Please help decide! CMC vs WashU vs USC vs Northeastern

I got into all 3 and can’t decide! I would go in as an Econ major but might end up in a STEM major (i.e. engineering/applied math) and also want a strong liberal arts education.

USC: pros - film classes (a hobby), endless social opportunities, diverse people (in terms of interests), any academic option they have, in LA. cons - TOO big, greek life/social life is not my taste (I want to focus on academics).
Question: is the network better here than CMC? if so, this is obv a +.

CMC: pros - strong business, can take classes at 5Cs, best fit. cons - WAYYY too small (even with 5Cs), if I want to do STEM I might be at a disadvantage as opposed to USC/WashU with the CMC name (not usually linked to STEM), I’m looking for a bigger environment with more to explore, I don’t want to be known in all my classes/by everyone.

WashU: pros - perfect size, more east coast ppl (I was looking for a change), easy to transfer/choose major. cons - the midwest, St. Louis, network might be a disadvantage if I want to be on the west coast: especially compared to USC/CMC?

Finally Northeastern: big on entrepreneurship, fits all my academic interests. but I feel like it’s not as prestigious and the classes are too big. Also too pre-prof?

Is it fair to say USC is the biggest on entrepreneurship or can this be found anywhere?

WUSTL will have a national reach. USC, you say is too big, but you can make a big school small but not vice versa.

For what it’s worth, WUSTL shows #11 for Film - so i’s strong there too. Their program looks impressive on the website.

You have to spend four years - go to the right school. btw - WUSTL is a great campus, nice and compact. Good luck.

2021 Best Film Schools and Photography Programs - Niche

Seems like if you want engineering, that may make CMC a worse academic fit.

OP wrote: “I don’t want to be known in all my classes / by everyone.”

Unfortunately, this eliminates CMC.

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You obviously know USC well and I can’t speak to Northeastern, but A few things to consider:

-WashU has a very well respected entrepreneurship program at the MBA level. A lot of that will translate down to the undergrad b-school level. How much I don’t know. You need to investigate that.

-I’m not sure why you think CMC is way too small. About 1500-1600 first year full time students enroll every year. At WashU it’s around 1800-1900. USC is 3400-3500. I don’t see a big difference between WashU and CMC. If CMC is way too small, WashU won’t feel appreciably bigger. When you actually drill down into classes in your major, there’s a good chance you won’t be particularly anonymous in any of your core classes. By my jr/sr years at WashU, I probably knew 60-80% of the students in my major-centric classes. Even at USC, you’re going to know most of the people in your Econ program by the time you hit your 4th upper level class. There aren’t that many Econ undergrad diplomas minted by any of these schools on an annual basis.

-WashU has a lot of flexibility between the undergrad colleges as well. If you want to mix Econ with entrepreneurship via Olin and film, you should be able to do that. I don’t know what the requirements are for film. The only limitation is a hypothetical switch to engineering/applied math. Engineering/applied math is highly sequential, so you’d need to make sure that you are maintaining sufficient progress in those areas to keep that possibility open. That would apply at any of your schools though. The good news is that there should be decent overlap between Econ and applied math.

-I would not sweat the recruiting that much when it comes to schools of USC/WashU/CMC caliber. Is it easier to get your foot in the door on the West Coast with a USC degree? Yes. Will it give you an advantage vs the other two if you decide to go to grad school in CA? No.

You’re going to come out of undergrad with a 40 year career in front of you. USC might help you land your first gig more easily. But in the long run, you’re going to progress based upon your abilities. 5-10 years out you’ll be where you are based upon what you did post college. A classmate and friend of mine left STL with an English/Psych major and drove to LA with the idea she wanted to write for TV. She’s an executive producer for a show with over a dozen Emmy nominations. Any of those schools are good for what you’re trying to do. What you do with the opportunities that level of education provides boils down to diligence, resilience and hustle.

-I wouldn’t view going to school in STL as a negative. Plenty to do on campus, in the Loop, Central West End, Forest Park, etc. Good undergrad restaurant scene and people attending are from everywhere. People are friendly, but student body is decidedly not “Midwest”. It’s actually a very good city to attend college. It’s pretty similar to Pittsburgh. STL has marginally better weather but PGH is a bit more urban/dense despite being a bit smaller.

-I’m terms of all of the schools, you will find diversity of interests/backgrounds. USC is definitely the most Greek/athletics influenced, but you will find “your people” by interests, socioeconomics, etc at any of those schools. It might be easier to find your people at WashU/CMC, but they exist in large numbers at a place like USC too.

CMC - Claremonth McKenna College - only 1300 kids total…I think confusion in what CMC is.

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Oof. Dunno why I had CMU (Carnegie Mellon) on the brain. My wife even went to CMC. Should have picked that up with the 5 colleges thing.

Nevermind about the anonymity. Students will not be anonymous at CMC. No way. It is a relative fishbowl, even when taking classes at the other schools.

She really enjoyed the size of her classes, but if she had to do it over again would not have attended. To small for her preference and she found the areas around the campus to be a bit lacking. It’s pretty suburban compared to WashU’s inner ring streetcar suburb/medium density urban vibe.

Hi, my son is an economics/business major at Northeastern with a concentration in entrepreneurship. I am not sure why you think the class sizes are big. Most of his classes were 25 to 30 students. His Innovation class was taught by a Silicon Valley executive who had 12 IPOs. NU makes it easy to change majors and do combined majors if you have different interests.

I guess you are right about prestige, but you would graduate with an impressive resume from your co-ops that employers would be happy with. Many NU grads also go on to graduate school at prestigious universities.

You can do your co-ops anywhere and NU has student housing at different locations, including San Francisco and Mountain View. Good luck with your choice.

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