<p>Haha, Texas A&M is far from the best engineering school. I will freely admit that. It isn’t even “my” school for all intents and purposes. First and foremost, I consider myself an Illini from the University of Illinois. Texas A&M is just where I am doing my Ph.D., and it IS the best for hypersonic stability and transition, and one of the best for boundary layer stability and transition in general. Cool your jets, CSmajor5. You don’t have a clue what you are talking about.</p>
<p>Thanks all for the contributions. I forgot to add that Berkeley admitted me for Spring, which means I have one full semester before I can start taking classes there. Considering that Cornell admitted me for Fall, I really don’t know if it’s worth waiting a semester for Berkeley EECS. </p>
<p>And how hard is it to maintain a decent gpa (3.5+) at each of them?</p>
<p>According to this thread
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cornell-university/19503-grading-scale-cornell.html?[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cornell-university/19503-grading-scale-cornell.html?</a>
Cornell engineering Dean’s List is 3.4, and about 30% make Dean’s List. based on that I would say a 3.5+ is better than “decent” there. Difficulty of maintaining would depend on how good a student you are.</p>
<p>Cornell, Berkeley, and UIUC are all great schools. Don’t bash your head on ranks, seriously, you talking about #4, #5 or #8 ranked schools? Who cares they still top 10 schools. None of them are going to make you a better engineer than the other, it all comes out on what you want to do. You are at the point where it does not matter the rank, what it matters now is which one will be best for you at a personal level, which place you like better or is finantially easier on the pocket for you.</p>
<p>Why is your ultimate goal a Master’s in engineering? If your ultimate goal is research, then go for the PhD. If your goal is to make money and your undergrad program is highly ranked, the return on investment from a MS is probably negative.</p>
<p>"Cornell engineering Dean’s List is 3.4, and about 30% make Dean’s List. based on that I would say a 3.5+ is better than “decent” there. Difficulty of maintaining would depend on how good a student you are. "</p>
<p>monydad</p>
<p>My son is a Chemical engineering student at Cornell. How do you know that 30% of the students are on the deans list?</p>
<p>I don’t know that at all, I just read what it said in the link that I posted. IIRC that statistic was university-wide, not specific to engineering which certainly may be different. Whether the actual % is 30 or 20%, the jist of the point to OP is the same. On the other hand I don’t know that any of the information stated in the link is correct either, I just read it here on cc.</p>