hi everyone, since i’ve been admitted to both University of illinois at urbana champaign and georgia tech, (both electrical engineering major). which school should i attend? everything seems soo good with UIUC, but it’s further away from home, chapel hill north carolina. and the weather sucks there, and it’s a big party school which i don’t tend to like. However, ga tech has a well-known reputation here in the south which is where i wanna settle. but the students review about the school have been horrible and they have a lot of foreign professors whose “education background” ain’t as competitive as uiuc. so… please. someone tell me where should I choose?, please do not use the ranking as a determing factor. thanks
<p>On a personal note - do NOT believe everything you read like the web site you mentioned above. Only a miniscule amount of people post compared to thousands & thousands of people there. It would be more believable if thousands of people posted. I don't know why, but you will find that most people who post on the site mentioned above complain or are unhappy (how do only these students find this site?). </p>
<p>You need to visit both of these campuses and see which campus you feel most comfortable at. I would recommend that you spend at least two days (now I'm not recommending this to everyone for every college they want to attend - just this case since it is only a choice between two colleges) to walk around the campus, schedule classroom visits, etc. Ask the students at each campus how many of their classes are taught by TA's or foreign speaking teachers. Go to the cafeteria & sit down next to a group of students - every time my son & I did this they were more than happy to answer these questions. </p>
<p>Remember, college is what YOU make of it! There is no perfect college/university anywhere. I think that if you want to settle in the south though that maybe Georgia Tech would be a better fit for you. Good luck to you with your decision.</p>
<p>I'd echo mominshearch's comments about visiting and seeing which is right for you. Everyone sees the world thru their own filter, and in the end you don't want to make a decision like this just on other people's judgement of the school.</p>
<p>Also would lean away from any school you wouldn't go to if you weren't an engineer. Why? Stats show that 2 out of 3 EE students quit before graduation! See the trade newspaper, <a href="http://www.eetimes.com/issue/fp/OEG20020712S0041%5B/url%5D">http://www.eetimes.com/issue/fp/OEG20020712S0041</a>. I'm sure this ratio is better at some schools (which of course means it must be worse at others), but it should be something that sticks in your mind. You know the line in that old movie, Paper Chase, where the grizzled prof says "look to the left, look to the right, one of you won't be here next year?". In engineering, make that "look to the left, look to the right, only one of you will make it thru EE!"</p>
<p>BTW I'm a bit concerned by your comment "please. someone tell me where should I choose?". This is a tough decision, but its your decision. Part of the price of adulthood is making hard decisions without complete information, and running the risk that in retrospect you might not have made the best choice. That's just the way the game works.</p>
<p>Anyway, engineers are supposed to be methodical and rational in approaching problems. So why not draw up a list of all the factors you can think of that go into making the decision, good and bad, and then list them and give each school a score on that factor. Looking at your chart you might see that one choice dominates the other.</p>
<p>mikemac - VERY good point. My son decided in December that he wanted to change his major (which was only available at one of the colleges he applied to). OMG - nothing like scrambling at the last minute to fill out more forms, do more essays, etc. I know that when my next son starts looking we will certainly make sure that the schools he selects offer most majors. I too have heard that most students do not end up in the major they choose at the start of college.</p>
<p>I am headed to the west coast. Cal Poly was my first choice over U of I and Bradley.</p>
<p>hey crazyforee, i live in chapel hill too. what school do you go to? i go to echhs... i'm going to laugh if we know each other. i saw someone else using this site the other day at school so i checked it out. btw- U of I is a better school, but for your specific major maybe gtech would be better... i can ask my parents. they both went to illinois for grad school.</p>