<p>What a wonderful kid you have. No wonder Yale accepted her!</p>
<p>Thanks Sam Lee. I happen to agree with you. It really makes me wish I was rich (or better prepared). I'd love to be able to give her both. </p>
<p>(Edited-took away from what I was trying to say.)</p>
<p>momo, you're a great parent. Go with Purdue. It really is the better engineering program, and if you're from Indiana, it makes more sense, even if money were no object. With a fraction of the extra money you'll save, your kid will have several nice spring break beach vacations.</p>
<p>USC is not in a "ghetto", but its surrounding areas are at best boring, and traffic, pollution are bad. Housing is overpriced.</p>
<p>Just an aside: the crime stats claiming that UCLA has more crime are disingenuous, because they add up all crimes committed as equal, whether it's murder or car break-ins. More wealthy but dense areas like Westwood always have more of those kinds of crimes, which are nuisances rather than scary things.</p>
<p>What is the distribution of class sizes at each school? (ie, how many classes over 400? over 200? over 100?, over 50?, under 25?)</p>
<p>What percentage of classes are taught by TAs?</p>
<p>How happy are students with the advising available?</p>
<p>How easy is it to register for the classes you want to take?</p>
<p>How easy is it to meet with your professors for help?</p>
<p>Are there study sessions available?</p>
<p>CalX, do you have some stats to share with us? Were you talking about multiple murders happened in Berkeley last year?</p>
<p>I am simply amazed that all this kind of figures like you running around slander USC without any fact in hand. And in the end you guys all go to UCs:)</p>
<p>TourGuide wrote:</p>
<p>"....3. $26,000 more per year (plus thousands in airfare) would be tough to justify even if it were CalTech the guy was thinking of. But $26,000 more per year for USC??"</p>
<p>TourGuide - you should do research before you make inaccurate statements that are obviously pulled out of thin air.</p>
<p>First, USC is ranked higher than CalTech (yes, it is) in the 2007 USNEWS Engineering Rankings. Go to USNEWS.com, and look for yourself (i have cut&pasted a portion of the list below). </p>
<p>Second, in support of MomOfChris, Purdue is rated higher than both of them. So, either way she goes, she makes a good choice.</p>
<p>Good luck to you MomOfChris, in your decision, and in your son's future.</p>
<p>p.s. TourGuide - do some homework before you make outlandish posts.</p>
<p>Engineering Ranking 2007 USNEWS </p>
<hr>
<p>The following is from USNEWS 2007 rankings for top Engineernig Schools. </p>
<ol>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology </li>
<li>Stanford University (CA) </li>
<li>University of CaliforniaBerkeley </li>
<li>Georgia Institute of Technology </li>
<li>University of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign
6. Purdue UniversityWest Lafayette (IN)</li>
<li>University of MichiganAnn Arbor </li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon University (PA)
9. University of Southern California (Viterbi) </li>
<li>California Institute of Technology </li>
<li>Cornell University (NY)</li>
<li>University of CaliforniaSan Diego (Jacobs) </li>
<li>University of TexasAustin </li>
<li>Texas A&M UniversityCollege Station (Look) </li>
<li>University of CaliforniaLos Angeles (Samueli) </li>
<li>University of MarylandCollege Park (Clark) </li>
<li>University of WisconsinMadison </li>
<li>Princeton University (NJ)</li>
<li>Pennsylvania State UniversityUniversity Park </li>
<li>Columbia University (Fu Foundation) (NY)</li>
</ol>
<p>lovetocamp,</p>
<p>You have to look at their methodology to see why is USC ranked above CalTech. It's definitely not because USC is more well-regarded because their peer assessment scores are significantly lower than CalTech's (as expected). But the overall ranking takes bunch of other factors into consideration and USC got where it's ranked largely due to large research expenditure.</p>
<p>If you are interested in how well-regarded each subfield is, go with the department ranking. That's in fact how most people that apply to grad schools look at. I did my grad program in environmental and quite a few of my classmate did PhD in chemE. None of us look at this overall ranking. We know what schools are good for our areas and the departmental rankings reflect that well. While Purdue has quite a few departments in the top-10, USC practically has none.</p>
<p>But USC looks to be up and coming, so reputation may not reflect how good it actually is since there can be a lag time.</p>
<p>If money is really an issue i would say go with Perdue. . if not, go with Perdue anyways ; ) it's a really good school!</p>
<p>It's spelled P*u*rdue. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>QW553, the murder rate in Berkeley is lower than national average. And the area around campus is certainly safer than the area around USC. The median detached home price around the Cal campus is 2-3 times as expensive as around USC, which <em>at best</em> can be described as a lower middle-class hispanic neighborhood. A few years ago, it was pretty much a ghetto. It's totally nuts to compare the area around USC to that around Cal or UCLA. Only a USC grad would go there...</p>
<p>That's why your own alumni pay $30-50 to park in security lots during the football games at the coliseum instead of parking two blocks down the street for free.</p>
<p>Since my son is only a junior in high school and leaving a year early we only have a choice of the 2 schools. My biggest worry is that he will regret not applying to other schools.</p>
<p>Both USC and Purdue are good schools. When we went to visit USC, the people we talked to spent a lot of time with us. At Purdue, they basically just threw the pamplets at us. What appeals to him about USC is the attention that we perceive he will have from the smaller classes, how the campus "felt" and the weather. What appeals to him about Purdue is that I will let him get an apartment and have a car on campus after freshman year. There is a lot of off-campus housing available at very reasonable prices near Purdue.</p>
<p>My compromise is to let him leave a year early and go to Purdue. Freshman year anywhere in computer science all looks basically the same. After freshman year, he can transfer anywhere he wants (even USC) if he is not happy. This gets him out of the high school with worthless classes and all the drama that it entails. It keeps him closer to home his freshman year and it saves a few dollars. ($26,000)</p>
<p>The downside to this - I have to go through all this college stuff in another year!</p>
<p>USC puts a whole lot more effort into promoting itself and recruiting. How you get treated in the visit is not necessarily how the typical student experience will be.</p>
<p>After reading through this (very interesting) thread, I'm curious what the final decision was?</p>
<p>Sfgiants, I hope your favorite part of this thread was when lovetocamp blasted me (in post #46) for daring to imply that CalTech would offer a better education than USC. That was my favorite part.</p>