<p>On what par is Purdue with if it was compared with a UNiversity of California? (ie Berkeley, SD, IRvine, Riverside, etc. )</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>I believe Purdue is a state school. It ranks higher than UCR but lower than UCI/UCSB/UCD/UCSD/UCLA/UCB. It's considered tier 2, anything lower than the top 50.</p>
<p>Of all the UCs, I'd say it's closest in comparability to UC Santa Cruz, though even there it's a bit better.</p>
<p>Its marginally better than UCR and UCSC, but only because of the reputation of its engineering program with USNWR. Its easier to get into though than any of the UCs, (minus perhaps Merced)</p>
<p>Considered as a whole, several of the UCs would probably rank higher than Purdue, but this may be missing the point. Purdue is best known for its engineering programs and, in this context, would be better than all of the UCs save for UC Berkeley and even that would be a relatively close comparison. I recently looked at the undergraduate engineering programs as ranked by USNWR and how they ranked across the twelve sub-specialties. UC Berkeley was ranked in 11 of the 12 categories with an average rank of 5.09. Purdue was ranked in 9 categories with an average rank of 7.78. UCB was strongest in chemical, civil, materials, mechanical and electrical. Purdue was strongest in Industrial/Manufacturing, Aerospace and Agricultural. </p>
<p>Here are the Top 25 engineering programs that were ranked in at least 5 categories:</p>
<p>1 MIT
2 Stanford
3 UC Berkeley
4 Ga Tech
5 U Illinois
6 U Michigan
7 Purdue
8 Caltech
9 Cornell
10 U Texas
11 Carnegie Mellon
12 Princeton
13 Northwestern
14 U Wisconsin
15 Penn State
16 U Florida
17 Texas A&M
18 J Hopkins
19 Va Tech
20 Duke
21 U Washington
22 Rice
23 UCLA
24 USC</p>
<p>Given this, if the interest is engineering, I doubt that the rankings differential should carry enough weight to push you to one school or the other. </p>
<p>Another key ingredient is the relative cost. If you are from CA, this is a no-brainer-go to the UC system. Likewise if you are from IN-Purdue would be the obvious choice. Here are the relative tuition and fee costs for IS and OOS students:</p>
<p>UCB
IS: $8834 OOS: $27,452</p>
<p>Purdue
IS: $7416 OOS: $22,224</p>
<p>Purdue awards big OOS merit scholarships, including $40,000 for the Trustees Scholarship for those who meet the eligibility criteria.</p>
<p>The UC schools don't give OOSers much.</p>