<p>I'm currently deciding between Lehigh and CMU, and could use some input. I'd be doing engineering at either school, though I'm admitted for the IBE program at Lehigh.</p>
<p>I feel Carnegie Mellon has better overall academics, a better reputation, and better employment opportunities. It also has stellar business, science, and computer science departments if I changed my mind about what I want to do (I am aware transferring into SCS is extremely difficult). And even if I remained in engineering, taking a double major in business or computer science would benefit from CMU's reputation. It also seems like CMU students have internships and research very readily available to them, even in their first years.</p>
<p>Lehigh has the IBE program, which would provide me a valuable business background- I have no desire to do finance, accounting, etc. by itself but in conjunction with engineering it might come in handy. It is also much closer- 1 hour vs. 6 hours for CMU, which while not a deciding factor is a plus. However, I'm concerned about how dominant fraternities are, and I feel CMU might have a more diverse student body.</p>
<p>I'm really not too picky about the campuses, I like both. The academics and opportunities are the deciding factors.</p>
<p>I would recommend taking a look at ROI stats for both schools, employment and internship stats etc. I am assuming you have spent time at both campuses, as they differ tremendously in many ways.</p>
<p>My son also came down to those two choices and went Lehigh’s way. He has had wonderful interships each summer, including freshman year and has been doing meaningful biomaterials research since freshman year. I am not sure what the overall numbers are however, so perhaps a greater percentage of CMU students have those opportunities, not sure.</p>
<p>It comes down to where each school stands in the areas that are most important to you. Good luck! You will do very well at either!</p>
<p>Of the multitude of college rankings, US News continues to be the one with the most credibility. In their most recent findings, CMU ranked significantly better than Lehigh as an undergraduate institution overall, and for its undergraduate engineering program in particular. With that noted, Lehigh is certainly not a bad choice, and as “mumof2boyz” stated, you need to do your due diligence regarding both schools and then choose the one you think is the best fit. Two significant differences you’ll quickly find: first, campus locations, CMU, adjoining Pitt, is in a much more more urban area than Lehigh (within a few miles of downtown Pittsburgh (you might find that as a positive or a negative, I strongly suggest you visit both campuses if you haven’t done so already). Second, owing to CMU’s excellence in diverse fields, your friends will be tomorrow’s stars everywhere from Broadway (drama majors) to Silicon Valley (computer science majors) to Wall Street (business majors) as well as in your field, engineering. There are few, if any, undergraduate institutions that excel at the level CMU does in ALL of those fields.</p>