<p>Help! This is my first post ever, and it is clearly too long and not well focused. I just got accepted off the wait list at CWRU. Since it is past May 1st, I have already, and very happily, sent in my deposit to RPI. I intend to study Electrical Engineering. I like both schools for the small, dedicated student body and have already declined other schools including Lehigh, VT, RIT, and UMD. Now I have a new dillema. CWRU or RPI, costs for me are within $1000, and so that is not a discriminator. I am not a big party person and am happy to hang out with a small number of friends, so the Cleveland/Troy comparison is not that important to me. I am interested to know about any other comparisons or differences regarding things like the campuses, student bodies, professors etc. For example, I like CWRU a lot, but I am not sure about the focus on undergraduate vs. graduate students. Also, I appreciate the close tie to medical professions and BME at CWRU, but I wonder about the focus on other engineering disciplines. At the same time, I hear RPI described with terms such as grind that are not used to describe CWRU. Lastly, I got a good, welcoming feeling from the RPI students in extra-curricular activities, such as theater, how does the sense of community compare between the two schools? Thanks.</p>
<p>Just FYI. I have reconfirmed my original decision to attend RPI and I am looking forward to the fall. I felt warmly welcomed by the students at RPI during the accepted students day - including the students who were just walking around on a typical Saturday, not just the ones involved in the organized activities. It feels comfortable and right for me, after all the analysis, perhaps that is what matters most.</p>