Help! Which of these engineering programs is the most promising???

College Search & Selection
1

Hi guys,
Just finished hearing back from all of my schools and now it is time to decide. So I will list of the schools i have been admitted to (all for mechanical engineering) and I need some help picking the right school for me because I really don’t know much about any of these schools…

Northeastern: Admitted into the NUin program with a little financial aid
RPI
Santa Clara got some financial aid
UC Irvine
UIUC no FA
Purdue barely any financial aid
Villanova

Price is not my biggest concern but rather the best environment and how far the school will take me (career wise). I was leaning towards either Santa Clara or Purdue because Santa Clara is close to home and near Silicon Valley, and when I visited Purdue I liked it a lot. Is there any insight you guys can share on these two schools or share something enlightening about the other schools I was admitted for?? Thank YOU!!!

2

Any help would be appreciated

3

Price is not your biggest concern, but is it your parents’? In state UC vs OOS schools that will cost double? If you are getting FA in state, how can you afford full freight at OOS publics or privates that give you @ nothing?

4

Purdue is a great school for engineering. It’s a top 10 school, so if rankings are important to you, then I would say Purdue for sure. CA and IN are very different environments, so it might just come down to how you feel on each campus. I can only speak for Purdue, but West Lafayette is a small college town where everything is about Purdue. That’s something that I wanted when I looked at colleges, but it isn’t for everyone. Purdue also has a great sports atmosphere with a big emphasis on basketball and football, while SCU will have less of a sports vibe. One is a private Jesuit university, and the other is a large public school. It ultimately will come down to which school ticks off more of the things that you want in a college (but my vote is Purdue).

5

UIUC is ranked even higher than Purdue.

RPI is a highly ranked engineerig school that may give you benefit of better student to faculty ratio and more undergrad focus