<p>I plan on majoring in Chemical Engineering.</p>
<p>I applied as an international student to both Princeton and UC Berkeley, and was fortunately accepted to them in the major I have chosen.</p>
<p>My dilemma is this.</p>
<p>Princeton, in addition to its fame, also gave me 80% of the tuition in grant (no loans or anything), with 8.5k left in family contributions. However, Princeton is not quite known for its engineering programs.</p>
<p>Berkeley gave me approx 10k aid, except only 2.5k was scholarships and the rest was all loans. that leaves another 15k in family contributions. However, Berkeley has a proven world class engineering program.</p>
<p>Berkeley is obviously the better choice for engineering. Don't let Princeton's nominal prestige sway your decision when you know that Berkeley has the better engineering program.</p>
<p>hmmm...PRINCETON for $8,500/year, or Berkeley for $15,000/year plus $7,500/year in loans? I don't see any comparison.</p>
<p>Princeton does have a great engineering program, and you will almost certainly get more attention as an undergraduate there than at Berkeley. Save Berkeley for grad school.</p>
<p>lol poor advice from calidan. berkeley's undergraduate engineering is excellent, however, its excellence isnt that much better than princeton's when taking the financial aid into consideration. princeton has a reputable engineering program which is well known everywhere. comparing those packages in financial aid...i would assume princeton would be the logical choice.</p>
<p>Does anyone know the graduate school acceptance rates for the two colleges?</p>
<p>That is, among the students who graduated from either college and applied for admission to a graduate school, what % gained admission? What are some colleges they were admitted to?</p>
<p>While both schools will provide an excellent education in your major, Princeton will give you an unbelievable undergrad experience. It is an amazing campus and environment. The prestige is comparable to Harvard and the fin-aid package makes this a no-brainer.</p>
<p>hey guys im in a similar dilemma - im picking mainly between mit and ucb and princeton for engineering. i know its mit, engineering superstar, but i wanna know if there are any other factors i shoudl think about.</p>
<p>Out of the three that you mentioned, I' narrow it to Princeton and MIT first of all, and secondly, my vote of course goes to princeton, although there are certainly reasons for picking MIT as well. Princeton i think is generally a good fit for anyone, because--unlike MIT--it is strong in nearly every department, so if you change your mind (which, like it or not, happens a lot--especially for students entering in the sciences) you have a number of other departments to look into (all of the sciences are very strong, if you're set on science.) Secondly, what Princeton is known for is paying a lot of attention to the individual undergraduate student, which is certainly not the case at Berkeley, and it's not quite the case at MIT from what i understand. This type of contact is when some of the most valuable things can be learned--directly under a great mind. Also you should consider campus life (or lack thereof) at MIT versus Princeton (which is known to be a very cohesive, vibrant campus). MIT is a very stressful and competitive place, as you probably know, and at one point had (maybe still has) the highest college suicide rate in the country. That's one record not to be proud of. Contrastingly, although Princeton is certainly no piece of cake, there are all different sorts of students who are pursuing different things, so there is less of a feeling of competition and more unity on campus, since everyone isn't directly competing with each other, and it's just a generally more interesting place to be because there's so much to learn from all the different types of people.</p>
<p>hmm I agree with Cristopher saying Princeton is one of the best places for undergrad. Besides the reasons he stated, some of my neighbors who attended Oxoford, and MIT have taught at princeton and know that it emphasizes undergrad well.. unfortunately i was rejected but u have a chance, I actually have more in common with you since I applied as chemical engineering major as well. I would say Princeton not only because it is my dream school but because its a smaller class and pluss who cares about a ranking difference of 1 ok.. so princeton is #2 in chem engineering or 3, or even 5. are you even sure you want to do chem eng. if u change ur mind all the other departments are still ranked about the same 1,2...5.
oh and btw..
Christopher- MIT is not so selfishly competitive, I'm not sure about p-ton but MIT doesn't rank and thus the students are more cooperative with each other, and actually help each other in doing p-sets. MIT and P-ton are different not really that much comparable.. what u get when u graduate from MIT is not just a degree its a whole new way of thinking.. its a thought process.. the first steps in ur success. P-ton is an overall competitive but warm college ..you graduate more with a degree than a thought process.</p>
<p>princeton has a great chem-e department. A group of professors there have been working on organic polymers for like cell phone displays and stuff--- all of the patents means a ton of money for the department. Plus, these guys actually teach the classes. Princeton is working on renovating its engineering school, and putting a lot of effort and money into its engineering and sciences. </p>
<p>Secondly, if you decide not to do engineering, its very easy to switch out (or into) the engineering school, or to change majors within the engineering school.</p>
<p>Plus, at the end, you graduate with a princeton degree.</p>