<p>I have been admitted to RPI and Purdue for the next fall and they are my top 2 choices and I am really confused and don't know what to choose..</p>
<p>I visited Purdue last week and it is a great school but I found it a little bit big while I will visit RPI next week and I expect a small focused college.</p>
<p>I really want to know in terms how is the research opportunities for undergrad ..
and how is the student life in both schools?</p>
<p>although I feel I am leaning toward RPI more since it is a smaller college I am not quite sure</p>
<p>Also my scholarship is leaning toward Purdue not because of the money but that they think it has a better engineering program ( ranking, ...etc) so If I have found RPI better I need to convince them with strong academic reasons</p>
<p>Good question. We need to keep having these kinds of debates. Purdue is a larger engineering school but not a better one. Unfortunately US news UG ranking is only a peer review so student quality, selectivity, faculty resources, class size, etc. are not factored in. If they were RPI would easily equal or exceed Purdue, </p>
<p>Last year RPI’s incoming freshman had 25th - 75th SAT percentile of 1280 - 1450 which is on par with places like Cal Berkeley. These numbers should be even higher for the class of 2015. That should give you a good idea of the caliber of school RPI is.</p>
<p>Places like Purdue, UIUC, GaTech, UT Austin, Michigan, etc. have great programs but it’s time to end the notion that sheer size make them better than RPI. </p>
<p>I think when you visit RPI you will be impressed by all the new science/engineering facilities that have been built. </p>
<p>Also, I did undergraduate research at RPI and that was perhaps the main reason that I was hired by Texas Instruments. </p>
<p>If you like the smaller learing environment R.P.I. is a great choice.</p>
<p>exactly…and think about this…if Purdue is stronger than RPI…why is RPI much tougher to get into??..</p>
<p>with that said, i’ll definitely say that for grad, Purdue is better…but all that says is that there are more research opportunities for the grad student…for grad school, if you find your desired research topic at a particular school, u can’t go wrong with it…</p>
<p>also, rankings really don’t mean much…i know for a fact that in some particular engineering areas, Purdue is ranked higher than Caltech…i mean now it’s kinda obvious that a Caltech grad is a def a genius…i mean their students put MIT to shame…Purdue is not even close to Caltech…</p>
<p>If there is any reason why you might not go on in engineering, then take Purdue. I am local to RPI (and my D applied and was waitlisted) so I definitely think it is a good school. While there are social activities, it is in no way on a par with what I would guess goes on at Purdue. Troy is fine around the school, but not too far away not a great neighborhood. The Capital Region in general is not an exciting place for college students, but a very nice place to live when you are out of school. Kind of depends on the college experience you want.</p>
<p>RPI is a very good engineering on a par with Purdue imho. I did my undergrad engineering degree at OSU so am familiar with the deserved high reputation of Big 10 Universities too. I would guess research opportunities would be somewhat better at a smaller college like RPI. Social life would definitely be a strong benefit of Purdue. Two good choices though. Good luck.</p>
<p>Seriously? Take a look at all the distinguished alumni from Purdue including Fortune 500 executives. You need to consider the entire education and what you are looking for. There is significantly more diversity at Purdue and the campus life is certainly significantly different. Purdue is a university where generations upon generations of students from the same family have attended.</p>
<p>Don’t listen to the biased replies, go see them for yourself. You need to decide what is important to you, not someone on this forum.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone here was saying Purdue is a bad school. I think the general message here was that the rankings are misleading, and that the large ranking gap between the two schools is more a function of some worthless criterion than one of a true measure of quality. </p>
<p>In reality, I’d imagine the schools are similar enough in quality that certain nonacademic factors (such as school size, location, etc.) should begin dominating the equation.</p>
<p>I personally will defend RPI as I see fit. The “rankings” need to be exposed for the sham that they are. If someone doesn’t like it I don’t care.</p>