<p>I am sorry for such a specific post, but I am kind of at a last resort. I have been accepted for transfer into the Winter Quarter of both of these schools and am trying to decide which to choose. It is coming up so quickly!! Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. </p>
<p>Just a couple of details:</p>
<p>-I am a history major (I can't find any ratings for these school's undergrad history programs)</p>
<p>-I am from Southern California and am transferring from a CC.</p>
<p>-I am a 24 year old male and am interested in going to grad school. </p>
<p>I really appreciate the response. What about a wildcard in Indiana U? How would you list those three? I see people talking about Indiana's undergrad history program and I wonder if that puts it up there with UW? </p>
<p>Also, how does the prestige stack up with these three?</p>
<p>At the undergrad level for a major like history the overall reputation of the school is much more important than idepartmental ranks. Departmental ranks only really matter for "skill" majors like Film, Art, Music, Accounting, Engineering, Computer Science, etc. Since UW wins both in overall reputation AND has the best location its hard to see why one would choose Indiana and even consider OSU.</p>
<p>I don't know a lot about UW, but I would say the two colleges are pretty different -- is there something else, besides rankings, that you're interested in? I don't know OSU's history stats, but I know their political science department is fourth in the world (research capabilities), and US News ranks it 13 overall.</p>
<p>Southpasedena, all those are areas which require real skills taught in college as opposed to more "liberal artsy" majors like History and Biology. There is a huge difference. Liberal artsy majors tend to go to graduate school in their major, professional school, or if they are at an Ivy caliber school into consulting or banking. "Skill" majors tend to go directly into the field they are taught.</p>
<p>Ok..understood, i was looking more at a standpoint of careers and didnt correlate that with the rankings for undergrad programs in accounting and engineering as they dont really matter. A number one ranked school of accounting will give students near the same career opps as a third tier school. Yes it is a skill major, but accounting and engineering tend to very regional in their hiring practices, not heavily dependent on rankings. But off topic, so sorry</p>
<p>I just want to stress one more time the costs associated with going out of state and questioning whether the costs are worth it. 60k for two years when you have a full uc system to take advantage of. Saving that money for grad school would seem to be a bigger priority. These are all schools i would also love to go to do to geographic area, football, business school etc, but costs should play a big factor especially when grad school will add even more to debt. </p>
<p>(personal opinion and advice as i dont know you...the op's...financial situation)</p>
<p>southpas, UW is on quarters too, btw. Don't know why that is a negative decision criteria. Could someone clarify why? I always thought it an advantage or at least neutral.</p>
<p>I know U of Washington and I know Indiana. For a history major, I am not certain that there's a dime's bit of difference in their comparative quality. On paper, both are excellent. But I might say that undergraduate academic experience at IU may be more fulfilling because to many folks IU feels a bit like a liberal arts college, despite being a large state university.. Anyone who has been on the UW campus will tell its a true "super sized" state university. At UW it's the outstanding graduate programs that define the school.</p>