<p>Ok, im down to these two, and I'd love some objective opinions, here are some facts:</p>
<p>Not yet sure what type of engineering but leaning towards mechanical.
Tuition for pitt would be free, USC would be around 7 grand a year (not including living expenses, but money isnt a huge issue)
Live in Pittsburgh, have a family member in pitt engineering faculty.
I'd prefer if we only took into academic factors into this.
Accepted in Pitt Honors</p>
<p>I'm going to post this in both threads to try and get some objective answers. Here is my comparison of strengths so far.</p>
<p>For Pitt:</p>
<p>Co op
Price
Research Opportunities</p>
<p>For USC:</p>
<p>Alumni
Location
Prestige</p>
<p>Why is “alumni” listed under USC? Pitt has 303K living alumni, USC has 343K…that isn’t significantly different. Numbers of undergrad alumni, which are typically the most active, probably favors Pitt slightly.</p>
<p>Location may be good for getting away if you are thinking about Southern California in general, but the neighborhood USC is located in has quite a poor reputation. </p>
<p>You have a family member that is a professor of engineering, I really think you should talk to them. They’ll know the field better than anyone, particularly the importance of school prestige. Really, I think it would mostly matter only where you plan to look for jobs after graduation because there is regional bias. Most people in the east don’t know much about USC except for its football teams, and the reverse is true for Pitt out west. Internships are probably more important for job offers than any difference that may exist between Pitt and USC in US News rankings.</p>
<p>I also want to point out that “prestige” is a BS reason to pick a school. Any school has prestige in the right environment (for instance, you are more likely to get a response from a local here by saying you go to Pitt or CMU compared to USC). So that’s not really worth it.</p>
<p>As you yourself pointed out, SSOE has great internship/co-op opportunities for its students as well as on campus research opportunities. When I graduated in April, nearly everyone walking already had a job offer or graduate school lined up for them. Most schools do not have these kinds of placement statistics (my sister had friends at her “prestigious” school who took over a year to get a job in an engineering field). Just an FYI- prestige isn’t really worth it as a factor.</p>