<p>If you're to advise an affluent (rich) International Student who (assuming) got into Duke engineering as well as Berkeley engineering, Cornell engineering and CMU engineering, which school would you recommend?</p>
<p>What major? CMU is really only great at computer science.</p>
<p>^^^ Untrue, they have an excellent art program as well.</p>
<p>yeah, I know, but this guy is obviously going to major in a technical area.</p>
<p>The kid was applying for electrical and computer engineering. He’s not particular to school size and he’s open to everything. The kid loves math but he’s sure he wants to be an engineer.</p>
<p>Well, I would choose Cornell, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>Berkeley is probably the most reputable program in both EE and CS with the highest degree of rigor and faculty strength. But it’s also something of a meat grinder and is not known for undergraduate teaching. If you get in as an international student, you probably will be at least in the upper half of your class in terms of ability, so it may be ok. But Berkeley can be brutal and there are no safety nets. My feeling is that it’s something like MIT where students are expected to do a lot of the learning on their own, but Berkeley I think cares less about their undergrads.</p>
<p>Cornell has the most reputable engineering program in the ivy league. Engineering programs at ivies tend to be a little bit better than their rating (in terms of rigor) and attract better students just because of their ivy status. I’ve heard people complain of the Northeast cutthroat culture, but I don’t know if that’s true in the engineering school. It’s not a handholding place either, but it’s not as bad as Berkeley. I know their chem E program is outstanding; several of my chem E profs came from Cornell undergrad; I’d expect their electrical engineering program to be good too. I have no idea about computer science.</p>
<p>I know a person who went to Duke for Electrical Engineering & Computer Science for undergrad and she had nothing but good things to say about it. She is now a faculty member in EECS. It’s probably the most nurturing place to study out of all of your friend’s choices. Duke is a great school overall, and like ivies they tend to attract a higher caliber student than a state school with the same grad school rating. The strength of Duke engineering is biomedical engineering, so a lot of the faculty interests will be slanted toward this. </p>
<p>CMU – Their comp sci. program is #2 only to MIT. Also, their program is more applied than other programs in my experience (though I’m sure you can get as theoretical as you want.) Probably a lot less flexibility there in comp sci. due to course requirements. I don’t know about EE, but I imagine it’s probably pretty good. </p>
<p>It depends on how much your friend is slanted toward CS, and how much they want to explore academic-type work in CS (like artificial intelligence or something).
Also, at most places CS and EE are separate majors. You should explore this at well. </p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>I mean, I would say that it doesn’t matter because you’re not going to MIT :P</p>
<p>But seriously, between all of those schools, the prestige of the program really isn’t that big of a deal (I think they’re all about on par). I think that Berkeley’s program is probably the most well-regarded out of those that you’ve mentioned (Duke is more BME, and I think Cornell is more civil engineering / agricultural stuff). At CMU, though, you know that the engineering school and the school of computer science are separate, right? I hear it is very difficult to register for classes in the CS school if you’re not actually a CS major.</p>
<p>I would probably go to CMU, because I wouldn’t want to go to a big state school, and also going to a private university will afford you more flexibility in terms of what you can and can’t register for. But, that’s just me, and I also loved CMU when I visited. Duke and Berkeley definitely have better weather, though.</p>
<p>^I know Cornell is #8 in physics, so I imagine that they are good at EE too since that is related.</p>
<p>I mean, Ithaca is also in the middle of nowhere and it’s cold. I remember trying to visit and the flights were ridiculous - tons of layovers because the airport is so small. But if the OP doesn’t give us anything else to go on, we’re just stereotyping anyway :P</p>
<p>I eliminated some colleges on my list for silly reasons, I guess, but MIT was totally the right decision so it all turned out ok :)</p>
<p>Yes, it really is hard to get to Ithaca. And the weather can be brutal. I know in the 1980s there was not a lot of housing, and the sophomore I knew had to move out the dorms, into off-campus apartment. CMU seems to have a lot of on campus dorms.</p>
<p>I would pick Berkeley in a heartbeat. Internationally only MIT is better known for CS. </p>
<p>As an international graduate student coming to the US in the late 70s to study CS I had only heard of MIT, Stanford and Berkeley. I opted for MIT and loved Boston. I then moved to San Francisco where I lived for 20 years after that. You simply can’t beat the quality of life in the Bay Area. The Berkeley campus is gorgeous, the city is a great college town, the food is fantastic, the international community is huge and you can’t beat the weather. You are 3 hours away from great skiing, you can drive to LA on weekends, play golf at Pebble!</p>
<p>Since your friend has the means he could rent an apartment in San Fran and take the Ferry or BART to class in the morning. There are also great places to live right off campus in the Berkeley hills. Great view and no fog!</p>
<p>The kid will graduate from an extremely competitive special science high school in his country and he will graduate in the top 10. He does have any particular liking or preference at this point in time. He does not care about the size of the school. What he cares about is the academics and the strength of the engineering program. He has impressive stats, excellent ECs, football varsity, math club president, and his parents are very wealthy.</p>
<p>If ever he’ll get into Berkeley and enroll, he will be the first from his high school in the last 10 years. Historically, their top students attend MIT or Harvard. (There are probably about 20 from his high school at MIT now.) This is the first time that a kid who belong to the very top of the graduating batch is very interested in Berkeley. I’m biased to Berkeley that’s why I’m not giving him a personal advice. I’m sure MIT students aren’t, or not as much as I am. :)</p>
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He may not care as far as school spirit/sports/social opportunities goes, which is fine, but he should absolutely think about the size of a school with respect to the opportunities available to each student.</p>
<p>I agree with collegealum that Berkeley has a fabulous program, and that your friend would likely be fine ability-wise, but going to a school that large often means that there’s very little in the way of a safety net if a student does struggle. If I were coming to the US as an international student, I would want to go to a great program, but one that wouldn’t leave me out in the cold if I had struggles transitioning to college/to the US.</p>
<p>Having a successful academic experience in college, and possibly getting into a top graduate program or getting a good job, is not all about what you learn in class and how well you do on the tests. It’s about the resources the department has to offer in terms of things like undergraduate research or design projects, and about how close you are with professors who can write you stellar recommendation letters, and how much support the department/school can offer you if you have a bad semester or two. Those factors tend to change with the size of a school, and with how much money the school has.</p>
<p>Let me make a few comments from my experience…</p>
<p>In a large school, the size of the overall student body is slightly irrelevant, and one must look to the specific discipline of concern. My many acquaintances in engineering seem not to be worried about the class sizes much, and have been able to find projects to work on. Granted, I will mention my acquaintances are also some of the more talented engineers. As for getting into graduate school, the one international I know well who graduated is now at MIT grad school for EE, and graduated in 3 years, doing plenty of research in his third year. </p>
<p>On the flip side, to Mollie’s chagrin perhaps, biology is overpopulated, and class sizes can be ridiculous even in the higher levels. I don’t think the school I attend is great for premed students, and sounds like a competitive snake-pit. That is not the sort of atmosphere I would like to learn in. I have been fortunate enough never to have to worry about getting into a class I want. </p>
<p>As for money, I can suggest that the engineering and math offerings are probably significantly less affected than certain other ones. </p>
<p>Perhaps some of this will help. I will say that Berkeley is definitely not a place where undergraduate teaching is particularly emphasized, but someone who makes the effort to know the faculty in math and engineering will be able to. The engineering classes are run in a very rigorous fashion, and the professors can expect a lot. Also, one can always seek out the good ones – usually how it works in EECS for instance is that when someone good is teaching a certain class, every friend I have will be in that class. I think this happened with the artificial intelligence course for instance. Also, in all this I’m mentioning math because the student in question apparently likes it to an extent too.</p>
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<p>I think that Cedardweller is right on the money. </p>
<p>Quality of life in the Bay Area. Napa Valley one weekend, Pebble Beach the other. Skiing in Lake Tahoe or visit the beaches of South California? No problem. Wanting to explore Las Vegas or Palm Springs? No problem. Want to spend some time with the new and old guards of Silicon Valley? No problem. </p>
<p>Ah, the difference that having wealthy parents cam make. How quickly the NOT so wonderful life of a student at Cal can become a paradise for the one who does not need to care about impacted majors, difficulty of graduating on time, difficulty of locating decent lodging for 4 years, and other “minor” problems. To make it even better for a rich FOREIGNER is that it should be cinch to develop relationships with most of the instructors … as many will be foreigners who could use a little boost in the wallet. It should be pretty attractive for many Graduate Assistants to share some of the sweet life of a rich bachelor in the Bay Area. What a wonderfiul opportunity to abandon the daily grind and the regimen of Ramen Noodles!</p>
<p>Funny how different a decision becomes when the pesky issues that impact the majority of students are removed. :)</p>
<p>Just talked to the boy yesterday. He has been to UCLA and USC campuses and loved what he saw there, though he didn’t apply to either school, only to Berkeley. He loves Berkeley’s prestige and name recognition. His parents are very supportive to his education. He said he didn’t like Cornell that much but he loves Cornell’s prestige. The boy has not been to Duke but applied there as a fallback. (Yeah, I know Duke isn’t a fallback school to most Americans, but things are different in Asia.) </p>
<p>The boy also applied to Michigan, NYU, Georgia Tech, Texas, Harvey Mudd, Rice, U of Washington and a couple unknown schools. </p>
<p>At the moment, the boy’s preference is heading towards Berkeley, then Cornell then CMU and Duke. That’s my personal preference would be as well. But after hearing what the kids at Berkeley are saying about the things going on at Cal as well as the things that are about to happen, it looks like Berkeley would not be a good choice for the boy. (I personally love Berkeley that’s why I wouldn’t want to give my personal advice to him; I might be giving the wrong one.)</p>
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<p>The boy’s parents want that the kid would live in the university housing. No special treatment for the kid. He has to learn to adapt to the real world. That’s precisely why the parents would love to send him to America.</p>
<p>^^ RML, my impression is those complaining about Berkeley come from different backgrounds from this guy. It seems like an assortment of premed students and humanities majors who expected the “Cal name” to provide for them when they searched for jobs in the future. </p>
<p>I think you posted somewhere that he’s interested in EE and CS. From EE and CS students, I hear adoration for the program, as well as the campus and surroundings. There are several famous professors who teach extremely well. When these professors teach, typically the corresponding course gets tremendous attraction, but all who wanted to enroll seemed to be accommodated. When there were strikes in Berkeley in regards to the budget crisis, and fake fire alarms were set off in several buildings, while there were folks in the history building protesting, several of my EE and CS acquaintances heard of how apathetic the mathematicians were, and took shelter in the math building from the pouring rain outside, having evacuated their own buildings. </p>
<p>In short, some of us (and many concentrated in aforementioned departments) are very happy with our experience, and find it an absolute steal to partake in terrific academics in a beautiful campus amidst terrific weather. We sympathize with those who have different experiences, but realistically this is why I made a previous post on this thread. </p>
<p>Also, only to someone who seems to have weak math and science background would I really caution about Berkeley engineering. This boy is certain about engineering and went to a math-science intensive school and thrived – he’ll be fine. Really, there are so many coming into engineering with worse preparation who manage to pull through with at least a degree and decent jobs.</p>
<p>Realistically, attending Berkeley EE and CS should have many of the precious benefits of attending MIT.</p>
<p>I recommend Berkeley. This is an international student who may return to work in his home country. UC Berkeley’s international prestige in the sciences and engineering is on par with MIT’s. Berkeley EECS is tough, and students aren’t nurtured. But those that succeed find many doors open to them afterward. I live here in Silicon Valley, CA, where a degree from MIT, Berkeley, or Stanford will definitely help a graduate land the first job. Visitors from Asia are always familiar with Berkeley. Duke? Cornell? Not so much.</p>
<p>I’m not a visitor from Asia, but they tell me that Cornell is not exactly unknown in Asia.
Alums include ambassadors to the US from China and from Singapore, a President of Taiwan, and one of the richest men in India (another is a Trustee).</p>
<p>"Zhi Pan Yang, a visiting scholar from Beijing commented, “Cornell is very famous in China. There are many Chinese students who want to come here.” "
[Cornell</a>, China Maintain Close Relationship | The Cornell Daily Sun](<a href=“http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2009/11/10/cornell-china-maintain-close-relationship]Cornell”>http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2009/11/10/cornell-china-maintain-close-relationship)</p>
<p>I don’t know myself, I defer to Zhi Pan Yang.</p>