<p>Hey all! I didn't quite get into CMU yet, but I figure it doesn't hurt to think about my options.</p>
<p>I've been so ecstatic about CMU, and telling everyone that I want to go there, but ever since I got into RPI, I've been a little uneasy, and am now unsure of where I truly want to go. </p>
<p>Both schools are awesome, but in slightly different ways. The pros of CMU are a great academic community, the city of Pittsburgh, as well as the integration of technology and the arts. The only con for me for CMU is the courseload, and the lack of the kinds of clubs I want (I have interests in dance, and in the martial art Capoeira, which there is a club for, but not taught by actual teachers).</p>
<p>The pros of RPI for me is that it's a rising university, I'm already in there, I have a great financial aid plan, the courses are just right for me, they are rated the fifth best game design program, and the extracurricular activities are great. The cons are that although it has an orchestra, I'm not sure if I can take cello lessons, and the surrounding city is a little iffy.</p>
<p>I am planning on a major of computer science, so if anyone could also tell me how good the computer science program is? (I've looked at it, but I can't really tell)</p>
<p>I'm sorry if this is a bad post, but I'd appreciate it if anyone could help me decide. Thanks!</p>
<p>I applied EDII to CMU for CS and was rejected. I visited the campus during October. I <3 CMU too, lol.</p>
<p>But the courseload would probably kill me. I would like to have some fun at college. And the campus was a little bit small for my tastes, but Pittsburgh has like 100,000 college students or something crazy like that so it’s not really an issue. Pittsburgh (well, Oakland) is a really great college town, lots of stuff to do and businesses cater to college kids. Troy on the other hand is kind of sucky.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how the Computer Science program is beyond “it’s good”. US News ranked it 48th best in the US, which while not near as good as CMU is very respectable. An RPI CS graduate shouldn’t have too much difficulty getting a job.</p>
<p>From the perspective of academics you really can’t go wrong with either one. They are peer schools to one another. CMU lists the following as it peer schools: </p>
<p>The following list of schools was selected by executive administration for benchmarking purposes:
California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech)
Cornell University (Cornell)
Duke University (Duke)
Emory University (Emory)
Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Northwestern University (Northwestern)
University of Pennsylvania (Penn)
Princeton University (Princeton)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
Rice University (Rice)
Stanford University (Stanford)
Washington University in St. Louis (Washington)</p>
<p>CMU is probably tops overall in CS but RPI is strong enough that for a particular area/concentration it may be equal to or better than CMU. </p>
<p>RPI is a much better schools than it rankings imply. </p>
<p>If it were me I would pick the one that I feel has the best program in my area and also factor in the other things you mentioned (city, ECs, etc.)</p>
<p>Interesting list. Here are the schools that RPI considers to be its peers (some of these surprise me):</p>
<p>Boston University (Boston, MA)
Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA)
Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH)
Cornell University (Ithaca, NY)
Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA)
Northeastern University (Boston, MA)
Princeton University (Princeton, NJ)
Rice University (Houston, TX)
Stanford University (Stanford, CA)
University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA)
University of Rochester (Rochester, NY)
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA)</p>
<p>The overlaps between CMU and RPI are:</p>
<p>Cornell University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Pennsylvania
Princeton University
Rice University
Stanford University</p>
<p>Hm, interesting. I guess I’ll just have to wait until I get my decision from Carnegie Mellon, and weigh the options with the Financial Aid. </p>
<p>Do you think it would possibly be better for me to go to Carnegie Mellon for both Undergraduate and Graduate (ETC), or would it be better to go to RPI for undergraduate, and then Carnegie for Graduate?</p>
<p>While RPI and CMU may be peer schools for most technical fields, I don’t really think that RPI, or any other school for that matter besides maybe Mit and Stanford, can be compared to CMU for CS. CMU probably has the best undergraduate CS program in the world: They have awesome professors, a huge amount of very cool classes, incredibly super incredible research oppertunities for undergraduates, small classes, etc. Job offers from CMU are pretty much the best from any college. The top recruiter is Google, probably the best/coolest place for software people to work, and the average starting salary is like 75k, witch is way higher than at pretty much every other school. If you are thinking of studying CS at either RPI or CMU, and are accepted to both, and the financial aid is about equal from both, I would highley reccomend CMU.</p>
<p>A few years ago I was in a similar situation to what you are in now (accepted to RPI for CS, want to go to CMU), so I know what you’re going through (I applied EDII, got deferred, then got rejected from physics but never heard back from CS, so I assumed I was rejected from that school too, but whatever).</p>
<p>If you have any specific questions about the CS program (or, while we’re at it, the math program, which I decided to do instead of physics), feel free to PM me with them (note: this offer is extended to all other prospective students as well).</p>
<p>Best of luck with your CMU application, and take care!</p>
<p>Not exactly sure whether I would agree that Google is the best company to work for (and really, different positions at the same company offer different opportunities so you can’t make an apples-to-apples comparison). Maybe 3 or 4 years ago before they went public, there was the chance of massive career advancement and stock options. But there are new startups in technical fields such as NLP, Quantum Computing, and other fields. For the most talented job applicants, these corporations are significantly better. There are probably several employees at Google who are primarily responsible for maintaining old code.</p>
<p>While I agree that CMU is one of the best computer science programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, you have to consider that the computer science program at CMU, along with those at Berkeley, Princeton, MIT, and Stanford (the other very top programs in my opinion) tend to admit much stronger students than other schools (particularly at the graduate level but also at the undergraduate level) and that salaries and hiring are more associated with talent than with school attended.</p>
<p>I would personally go with the one that offers the better aid. If they’re both the same, then choose the one that you honestly feel would be a better fit. The ETC program at CMU is highly regarded and regardless of where you attended undergrad, you would still need a solid portfolio to get admission. Anyway, I’m currently in the game major which is known as GSAS and it’s been pretty great so far. I’m dual majoring in comp sci so I’ve been bombarded with theory for a while. I have a lot of project based courses set up for the next year so we’ll see how that goes :)</p>