<p>I'm probably going to study chemical engineering. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>bumppp also, i was accepted into the rutgers honors program, and stevens scholars program.</p>
<p>At first, I’d say Cornell, but of course there are oh so many factors to consider. You can probably make a case of each of them. What are you looking for exactly?</p>
<p>Cornell no brainer choice for engineering.</p>
<p>Net price and debt difference, if any?</p>
<p>ken285: strong student support, good job and grad school placement, friendly environment. in terms of studying, im interested in energy, manufacturing, and biomaterials</p>
<p>ucbalmnus: rutgers: full scholarship
stevens: around $16,000 (room and board, received full-tuition scholarship)
cornell and brown: full price ($60,000, but won’t be in debt)</p>
<p>Hmmm, Rutgers degree + $240,000 versus Cornell degree… how much is $240,000 to your parents (i.e. is it pocket change to them, or something that could impact their future plans for retirement, etc.)?</p>
<p>But also, does the Rutgers scholarship have a college GPA requirement to keep?</p>
<p>In terms of job and graduate school placement, you may want to check the career centers and the chemical engineering departments to see if they have any survey results.</p>
<p>First of all, what’s the GPA requirement to maintain the full ride ?</p>
<p>Two ways to look at your situtation: </p>
<p>One Way: Don’t sell yourself for a full ride. Grab what you deserve. Go for the best engineering school in the ivy and one of the best in the nation.</p>
<p>2nd Way: Why in the world would you way 60k per year(240k over 4 years) when you will receive the same ABET accredited education for free ? </p>
<p>Choose whichever one you feel comfortable with.</p>
<p>I think the choice is between Cornell and Rutgers. Brown’s engineering is weak and their eng. facilties are run down. Stevens is a decent program, but it’s in Hoboken and costs more than the free ride at Rutgers.</p>
<p>Cornell has more prestige both generally and specifically in engineering. If you’re okay with the cold, Ithaca is a cute town. It partly depends on your families situation and how much $240K will crimp people’s lifestyles short and long term.</p>
<p>The traditional ranking system is severely flawed. It’s very subjective and does not contain any metrics on the actual success of the graduates. Personally, I find that appalling. How can any ranking system not measure the success of it’s graduates? </p>
<p>Take a look at what graduates earn from the schools you are considering. There is very little correlation between the schools rankings and how successful their graduates are.
<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2013/full-list-of-schools[/url]”>http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2013/full-list-of-schools</a></p>
<p>Your decision process should include a long talk/interview with the placement offices of these schools. Without that, you’re completely avoiding the 300lb gorilla in the room.</p>
<p>The payscale data is a bit misleading. You need to control for the fact that some schools have a much bigger percentage of high income majors, like CS, than others which have a broader mix.</p>
<p>However, I agree that a trip to the placement office is in order. I suspect Cornell does pretty well on job and grad school placement but Rutgers may do well for its Chem E majors given all the nearby pharma/biotech companies.</p>
<p>Rutgers is a no-go, IMHO.</p>
<p>Stevens is a superior school, literally right across the water from the Manhattan skyline, and surrounded by a young affluent community full of nice shops and restaurants. The PATH train (subway) is right there. NYC is so close and accessible, it’s the next closest thing to actually living in the city. </p>
<p>In contrast, Rutgers is spread out over several campuses, none of which are surrounded by what would be considered “nice” neighborhoods and a large percentage of the population commutes from home. The New Brunswick campus is one of the nicer ones, but a far cry from Stevens.</p>
<p>If money is not an issue, as stated by the OP, IMHO, Rutgers shouldn’t even be on the list. The full tuition ride and just $16K for room and board makes Stevens the slam dunk choice, even though Rutgers is free.</p>
<p>Cornell is in the arm pit of New York. It’s a great engineering school, but sorry, it’s just so darned depressing up there! It’s gray and cold for the entire school year. I think the “suicide bridge” thing needs to be seriously considered.</p>
<p>Brown also has a nice town associated with it, but at full tuition, and it’s “eh” engineering reputation, it’s a pass.</p>
<p>In terms of location, the choice would be between Stevens and Brown. Stevens wins, because not only is it in a nice affluent town, it is mere minutes from the city. You could go in for dinner, any night, and still have time to study.</p>
<p>In terms of education, the choice would be between Cornell and Stevens. I think Stevens wins on an ROI basis. Just room & board at Stevens versus paying for everything at Cornell.</p>
<p>LakeClouds,</p>
<p>You can drill down into the majors in Payscale. You don’t have to take just the broad view.</p>
<p>I find the USNews rankings “misleading”. As an engineer, when presented with a “system”, I need to know how things work. I found the USNews rankings ridiculous. It is almost entirely subjective. The only non-subjective parts are from the Carnegie Education Foundation, but that data is subjectively interpreted!!! …because the Carnegie data specifically does not rank the schools it reports on. It simply lists resources. So someone at USNews has subjectively weighted those resources.</p>
<p>The most appalling thing about the USNews ranking is the total lack of metrics for student success after graduation. Sure, they measure things while the student is attending the institution, but not one single metric for their success as a graduate. Ridiculous.</p>
<p>That being said, I find the payscale ranking too thin. All it does is measure the graduate’s success. More is needed to rank a school I think. </p>
<p>So neither is perfect. Maybe average the two. Personally, I’d give a little more weight on the Payscale ranking.</p>
<p>I just laugh when I read stuff like this:</p>
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</p>
<p>Do you realize that if your parents gifted you $10,000 per year (totally tax free) for the next 24 years (the $240k they’d pay for Cornell) and then you held it in a Roth until you were 63 that returned what the stock market has averaged since 1900 (yes, including the great depression), you’d have almost 6 million dollars. That’s over $3,000,000 inflation adjusted. PLUS, you’d have a degree from Rutgers.</p>
<p>Now, what’s the “no brainer”?</p>
<p>M</p>
<p>Re: [Full</a> List of Schools - PayScale College Salary Report 2012-13](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2013/full-list-of-schools]Full”>http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2013/full-list-of-schools)</p>
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</p>
<p>How do you get comparisons stratified by school and major? Payscale seems to let you compare by school (exclusive-)or major, not by both.</p>
<p>As noted above, the Payscale comparison by school is less meaningful because each school’s distribution of majors is different. The Payscale comparison by major does not show how graduates of different schools in the same major do.</p>
<p>Maikai, for undergraduate engineering, USNWR is 100% subjective. It is based purely on institutional reputation, nothing else. Talk about a self fulfilling prophecy.</p>
<p>PayScale is biased too. As was previously mentioned, tech heavy student populations skew the result upwards. If there was a way to compare major to major, that would be helpful, but there isn’t, only graduate to graduate.</p>
<p>M</p>
<p>Sorry UBCAlum, simultaneous post. ;-)</p>
<p>eyemgh,</p>
<p>Again, Payscale breaks out professions. You compare schools for just the engineering major if you want. </p>
<p>I only provided the main link, thinking people would poke around themselves.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus,</p>
<p>Pull up Payscale.com. Go the “education” tab along the top.
Click on “college salary report.”
Scroll down to “best schools by type.”</p>
<p>This won’t be a comprehensive list comparing every school in their data base, but you’ll get the first few decades. If your school isn’t listed, it didn’t make the grade.</p>
<p>I agree with maikai’s comments. Additionally, I have found the Stevens atmosphere to be very friendly and supportive in general. My son’s professors have been encouraging and responsive to his questions. Administration has always been very helpful to me as a parent and I have spoken with dining, housing, billing and security about various things. All very courteous and helpful. </p>
<p>My other son goes to Rutgers and it’s just harder with such a huge population of students for them to deal with. Things usually take longer to get resolved. Plus, the buses :/</p>
<p>The only thing I really don’t like about Stevens is that although housing is pretty much guaranteed if you want it, they currently let people retain their spots from year to year. That’s not really fair. It’s a seniority based lottery and I hope they do away with retention next lottery period. </p>
<p>Also they use some leased apartments that are on the far west side of Hoboken (Madison St, Jefferson St etc you can view the choices on the Stevens housing page) Those are newish but a several block walk to campus. There is a shuttle but not sure how convenient it is. A lot of kids move off campus but most need several roommates to afford the high rents 2k-3.5k average per month from what I’ve seen, for an older brownstone apartment (usually a 3rd or 4th floor walkup) that houses 3-4 people.</p>
<p>Plus as a Stevens scholar you get to register for classes the first day that registration opens up. At Rutgers it goes by credits earned, but it’s still a battle every semester to get convenient times/campuses for the classes you want. I won’t miss that when my son graduates.</p>
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<p>Not everyone wants to go to an urban school for their undergraduate experience. My daughter (now a junior, grew up in NYC) wants to go away and then come back to the city after graduation. And she loved Cornell when we visited. It is really beautiful, hardly the armpit of NY.</p>