Pitt or CMU CompE (aka is 200ft worth 200K)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Carnegie Mellon University
1

<p>The title of the thread says most of it! I was accepted into ECE at Pitt with a 10k/year scholarship and also CIT for full sticker price. At Pitt I would be in the UHC honors program and would go for either an EE with a CS minor or a dual major in EE and CS if that's possible. At CMU I would go for their (#2 in the country) CompE program.</p>

<p>My current plan is to try and go to grad school for a Ph.D and then work in tech research, and my parents don't have the cash for both CMU and a top grad program but I'm worried Pitt will prevent me from entering such a program given research and a high GPA. At the same time the research opportunities at Pitt were very impressive and I'm wondering if being the bigger fish there wouldn't offer some advantages of its own. By top grad schools I'm thinking places like CMU, Berkley, Stanford, Caltech I understand that means a lot of hard work wherever I end up to get in to any of those.</p>

<p>I visited both and while I was pleasantly surprised with Pitt, CMU clicked with me. Everyone there was shamelessly nerdy in a really good way, unlike CWRU or RPI where imho people were nerdy in the worst way possible. Pitt seemed like a place where I could have some fun in moderation but still maintain a killer GPA if I put in the work so I'm even torn on that point.</p>

<p>PS.
Pitt ~ 20K with housing CMU ~ 60K same. Also accepted CWRU, RPI, PSU, OSU (w honors) UVA and Drexel rejected Cornell and Pton</p>

2

<p>Do not really need money for PhD - those are usually funded programs with annual stipends and often come with teaching and research responsibilities. </p>

3

<p>What about masters? I’m guaranteed masters at Pitt provided I maintain a decent GPA, but I’d rather try somewhere stronger if I can get in. My impression was that those can be super pricey though and only doctorate level is paid for not masters.</p>