The difference in quality and career prospects don’t make it worth $50,000 in debt.</p>
<p>GT is not $50K of debt better than PSU, which is also a fine engineering school.</p>
<p>Campus life at Tech is good to great (if you like Atlanta, and I do). Lots of other Universities in town, and many Tech guys end up dating students at Emory, Agnes Scott, etc . Engineering will be time consuming, no matter the school.</p>
<p>You’ll most likely need a masters degree to work in the biomedical field (especially if your BS is in Biomedical Engineering). What’s your plans for grad school? That 50K you would save at PSU would be real handy for grad school (at GT?) or medical school. :)</p>
<p>Good Luck!</p>
<p>I was under the impression that Tech was significantly better for biomedical than State. I figured it would set me up for grad school pretty well. </p>
<p>Either way I will have to wait about a week until I get my aid package from Tech. The ~10k figure I mentioned earlier is based off of Tech’s NPC. </p>
<p>Actually, both schools will “set you up” the same… what will matter for grad school is what YOU do with your time there - will you establish a strong relationship with your professors so that they feel like inviting you to do research for them and will have things to say on letters of recommendation? (That means 1st and 2nd semester, writing down questions during the lecture and going to office hours to ask them, choosing the professor’s section if s/he leads one rather than the TA’s, participating whenever possible, etc.) Will you be among those who think they can just party every night and somehow have a 3.0 or will you know how to balance your time to keep a 3.3 GPA AND a 3.0+ engineering GPA (which means not blowing off your Writing class and choosing your electives carefully then taking them seriously)?
GPA, research, good letters of recommendation, and a good general curriculum that will help you get high GRE scores are what will matter - not whether your diploma is from Penn State or from GeorgiaTech.
If GTech is affordable WITHOUT LOANS and you like it better, by all means, go there. But it’s not worth 50k in debt.</p>
<p>Thanks for the opinion. I was under the impression that an engineering degree from Georgia Tech was significantly more beneficial than one from Penn State.</p>
<p>not at all, OP. In the eyes of the grad program, how you do is more important than where you go.</p>
<p>^Agreed with all the above. There’s no reason to pay that much more money to go to Tech. Penn State will get you where you want to go.</p>
<p>I have some friends who went to Tech (I’m from Atlanta) and their social lives varied. All of them were engineering majors. I had a friend who joined a sorority and was pretty active in it, but she was pretty work hard/play hard. I also had some friends who were nose-to-the-grindstone all the time. I think the Tech student body leans towards the latter; I went to college in Atlanta myself and was pretty active in the city’s college social scene, but while I often met Georgia State and even Emory students at citywide college parties I rarely if ever met a Tech student, lol.</p>
<p>No, it won’t make a difference to grad schools (or employers) whether you went to GTech or Penn State. Both are well recruited, both have excellent programs, both have good reputations. It’ll be far more important to graduate with as little debt as possible AND to take every advantage of what’s offered, than what the name on the degree states. Grades, internships, recommendations will be what matters.</p>
<p>Juliett, I once met a Tech student at Emory’s Dooley’s Ball. He said it was the first time he partied in a month…</p>
<p>Engineers simply can’t “party” as much as their peers. However, the most fun I ever had at a college party was at my cousin’s GT frat (the party had a “south pacific” theme, they had filled the basement with sand and fake palm trees). The night ended in a very competitive game of “buck buck”.</p>
<p><a href=“Buck buck - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_buck</a></p>
<p>Fat Albert had nothing on me! :-bd</p>
<p><a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube; </p>
<p>Of course soon after my cousin did get asked by GT to “take a break”(academics; couldn’t make it to a class that started before noon…). He would later get back into GT and has since married an Agnes Scott grad and has had a very successful career in engineering…but no more games of “Buck, Buck”. 
</p>