<p>Both are the same price after scholarships. I live in a small town now, so I was kind of looking forward to the city with stevens, but afraid I won't take advantage of it. Big car guy, so maybe like the RPI because it's less urban. RPI is much more well known and ranks higher and is larger as well. Are the class sizes different between stevens and RPI? Looking at coop, I think I like Stevens program better, RPI's doesn't seem as structured, kind of confusing and I'm not really sure how it works. Doesn't look like it's a five-year program like stevens. Stevens is also more of a local school (41% are out-of-state), probably cause it's not so well known, and I heard a lot of students go home on the weekend. Extremely difficult decision. Help!</p>
<p>My older S was accepted to both. In his case Stevens offered him a better FA package.</p>
<p>My son has never indicated that the other kids go home on the weekend. He doesn’t come home (we are on Long Island) unless he has a specific reason to do so. Also the coop program is amazing.</p>
<p>Only you can make this decision.</p>
<p>Hopefully, you have visited both schools. Is there one that you felt more comfortable at - that you can more easily foresee yourself spending the next 4 years at?</p>
<p>You can call the school to find out more about its programs. Also, here are the links to the Academic Catalogs for RPI, with descriptions of the various programs at the school:</p>
<p>[Programs</a> - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - acalog ACMS?](<a href=“Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - Acalog ACMS™”>Programs - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - Acalog ACMS™)</p>
<p>This has to be what is right for you. Different people value different parts of the college experience differently and this choice has to be the right one for you.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>That’s what makes this decision so difficult–I’m not sure which one I value more. Money’s not an issue (the both cost the same for me), although stevens appears to offer more in terms of saving money.</p>
<p>What do you want to do after college? Grad school? What industry? Look at where graduates go from each school and see which matches your goals best.</p>
<p>Yeah, I did do that and it also helped. Stevens had a surprising amount of financial firms and banks as their top employers, which I thought was weird. RPI had more design firms and better graduate schools–I’m not sure which I want to do. I’ll probably work in engineering and maybe go to grad school after a few years, depending on the job.</p>
<p>I chose RPI, the reputation won out.</p>
<p>Stevens being a feeder to banks and financial firms is not weird at all. It is, after all, located just a ferry ride from Wall Street. Perhaps more importantly, many of the Manhattan financial firms have established primary or redundant data centers in the Hoboken area. That’s one of the reasons they were able to recover so quickly after 9/11.</p>
<p>One thing I noticed about Stevens is that a large percentage of its faculty are part-timers. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as they may be pulling in good people from local industry to teach courses, but it would be something I’d check out if considering enrolling.</p>
<p>Congrats, jeballes. good choice.</p>
<p>Good decision, you won’t regret it. But to be sure, it has recently been the case that Wall Street firms have been going after engineering grads. The complex derivatives they have been designing require advanced computational algorithms and financial theories derived from statistical mechanics. It’s called financial engineering for a reason. Hopefully some of our best and brightest will now go back into helping us repair infrastructure and drive technological innovation in to solve energy and water problems.</p>
<p>You already accepted RPI, but I can re-assure you that their coop program is very good. You can graduate “on time” with 2 industrial assignments that will give you a leg up for either permanent employment or engineering graduate school. You should also get interesting assignments, especially the 2nd time, due to RPI’s reputation.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>