<p>I'll be beginning my undergraduate education this coming fall, and am planning to major in Electrical and Computer Engineering. I have narrowed down the decision to RPI and Georgia Tech. I have visited both universities. I liked RPI, but absolutely loved Georgia Tech. I am out-of-state in both universities. I received a large merit scholarship from RPI, and before any loans, it would be about $8000 cheaper than GT, which is a lot- especially over four years. My parents have left the decision to me. I personally found Georgia Tech to be significantly better than RPI in almost all aspects, but finances are a pretty big factor as I do not want my parents to have to pay excessively. I do realize that both universities have strong Engineering programs.</p>
<p>What are everyone's thoughts? Is Georgia Tech's location, campus, prestige of Engineering program, connection to major companies, etc. worth the extra 8K a year?</p>
<p>Thank you in advance.</p>
<p>your parents are right, this does all come down to you. I would go to GT if I were you, money shouldn’t be a huge problem, especially because you are an engineering major you should be able to find a job relatively quickly out of college and start paying back any debts. Go to whichever school you like more which seems to be Georgia Tech</p>
<p>By no objective measure can anyone say that Georgia Tech is better than RPI for engineering. Clearly both are very strong programs. RPI is excellent and has a long standing reputation for a outstanding educational experience in engineering.</p>
<p>I’d go with RPI if I were you. Even with a high-paying job, less debt is better.</p>
<p>Picking RPI based on the fact that not ready for 500 person lectures… Georgia Tech is an awesome school though tops in most engineering disciplines. Just two different school/sizes… Both really tough schools but I think I wanted a little smaller school</p>
<p>Two very tippy top programs. Lots of brand new facilities at RPI.</p>
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<p>I think that it could be worth it if you are sure that you can emotionally handle the intense sink or swim at Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech has always had the reputation for being MIT-hard, but for admitting a lot of students who aren’t up to the challenge. As a result, there is a certain misery factor there and a lot of people attrit. If you can take it in stride, have a sense of humor, humility and even enjoy it, it could be fantastic. </p>
<p>That’s not a bad thing because people never know if they can handle it until they try, and some people will figure it out even if they didn’t have a great HS academic record, and some with a great HS record will be overwhelmed by the difficulty and be really uncomfortable with it. </p>
<p>That said, if you have good academic preparation, and are excited by the challenge, and a good attitude many people thrive there, and I work with some outstanding engineers who are graduates. </p>
<p>I think that if you do well there, it could very well be worth $8K/yr. I think Georgia Tech gets more national recruiting, though I’m sure RPI gets plenty, but also the sheer amount of cutting edge research going on at Georgia Tech is enormous and there could be a lot of opportunity. </p>
<p>Plenty of nationally known companies send recruiters to RPI.</p>