<p>I need some help deciding between these three schools.</p>
<p>I want to major in both international relations/political science and civil engineering. For Cal, I was accepted to the College of Letters and Science as a spring admit. For CMU, I'm accepted to Humanities and Social Sciences and waitlisted at CIT. For Tufts, I applied to the Liberal Arts college.</p>
<p>Basically, my top concerns are:
- Whether I'll be able to do the double major
- How friendly/collaborative/helpful students are
- Access to professors for help with classes</p>
<p>Without doing the research I am 99% certain.</p>
<p>That at all three schools:</p>
<p>You can double major – probably even dual degree.
Most students are friendly, collaborative and helpful. A minority are jeks.
All professors have office hours and are accessable if you seek them out. You will find adequate help with your classes wherever you go. (on this last point – it may be that the smaller the school (i.e., Tufts), the easier the access is, but I’m not sure about this.</p>
<p>Now – all three schools are excellent. They are in different parts of the country, are different sizes and have different feels to them. You won’t go wrong at any of these schools.</p>
<p>Not seeing the fit at CMU, which is primarily a eng/tech school. Yes, they have other liberal arts courses, but you might as well attend UPitt instead; likely on scholarship.</p>
<p>For ir, Tufts is the easy choice. But you really need to decide what type of environment you want for four years. Big, public Uni with D1 sports (and school spirit). Medium-sized private Uni, with little interest in sports?</p>
<p>With your interests, I’d narrow down the choice to Berkeley and Tufts, and my own advice would be Tufts. While certainly not as big as Cal, it would still offer you a name-brand education without the crowds/huge classes/difficulty in getting courses you will encounter today at Berkeley. Tufts has a world-class IR department, and, as a private school, its professors are especially student-friendly. And while Tufts’ location isn’t as interesting as Berkeley, you’re only a short ride away from Boston - a great student town from which you can take public transportation to such exciting cities as New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC. </p>
<p>And I say all this as a Berkeley grad. So you know I’m being objective here!</p>