Gonna CRAZY!! UIUC vs PSU vs UTA vs Drexel vs OSU!! HELP!!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Drexel University
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<p>Since May 1st is coming and I haven’t got my final decision, I turn to CC for help~PLZ!
PLZ help me to select the best-fit school!</p>

<p>I wanna know more about these schools from people who are studying in/graduadated from these schools, only then I can fully know the pros and cons of them, instead of browsing the schools’ pages, u know, only good things flourish.</p>

<p>I picked up these schools after full consideration:</p>

<p>---->University of Illinois at Urbarna-Champaign
---->Penn State University
---->University of Texas at Austin
---->Ohio State University ($6600 Scholarship + Honor Program)
---->Drexel University ($20000 Scholarship)</p>

<p>Waitlist:
---->Washington University in St.Louis (Accept the WL or not??)
---->University of Michigan ( I like it except the weather, terrible)</p>

<hr>

<p>And below come with some of my requirements of schools (huh…)</p>

<li><p>FAMOUS
I’m an international student. well.
So I want my school to be very famous, at least nationwide.</p></li>
<li><p>LOCATION
big city will be the best choice, but it doesn’t matter if the surroundings are convenient, well-accommodated, entertaining etc.
I come from a city with millions of people. :)</p></li>
<li><p>MAJOR
I love business-related majors, such as Finance, Actuarial Science, management
and I am also interested in social sciences and engineering.
So my school had better be well-rounded. ( and I can LEARN in its business school besides its fame)</p></li>
<li><p>CLASS
I hate classes with hundreds of people, or even thousands of people.
and I hate classes which usually the TAs teach instead of professors.</p></li>
<li><p>TRANSFER
Weird/Hard Transfer Policy? I hope not, I plan to transfer to California/Boston after my freshman year. So I expect the freshman year won’t be EXTREMELY hard for me to get a satisfying GPA</p></li>
<li><p>SCHOOL
Racial Discrimination?
Unhelpful Faculty?
Unfriendly Student?
lol…nobody likes it</p></li>
</ol>

<hr>

<p>I like UIUC for it being famous nationwide esp the engineering, but its location and business quality are what matters ( hundreds of people crowd in one class, TA </p>

<p>I like PSU for my uncle, who lives in Pennsylvania right now, strongly recommends it to me, but I hear that it is a party school…student unfriendly and likes drinking, not so good for study?)</p>

<p>I like UTA the most for its great location (intern opportunities? ) and its great business school ( I am not admitted to the business honor program, sigh, could I apply for it after enrollment?) , but discrimination…well</p>

<p>I like OSU, the scholarship and the honor program</p>

<p>I like Drexel, mainly for the scholarship ( does Drexel have the policy that share credits with Upenn?)</p>

<hr>

<p>To choose a school is pretty hard.
Both have their own pros and cons. and I don’t know too much about schools except what they have offered in their web pages. So I really really needs your help.</p>

<p>THANKS A LOT!!!</p>

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<p>myhay, you have asked a lot of great questions and it would take me a lot of time and detail to give you the full blow answer on everything, however i’ll try to highlight it all for you hear. Make sure you read all the posts here on the Drexel forum to get a better understanding of how drexel is.

  1. Of those schools you named, all of them are very very good schools, and all have very good name recognition in the United States.
  2. Also of those schools you named, Drexel is the one in the biggest city and biggest metropolitan area with a lot of great resources for business firms.
  3. I will tell you right now, this is the best advice you should take away from this board. Drexel has your “perfect” major that you described and its called Business and Engineering. Its exactly what you described on the dot. A heavy emphasis on management, social sciences, engineering, general business, and you can declare a finance concentration to go along with that. Very few schools have an integrated business and engineering program like Drexel. Read more about it on this post: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/drexel-university/680451-drexels-business-engineering-major-unique-prestigious.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/drexel-university/680451-drexels-business-engineering-major-unique-prestigious.html&lt;/a&gt;
    (just so you know, many B&E graduates go on to become high paid actuaries)
  4. This is a very common misconception for college in general, a lot of people ask for a faculty to student ratio, or ask who teaches a class, and how many students there are in it. Most colleges will have both lectures and recitations for the certain subjects, and small classes for other certain subjects. Overall though, I am very satisfied with the professors and class sizes at Drexel, at least for the Business and Engineering Major.
  5. This is interesting that you want to use these schools as a stepping stone. There’s nothing wrong with thinking about it and keeping your options open, just be cautious, you may end up liking a college a lot more than you planned.
  6. I’ve never seen any racial discrimination here, 98% of faculty at drexel are helpful (of course there are a few exceptions, just like every college, although i personally have not run into them), and most students are friendlier than you can get, especially for international students where you’d feel just as much at home than someone from philadelphia… trust me on this one.</p>

<p>Again, read the posts that have already been posted for a better idea on the questions you asked, and make sure to look into the advantages of Drexel’s co-op program, which is one of the main reasons students come here. If you need anything else explained in more detail, feel free to ask.</p>

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<p>Thanks Zackdudde! your posts are always helpful
I’ll check the posts here for a better idea
I thinks Drexel is great except it’s not famous as my relatives in philly even couldn’t give me any comment on Drexel, they’ve never heard about it!</p>

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<p>myhay, that is bizzare. No offense to you or your relatives, but they have to be living in a cave. Drexel is always on the news all the time and I’d put my life that everyone in Philadelphia at least knows what Drexel is. It’s a huge school and its an integral part of Philadelphia and its economy. last year we hosted a presidential debate. i was just down at a conference in DC last week and met people who were from california or all over the world and they all knew of drexel as a very good school.</p>

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<p>My relatives live just around Temple University well, that’s really bizzare
by the way one of my friends, who is also admitted by Drexel, didn’t choose Drexel (he wanna transfer too) because the freshman year in Drexel has 3 semesters(or quarters?), which, he said, will not be good for transfer for he will loose many credits for the 3 semesters while other schools only have 2 semester/year
is it true??? ( i’m not sure he refers to semester / quarter)</p>

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<p>Famous is not the term you’re looking for.</p>

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<p>correct, famous is not the word you’re looking for. Myhay, I’m wondering the reason you’d like to transfer so bad to either boston or california. The best reasons that make Drexel as great as it is are the resources you have available for you mostly as an upperclassman (eg: co-op opportunities, study abroad, leadership positions in student orgs, etc) I know many people who successfully transfered out of Drexel with no problem at all, but it mostly depends on the actual school you want to transfer into. Some schools hardly take any credit at all from any schools, while others take most credit from everywhere. It also depends if your transferring to the same major, or something totally different. Also, if you come into drexel knowing you’d want to transfer out immediately, your less likely to get involved in student life, and other things which would contribute to you probably having a less satisfying time.</p>

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<p>oh, I catch your point.
actually i’m not sure to transfer after freshman year, I’m just loving California while my mom wants me to stay in Boston, which she thinks the best place for study and fun. So I wanna pick up the most pleasing school right now, but also make plans for my transfer if I really wanna transfer one day in the future, who knows.</p>

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<p>lol
taisha deploys us here myhay … i dont think talking about transfer even before your orientation is welcome. but zack wouldn’t mind, would he? actually i’m just asking the same question to zack, is there a possibility that me and somebody form a team and ace in contests like ibm or intel or math modeling, and then transfer somewhere else but leave the trophies to drexel? i think it’s a pareto improvement and drexel is well off too.
anyhow i need the stipend and qualification from those contests to support a transfer. so zack - would u pls tell me about the competition records and traditions that drexel holds? i mean mathematical or scientific, not athletic.</p>

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<p>myhay, why didn’t you apply to a boston or california school in the first place.
both of you are kind of missing the point here.</p>

<p>eugens: Asking about the competition records drexel holds in math and science is like asking an employee at home depot to name all the products in a certain section. We win prestigious competitions all the time. Going to google news this morning and typing in Drexel, the first result returns this: [Drexel</a> places in eco-friendly engineering races - News](<a href=“http://media.www.thetriangle.org/media/storage/paper689/news/2009/04/24/News/Drexel.Places.In.EcoFriendly.Engineering.Races-3725567.shtml]Drexel”>http://media.www.thetriangle.org/media/storage/paper689/news/2009/04/24/News/Drexel.Places.In.EcoFriendly.Engineering.Races-3725567.shtml)</p>

<p>Drexel itself develops hundreds of patents, receives millions upon millions of dollars in research grants, and discovers a wide variety of new things in mathematics and science every year.</p>

<p>So lets give a situation where a smart student comes into Drexel, and is a real hot runner as a freshman, gets good grades, and rises up in a club or competition he’s on to place nationally at a prestigious competition. Maybe with that background he might be able to even transfer into MIT, however, by transferring into MIT you’re actually lowering yourself down in a way. All of a sudden you go from a big player at drexel with resources all around you, connections and great co-op jobs, scholarships, and more awards coming each day to just a nobody at MIT where you have to build yourself up again in a different environment. I’ve known nobody who was such a hotrunner that they transferred out of Drexel for that reason, it’s the opposite. So is it possible what you mentioned, yes. Would you be a little crazy to end a life that’s already taking you sky high to success? yes. I’m not sure who taught you about Pareto efficiency, but it certainly won’t be that. Drexel loses a successful student, and they don’t get your tuition and support for the following years, and you yourself lose a lot of implicit benefits that you’ve built up. Drexel makes an investment into the students it admits into their college and the only way to get students back who transfer out is those who transfer in. If Drexel (or any other university for that matter) had a magical 8-ball that could tell them which students would transfer out of college they would most certainly only accept the ones that would stay here, regardless of whether they do well at a competition freshman year (unless it’s like the nobel prize).</p>

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<p>lol zack
u’ll make an obama in 20 years i assure u that</p>

<p>yes - u were right. we should make our decisions on a reasonable basis. thanks for the feedback - they are really helpful</p>

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<p>Glad to see the Drexel forum still alive! ha.</p>

<p>Anyway, myhay, you may want to consider Northeastern University. It is basically Drexel located in Boston. In fact, they are on the quarter system so transferring from Drexel wouldn’t be much of a problem. Drexel also just started the Sacramento campus, so going to California may be an option in the near future.</p>

<p>I was in the same boat with transferring freshman year…I switched from Mechanical Engineering to Finance, and wanted to go to a school in NYC or Boston. In the end, I was accepted to a couple of schools but decided to stay. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Drexel. 3 co-ops, 1 summer internship and current summer job (graduated) have lead me to my fulltime job in October in high finance. It dosen’t matter which school you go to in the list you have…what will matter is how you utilize the resources at the given schools, and your determination and motivation.</p>

<p>Similar to Zackdudde, my friends and including me, have great jobs lined up in Finance while I know some at Wharton struggling to find equal jobs and are considering getting an MBA instead.</p>