<p>I have a hard time deciding where to enroll. I want to major in Industrial Engineering / Operations Research / Systems Engineering and I got accepted from UC Berkeley, Northwestern, Penn, Cornell and waitlisted at Columbia. I personally care about social life, research opportunity, and future chance to get into great grad schools.</p>
<p>Please give me comments and suggestions. =)</p>
<p>By grad schools do you mean PhD programs or business school?</p>
<p>Northwestern, Penn, and Cornell all have a pretty similar social life. Cornell's obviously in a small town versus a big city, but the social life at all three tends to revolve around frat parties and house parties. Cornell offers the most diversity in terms of student experiences.</p>
<p>Cornell engineering at the undergraduate level is a bit stronger than Northwestern and Penn.</p>
<p>USN graduate ranking for industrial engineering:
1 Georgia Institute of Technology
2 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor
3 University of California--Berkeley
4 Stanford University
5 Northwestern University (McCormick)
6 Pennsylvania State University--University Park
7 Virginia Tech
8 Purdue University--West Lafayette
9 Cornell University
9 Texas A&M University--College Station
9 University of Wisconsin--Madison
12 Columbia University (Fu Foundation)
13 North Carolina State University
13 University of Florida
13 University of Southern California (Viterbi)
16 Lehigh University (Rossin)
16 University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign
18 Arizona State University (Fulton)
18 Ohio State University
Columbus, OH
18 University of Texas--Austin (Cockrell)
21 Auburn University (Ginn)
21 Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey--New Brunswick
23 Iowa State University
23 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
23 University at Buffalo--SUNY
23 University of Pittsburgh</p>
<p>At Northwestern, there's double-major in IEMS/econ that can be easily done within 4 years.</p>
<p>I second CayugaRed. What are you going to grad school for? More industrial engineering or something like an MBA?</p>
<p>For the former, Cornell stands out as a great choice as it has the best actual engineering school. For the latter, Penn stands out as a great choice because it tends to produce very well-rounded engineering graduates who have taken advantage of the One University policy.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So even when Berkeley and NU are ranked higher than Cornell in industrial engineering, Cornell still has "the best actual engineering school".
[/quote]
</p>
<p>For undergraduate study? Yes. </p>
<p>MIT, CMU, Stanford, and Cornell offer the best resources and most engineering-minded education for undergraduates. Princeton and Northwestern stand out as well. And RPI is underrated. </p>
<p>The large state schools are a worthy option as well, especially if finances need to be taken into consideration. But at the large state schools, it's easier for a student to get lost in the crowds. And given the fact that the State of California seems to be quickly devolving into a Mad Max alternative universe, who knows how much money Berkeley will get from future state budgets.</p>
<p>Those rankings are more helpful as guidelines. For the individual programs it's all based on peer review.</p>
<p>@ XALAPAO …
I’m planning to apply to penn as well this year…
but they dont have industrial engineering… so is systems engineering similar? … and how easy is a double major -econ and IE at all the schools ?
And what did u finally decide on??
Thnx</p>