<p>So I'm obviously getting down to the deadline and I can't make up my mind. I've pretty much narrowed it to these four, but was hoping I could get some other points of view on them. The three American schools will cost roughly the same (ignoring the additional costs of NYC) where as McGill would cost quite a bit less (about $20k per year), and maybe I could complete it in three years. However, I can afford wherever I go somehow. I would really prefer an urban campus (Tufts doesn't make the cut for that, but there's still a lot I like about it). They're all a bit far from home (except for Tufts which is about a forty minute drive at the most). I plan on majoring in cognitive science with a focus on the computer science region of it (and maybe tacking on HCI at CMU or human factors at Tufts) but I have a really broad range of interests and creative inclinations (one of the reasons I applied to NYU Gallatin). Thus, a school with strong English, film, engineering, and urbanism studies that I could dabble in would be great. Any input would be fantastic so I can hurry up and make this decision!</p>
<p>Oh man, I can’t speak to the other options, but Tufts’ program in Cognitive and Brain Science is absolutely fantastic and exactly in line with your interests. It’s very common to double major in that and Computer Science, and the faculty in both departments are wonderful. Good luck with your decision!</p>
<p>It sounds like your academic interests of computer science, cognitive science, film, engineering, urban studies are best aligned with Carnegie Mellon of the three US schools (as well as a more urban campus). McGill, however, has the most international prestige of these universities and is probably the most comprehensive and reputable university of all of the schools listed.</p>
<p>You say you can afford it, but what does that mean? Are your parents incredibly wealthy and do they wish to fully support your undergraduate studies? Are you planning on taking out loans, or going to graduate school?</p>
<p>I’d be able to afford it on loans/with the help of my parents. Obviously it’s not the best financial option but it’s not the top concern. I’m kind of worried the rest of the CMU experience may not be great. Is McGill very well known in the states, though?</p>
<p>based purely on atmosphere and overall undergraduate experience, I would choose Tufts of those four options. Mcgill and NYU are both pretty huge–which I think gives less of a sense of community, and less access to professors and research oportunities. I love Tufts, obviously, and think everyone should go there, but whatever you do I would advise you not to go to Carnegie Mellon. I’ve only heard bad things about the atmosphere there. The undergraduate experience was very important to me, and led me to choose Tufts. Everyone at Tufts is friendly and accepting and just awesome. Tufts is the only one of your schools on the Princeton Review’s list of colleges with Happiest Students.</p>
<p>If the loans are going to exceed the Stafford limits, I vote for no loans and McGill. Yes, people in the US have heard of McGill. A friend of my D1’s is a freshman at McGill and is loving it. </p>
<p>My one niggling concern among your four excellent choices is changing or adding a major at CMU, which for some majors and schools can be difficult. Since you have such diverse and broad interests, you could well be the sort of person whose attention is grabbed by a really compelling professor, causing all of your carefully-laid expectations to be tossed asunder. 
Find out if you’ll have that flexibility to change at CMU.</p>
<p>Economics present a strong case for McGill, so I assume you have taken that into consideration.</p>
<p>Be careful about making any decisions based on either reputation based rankings or research based rankings. Rankings without associated context/methodology are not very useful and can be misleading. There are other limitations that I can go into later. They can be used- just very carefully.</p>
<p>[Medical</a> News:%20Deans Dissect Med School Rankings - in Public Health & Policy, Work Force from MedPage Today](<a href=“http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/WorkForce/29333]Medical”>http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/WorkForce/29333)</p>
<p>It should also be remembered that reputation is not a universal concept. It can vary significantly by geography and social/career group, so you have to specify what geography and group you are most interested in. Many times people do not use a granular enough segmentation. Do you know what you want to do for a career and what geography you want to live in? Also what is the highest level degree you plan on earning?</p>
<p>I could find neither a film studies major nor an urban studies major on the CMU website, but I only looked quickly. Do they have them? CMU has a traditional organizational structure with multiple silos and what appears to be very little in the way of interdisciplinary programs. This may not be good if your interests span many silos, which they do.</p>
<p>Tufts is a little like a Gallatin that spans the entire university. I am just now realizing how unclear it is on the website, so I have some work to do to describe it. I will give it a shot tomorrow.</p>
<p>Here is a commentary from Tufts new dean. She has a Wellesley (UG) /John Hopkins(Grad)/Wellesley (Prof) Neuroscience background. Two amazing schools. I think fit is important for maximizing your potential. There are schools that are good for creative types and there are schools that are good for intensely focused types. Sometimes the fit can change based on what life stage you are at and what level the degree is. Note her comment on how she has been more creative at Tufts. Note also the comment on the productivity of her lab.</p>
<p>[Joanne</a> Berger-Sweeney: The Way Forward for Arts and Sciences | Tufts Now](<a href=“http://now.tufts.edu/articles/way-forward-arts-and-sciences]Joanne”>http://now.tufts.edu/articles/way-forward-arts-and-sciences)</p>
<p>The Tufts culture and environment sound fantastic. My only concerns are that I have heard from a few places that it’s a continuation of high school (and my high school has almost the same sized student body as tufts undergrad) and its location. I’m from southern New Hampshire so I’m concerned it’s a bit too close to home. I also was kind of hoping for a true urban environment (think BU or Northeastern locales in the Boson area) so I’m not sure what kind of compromise that represents.</p>
<p>Neoncco, that’s quite a high school you went to if Tufts feels like a continuation! 
</p>
<p>It sounds like the urban environment is quite important to you, which points towards NYU, IF it doesn’t mean taking out big loans. You’ve toured NYU, right? If you want big city over defined campus, NYU is the standout on your list.</p>
<p>NYU/Gallatin is separate small college within a university at NYU that allows one to design their own interdisciplinary program drawing from courses unique to the school as well as the other schools of the university. It was also envisioned as a university without walls so it has programs to encourage active civic engagement with the surrounding city.</p>
<p>The Tufts Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (CIS) is an umbrella organization that spans the entire university that encourages the development of and helps manage interdisciplinary programs. It allows you to design your own interdisciplinary major or group study project as well as providing pre-approved interdisciplinary majors, interdisciplinary minors and secondary majors. The CIS also provides a set of unique, non-traditional courses, an independent study program and the ability to audit for breadth through the Experimental College.</p>
<p>Note: The secondary major is somewhat confusing concept even within the walls of Tufts (including the attached article). A secondary major is not designed as a subordinate major, it is a designed as a complementary major. It differs from a standard major in that it provides the breadth function, rather than the depth function in the overall educational program. As a result, it overlaps with the traditional notion of distribution requirements and can usually be used to satisfy at least some of them. It is a powerful concept in that it allows you to study a multidisciplinary area (for example, the environment) from the perspective of any of the traditional disciplines (biology, chemistry, geology, engineering, sociology, psychology, English, music ) and ensure you still acquire the depth of knowledge associated with a degree in the traditional discipline.</p>
<p>[Home</a> - Center of Interdisciplinary Studies - Tufts University](<a href=“Center for Interdisciplinary Studies | School of Arts and Sciences”>Center for Interdisciplinary Studies | School of Arts and Sciences)</p>
<p>[Tufts</a> University: The Experimental College](<a href=“http://www.excollege.tufts.edu/default.asp]Tufts”>http://www.excollege.tufts.edu/default.asp)</p>
<p>The differences are that:</p>
<p>Tufts/CIS embeds interdisciplinary thinking into the entire university (including the research community) rather than a single college.</p>
<p>You apply to separately to Gallatin, while at CIS you only have to apply if you want design your own major all the other services are available to the entire Tufts community.</p>
<p>The Experimental College is run by students and the courses change each semester.</p>
<p>Students with passion/unique expertise can develop and teach a course for the Experimental College.</p>
<p>Most Experimental College courses are taught by people outside of Tufts.</p>
<p>At Tufts, the civic engagement function is provided by the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service. This is a unique institution that supports numerous public service programs, conferences and scholarships for the entire Tufts community ranging all the way up to the global scale (including engineers without borders). It also supports 12 endowed professorships for research in citizenship/public service.</p>
<p>[Jonathan</a> M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service - Tufts University](<a href=“Homepage | Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life”>http://activecitizen.tufts.edu/)</p>
<p>If you do not want to design your own major, here are the major/minors/research that line up with your interests:</p>
<p>Tufts offers a pre-designed interdisciplinary Cognitive and Brain Sciences Major (or Minor) with nationally recognized faculty</p>
<p>[Department</a> of Psychology - Tufts University](<a href=“Home | Department of Psychology”>Home | Department of Psychology)</p>
<p>an HCI Lab currently researching brain/computer interaction</p>
<p>[Tufts</a> University HCI Lab](<a href=“http://hci.cs.tufts.edu/hcitufts.html#facilities]Tufts”>http://hci.cs.tufts.edu/hcitufts.html#facilities)
[Tufts</a> Brain Computer Interaction](<a href=“http://hci.cs.tufts.edu/bciabout.html]Tufts”>http://hci.cs.tufts.edu/bciabout.html)</p>
<p>A pre-designed interdisciplinary Urban Studies Minor offered through the Urban and Environmental Policy grad school program (listed on the CIS page)</p>
<p>and a pre-designed film studies minor</p>
<p>[Film</a> Studies Minor - CMS - Tufts University](<a href=“Homepage | Film and Media Studies”>Homepage | Film and Media Studies)</p>
<p>plus the engineering psychology/ human factors program you appear to already know about</p>
<p>My older son (Comp Sci major) went to Carnegie Mellon, younger son is at Tufts. </p>
<p>My older son loved CMU, made lots of friends, and is even returning for Carnival next weekend. He’ll be flying in from Google along with many other friends. CMU despite its silo structure actually allows quite a bit of interdisciplinary interactions, starting with the fact that every SCS student is required to have a minor and there are many pre-designed minors as well. There have been articles in their alumni magazine that say that the interdisciplinary action happens at the professorial level too (better than at Brown according to a new hire.) That said, I’d say the atmosphere at the two schools is quite different. Carnegie Mellon is dominated by the techie nerds and the arty types with a lot of people who know exactly what they want to do when they grow up. But if you want to party you’ll have no trouble finding one. Although CMU is technically more urban than Tufts, I think the difference is pretty minor. If you walk north or west of the campus it’s mostly residential. And you have to deal with buses instead of a subway.</p>
<p>Tufts to me seems to have a more international focus and more of an emphasis of going out and fixing the world. There’s a big emphasis on “active citizenship”. (Of course my view of Tufts is somewhat influenced by my son being an IR major, so you’ll want to talk to science types if you can.)</p>
<p>Thank you for all your responses. I’ll be at a Jumbo day this week do hopefully that will help with my decision!</p>
<p>If you are not already familiar with the corridor between Tufts, Harvard and MIT, you should check it out while you are visiting. It may meet some of your need for being an urban environment given student density and that downtown Boston is just across the river. Somerville is actually the 17th densest city in the country and Cambridge is the 30th. Harvard Square has enough going on to draw students from the colleges in Boston as well as the Cambridge/Somerville area.</p>
<p>Have a great visit!</p>