With decision day coming up, I really need to choose a school, but I’m having a really hard time deciding! I’m between University of Pittsburgh and Case Western, and I’m looking to study engineering (undecided on the type at the moment). I absolutely love both schools! My dilemma is that Case is 20 mins away from where I live, and I really want to go further away for college. I grew up in Cleveland, so I feel like I would get really bored of the city (I kind of already am!)
The problem is that Pitt seems to be a step down academically, compared to Case, and I’m just not sure that the step down is justifiable considering (basically) my only reason for picking Pitt over Case is location. I know I will be challenged at whichever school I pick, as I’m doing engineering, but I feel like the nerdy community of Case is a bit of a better fit for me.
If the only reason you want to choose UPitt is because it’s further away, you should choose Case, especially of you feel that CW is a much better fit socially. Being in a city as a high school student is a far cry from being in a city as a university student, and you are most likely unfamiliar with almost all Cleveland has to offer somebody who is older than 18. As an engineering student you also will likely not have all that much time to spend hanging out around the city anyways.
Ignoring reputation, which school would you go to? Is there a cost difference?
If you’re looking to study engineering, reputation really won’t make a difference. If you want to go into industry, you’ll get a job somewhere as long as you have above a 3.0 GPA. However, I think most of your opportunities will be from companies in the surrounding area. Thus, if you really wanted to leave Cleveland, Pitt would likely give you a greater chance to do so. If you want to go into grad school, reputation almost certainly won’t make a difference. You’ll have to do well in either school to get into a good grad school, and the difference between a 3.8 at Pitt and a 3.8 at Case is probably negligible.
Socially, Pitt and Case are vastly different. Pitt is a large public school with D1 athletics. You’ll likely have more of a variety of social opportunities at Pitt, but it probably won’t have as tightknit of a community as Case. The Pitt student body may generally not be as nerdy, but there may still be a group in which you’ll fit. As MWolf mentioned, you probably won’t be hanging around in the city much anyways, and will spend almost all of your time on whichever campus you attend. So the campus fit may indeed be a far more important factor.