<p>UC Berkeley or Dartmouth College for Engineering?
UC Berk has a MUCH better and higher ranked engineering department, but Dartmouth is all-around prestigious pretty much and is an Ivy, and is giving a tidy sum of financial aid. However, if i go to Berk, I only have to pay OOS for one semester, cuz my family is taking up residency there after 1 semester.</p>
<p>Which to choose??!!!?????!!!</p>
<p>**also Berkeley is CALIFORNIA! and i'd love to live there</p>
<p>Dartmouth duhh. It’s a Ivy. When you go to cocktail parties, you can just tell people you’re from Dartmouth and everybody will be impressed. Your chance to sleep with girls get higher.</p>
<p>In the end, all the BS about college rankings and Nobel Prizes don’t matter. It’s all about getting girls and making money.
Take Dartmouth!</p>
<p>uhhhhh i’m not a dude!</p>
<p>You’ll still get the girls. =)</p>
<p>Don’t know much about Dartmouth, but for Berkeley, consider the following: the budget problems in the state of California mean it may take you more time than expected to finish your degree (difficult to enroll in required classes because it’s crowded).</p>
<p>On the other hand: California weather is unbeatable. The environs around Berkeley are fantastic. Research more and figure out if one location appeals to you more than the other, one school culture appeals to you more than the other, &c, &c.</p>
<p>I’m inclined to say Dartmouth, just because their engineering is still quite good, and financial aid (is it comparable or cheaper than Berkeley?) nearly seals the deal. Lessening the burden of having you or your parents pay for college should be a major factor.</p>
<p>^^Yeah, right you’re a dude. With a name like JDawg? What you think you’re like JWow from Jersey Shore? </p>
<p>If that’s the case, then go to Berkeley. They make the most porno in CA anyway.</p>
<p>If you are serious about Engineering (i.e., studying Engineering to work for an Engineering firm such as Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft etc…), then Cal is a no-brainer here. If you intend on working in Wall Street when you graduate from college, then I would recommend Dartmouth. And don’t worry, I know two family friends currently studying Engineering at Cal and they are both on schedule to graduate in 4 years.</p>
<p>Dartmouth offers a 4 year degree in “Engineering Science”. To get an accredited BS in Engineering, you have to take a 5th year. So, any choice you make should consider that extra cost.</p>
<p>Dartmouth provides finaid for the 5th year…but Cal for an aspiring engineer is a no-brainer.</p>
<p>Note, you probably will not receive instate tuition until your parents live instate for 12+ months. Cal will not provide you with aid to pay the OOS fees. For pratically everyone with financial need, the cost decision is a no-brainer: Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Dartmouth will open more doors when you graduate for you than Berkeley will. You can get the same Cisco, Google, Microsoft, etc. software job coming out of Dartmouth as you can get at UCB but you can’t get the same IBD/management consulting/HF/PE recruiting as Dartmouth anywhere besides HYPSW.</p>
<p>If you graduate from an Ivy like Dartmouth with a quantitatively focused degree like Engineering, the world is quite simply your oyster. You can’t get the same opportunities coming out of Berkeley, Illinois or Michigan Engineering.</p>
<p>^ No, as usual, the Blue Devil is totally in the dark. A lot of employers looking for engineering talent don’t even bother to recruit Dartmouth because it produces very, very few engineers. What Alexandre said: if you want to do engineering, go to Berkeley, If you want to go to Wall Street, go to Dartmouth—and don’t study engineering, because an econ degree will serve you better in that career.</p>
<p>What if you don’t get in?</p>
<p>So much misinformation in this thread! OP is asking about engineering, and has a choice between Berkeley (with future in-state tuition) and Dartmouth! Even without the tuition break, it’s not even close. The ivies are great, and we all love them, but they’re not famous because of their engineering programs (except Cornell). Berkeley is the obvious choice.</p>
<p>And lol at lesdiablesbleus (don’t know him), but please - Dartmouth engineers won’t even know about the doors that are swinging open for Berkeley engineers.</p>
<p>And Dartmouth is a great school, of course. Ridiculous, but I guess I need to say that.</p>
<p>
Wise words coming from the alleged Ivy League Philosophy professor who seems to know very little about how Corporate America works.</p>
<p>Here are a list of the companies that have hired Dartmouth grads since 1999:
[Employers</a> Hiring Thayer School Graduates](<a href=“http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/career/employers/employer_hires.html]Employers”>http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/career/employers/employer_hires.html)
I see almost every big name software, civil or biomedical engineering company listed here including IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, PwC, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Abbott Labs, Boeing, GE, etc. etc.</p>
<p>In addition, being an engineering major actually helps you greatly because it puts you at the top of the recruiting pile for all the ibanks and consulting firms since they know you have great problem solving skills in addition to being enrolled in an elite undergraduate program.</p>
<p>Look, UCB is terrific if you KNOW FOR SURE you want to be an engineer. No college freshman truly knows what he/she will end up doing 4 years later. If you want to keep the most doors open, pack your bags and head to Hanover.</p>
<p>No one cares about all that. Just focus on increasing your social value by getting a prestigious degree from w/e college (Probably Dartmouth in this case…probably unless you’re really pricky about being a Tony Stark level engineer which means you should aim for Caltech or MIT. Berkeley works too I guess). Then go get laid. If you’re a girl, then turn lesbian. Then get laid.</p>
<p>lesdiasbleus, you are strawmanning the discussion. </p>
<p>The OP asked for engineering and Dartmouth will NOT offer the same opportunities as Berkeley, not only because of its horrid Engineering department but due to its proximity away from Silicon Valley. </p>
<p>Dartmouth is NOT the best of both worlds. If you go to Dartmouth, you can probably forget about your future career as an engineer. I’m not saying you can’t make it at Dartmouth but it will be that much more difficult.</p>
<p>I’m by no means a fan of Berkeley but you should have applied to better engineering alternatives such as CMU or Stanford. I’d tell you to go to many schools other than Berkeley if it were actually a viable choice but Dartmouth isn’t.</p>
<p>aaah, i would hate to have to make that decision. honestly, i would never be able to turn down dartmouth…even if berkeley is probably unanimously better than it at engineering. especially considering how dartmouth is offering you fin aid and one person said that it’ll take a year of settlement in CA before you qualify as an in-stater to get the tuition discount. and dartmouth is more prestigious and class sizes will be smaller and CA is in a budget crisis not to mention it’s hard to graduate in 4 years from berkeley and it’s ivy league and in the northeast. </p>
<p>one thing to consider though is the fact that changing majors is not that uncommon. basically, you might find yourself at berkeley doing engineering and saying it’s not for me. if that epiphany happened at dartmouth, you’d be in a better situation. (right?) but of course you might not change majors, so it comes down to how sure you are of becoming an engineer, no matter what the obstacles. </p>
<p>honestly, the things i listed in the first paragraph would make me choose dartmouth no matter what, but that’s just me, and not you. </p>
<p>good luck. both schools are great</p>
<p>
If you’ve already received a financial aid package, you applied ED – and if it’s a “tidy sum,” you can afford it and are legally obligated to go. Thread closed. </p>
<p>
A worthwhile distinction, particularly since even Berkeley sends noticeably more undergraduate engineers into business than industry. </p>
<p>
Really? Berkeley or bust? Of all fields, engineering is one of the most egalitarian in terms of salary and graduate admissions. </p>
<p>The average engineering salary at Berkeley ranges between $55-65,000, with EECS ($75K) a notable outlier. That does not seem all that different from, say, North Dakota State, which similarly boasts salaries in the $60-70K range.</p>
<p>
I really hope you’re kidding. On these boards, one never knows.</p>
<p>Excellent points warblersrule. If the OP received a financial aid package from Dartmouth at this point, it is clear that she applied ED and is now obligated to attend. End of story.</p>
<p>The OP is most likely a junior. Otherwise, Cal would not even be an option since decisions don’t come out for another 6+ weeks (unless a recruited athlete who wants to sign with Tedford tomorrow). And checking past posts, the OP just took the SAT for the "first time’ in November.</p>
<p>It is common knowledge that D has great need-based aid, second only to the big boys. D will be cheaper for any OOS’er that has need.</p>
<p>“The OP asked for engineering and Dartmouth will NOT offer the same opportunities as Berkeley, not only because of its horrid Engineering department but due to its proximity away from Silicon Valley.”</p>
<p>Horrid?</p>
<p>Proximity away from Silicon Valley? Do you mean the original Silicon Valley–Boston’s Route 128 Corridor? It’s less than 2 hours from Dartmouth.</p>
<p>And are there no engineering jobs elsewhere?</p>