My son was accepted at both SDSU and UCSD for Mechanical Engineering. We are trying to figure out how to make the choice between the two. SDSU has an obvious advantage of having a lower cost of attendance and UCSD has the advantage of being a higher ranked school. I would appreciate any thoughts or insights that could help us make a decision. Thanks!
Has he visited both campuses? Very different campus vibe between the two schools.
Both ME Programs are ABET accredited so they will have similar standardized curriculum. If he has a specific area of interest, take a look at the course offerings between the 2 schools. UCSD is a more STEM oriented school vs. SDSU which has a broader range of majors, so it really will come down to where he would like to spend his next 4 years.
Both have good connections with local employers. Where would be most happy? Since an happy student is a successful student.
@Gumbymom: Thanks for your response. He has not done an official visit to either campus because of the current situation. We are local, so have some idea of the campus vibe. Do you think that either of these school will delay the decision date from May 1st?
Does anyone know if there is a difference between the class sizes?
Re: class sizes
You can probably get an idea by looking up courses like math, physics, mechanical engineering, etc. on the online class schedules for fall and spring semesters at SDSU and fall, winter, and spring quarters for UCSD.
https://sunspot.sdsu.edu/schedule/search
https://act.ucsd.edu/scheduleOfClasses/scheduleOfClassesStudent.htm
Note: SDSU is on a typical semester system (academic year = two 15-week semesters), while UCSD is on a quarter system like most (not all) UCs but only a few CSUs and CCCs (academic year = three 10-week quarters).
You can look at the course catalogs for each school and get an idea of the # of students in each class as suggested by @ucbalumnus. Lower division pre-req major classes and GE’s usually have a large # of students vs. upper division classes.
Both campuses have a little over 30,000 undergrads so similar in size for their student body.
I do know that SDSU gives priority to Freshman students in course registration and they will open up more classes as needed for the required GE’s such as Written and Oral communication classes. SDSU also was very generous in AP credit for my son, so he was able to opt out of 5 classes with his AP credit.
My map 4 year plan for SDSU ME students: https://sunspot.sdsu.edu/pubred/!mymap.disp/!mymap.disp
Type in year and major to get the 4 year plan.
Not sure how generous UCSD is with AP credit and it is dependent upon which college is was admitted into regarding their AP policies.
With the quarter system you need to hit the ground running and it is easy to get behind so another consideration vs. semester.
Younger son at SDSU liked the semester system while my older son whom went to UCD loved the quarter system but did find it challenging at the beginning.
@ucbalumnus @Gumbymom: Thanks for your inputs. We will look at the class catalogs to look at the difference in class sizes.