<p>My D's present list contain these colleges:</p>
<p>Princeton
Stanford
MIT
Caltech
Columbia (Fu)
Olin
UCB EECS
CMU
UCLA
USC
UCSD</p>
<p>The list is in her order of preference.
In my view UCLA, USC, or UCSD are not the best option for EECS. I would like her to get a better well balanced undergraduate education if she is not getting into any one of the EECS power houses.
Does that make sense? Are there other private colleges that will provide better education in Engineering than UCLA, USC, or UCSD.</p>
<p>The list of college I'm interested in where she would go if she doesn't get into at least UCB EECS from the above list.</p>
<p>If you are a California resident, it would be hard to pass up the UC tuition break.</p>
<p>If money is no object, I would add Cornell, Rice, Northwestern, Michigan, Illinois. Drop the UCs except for Berkeley. Drop Olin and Columbia. Consider Maryland and maybe Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>She won't qualify for FA but her school CC told her that she might qualify for merit money at many private schools like USC.
Are Cornell, Rice, Northwestern good for doing EECS? Why did you tell to drop Olin and Columbia?
She loved Columbia during our college visits. She did a 4 hours EECS tour and liked the department.</p>
<p>Olin is small, new, and too different. It makes me uncomfortable. Olin attracts good students but it is not a typical engineering school. Something is lost.</p>
<p>Well, if she loved Columbia, keep it on her list. She must like NYC. It has a very good EECS department. </p>
<p>If she likes the Ivy League, Cornell has the best EECS among the Ivies. Cornell has an undergraduate focus. Princeton is good, too. Rice and Northwestern are great for EECS, as are Michigan and Illinois.</p>
<p>Why is she considering going so far from home? California has some excellent schools foe EECS.</p>
<p>My daughter graduated from Olin, in MechE. </p>
<p>Olin is different. The education is top-notch. Keep it on your list if you're open to different, drop it if you're really only considering it because of the scholarship.</p>
<p>I don't think you can study EECS and also get a well-balanced education. There is just too much material to cover to leave room for balance. The only way might be to go to some 3/2 program, where you get a dual degree, Wesleyan/CalTech has that, I think, that kind of thing.</p>
<p>collegehelp: She didn't like the Cornell location, that is why it is not on the list. She liked Princeton/Stanford/MIT a lot hence the top choices. She loves NY as a city and she liked the EECS tour at Columbia. She liked the Olin setting, she couldn't attend the special program for female students. But she is open to its program.
She is not bent upon going to east coast or staying in California. She has a preference list as indicated above and will choose accordingly.
What I'm interested in knowing some good options if she doesn't get into her top 6-7 choices as she thinks she might not like it at UCLA and UCSD.</p>
<p>kenf1234: I think it is true for UCB EECS but not at other 5 - 6 of her top choices. Columbia core curriculumn will provide enough breadth and so do the Princeton/Stanford. MIT also have a good breadth component. Caltech has some restriction to the course choice but still is very flexible.
So I'm looking for similar flexibility in the program. I'm not very happy with her choice of EECS at UCs. I think for girls a broader education is more suitable.
I don't want her to be UC geek. She seems to much influenced by her father.</p>
<p>I think the underlying reason is prestige rather than flexibility of program. I find it hard to believe that MIT is any more balanced in its curriculum than UCLA or Berkeley.</p>
<p>beefs : MIT allows you to choose your major by start of junior year. UCB EECS is fixed. UCLA/UCSD is something we have not taken much interest as of now as my D will prefer a smaller private university. </p>
<p>Between Most of the private institutes and UCs the reason is small size and control environment. I don't think UCB EECS has any less prestige than Columbia EECS. </p>
<p>kenf1234: She is unsure of UCB CS program and it seems it is difficult to sign on for classes as preference is given to EECS students.
Also CMU CS is a much better program in that case.</p>
<p>My son is majoring in EECS at Rice and loves it -- it's a very strong program with great faculty interaction and a very supportive, collaborative diverse student body. You might want to look into it.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon, Michigan, Georgia Tech, and UIllinois are great schools that aren't on your list (although the latter 3 are public).</p>
<p>Also, as some posters have said, an EECS degree inherently means an unbalanced education. The coursework is generally too rigorous and extensive to dabble in too many other fields.</p>
<p>^^UCB EECS is fixed, but it's not that hard to transfer laterally to another engineering major and certainly not hard to transfer to L&S for CS or some other major. Being at Berkeley in EECS is a lot more flexible than being at MIT, if you think your interests may change.</p>
<p>I'm not trying to sell Berkeley, and I think there are lots of reasons one might prefer a private university to Berkeley, but I'm not sure you're identifying the real arguments against going to Berkeley.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the "core curriculum" for Columbia engineering is not the same as the "core curriculum" for Columbia College. The engineering version is a radically stripped-down version of the College core, basically all math & science plus two core humanities courses (choice of Literature Humanities, Contemporary Civilization, OR Major Cultures; plus choice of Music Humanities OR Art Humanities), one social science course (Principles of Economics), and one writing course. That's pretty minimal. See:</p>
<p>In fact, as I read it that's less social sciences and humanities than Berkeley requires for its engineering majors, a total of 6 humanities or social science coruses, at least two of which must be upper-level courses:</p>
<p>The difference is that at Columbia it's a smaller number of "core" courses (specific courses chosen from a small menu) whereas at Berkeley it's a larger number of courses in a "distribution requirement" (choice from a larger menu of courses). If she's looking for breadth, it seems to me she'll likely get more of it at Berkeley than at Columbia.</p>
<p>EECS is 3 or 4 way program.
You can concentrate in CompSci
You can concentrate in Electrical Engineering
You can concentrate in Computer Engineering.</p>
<p>They all have the same core classes, so you get to pick a chose which sub field you want.</p>
<p>bclintonk : I attended the Columbia EECS dept. session with my D and found it to be quite broad and their support for research opertunity and a semester abroad is excellent. So Columbia is a much better overall experience over UCB, so no doubt there at all. </p>
<p>I'm looking for comparison between lets say UCB, UCLA and Rice or Duke or JHU or Northwestern. Will it make sense to apply to those universities?</p>