<p>cornell is an ivy and that should influence your decision. Although you may say that an Ivy status doesn’t matter to you but it will help you latter on in life.
CMU is a socially dead school and the only fun you will probably have is playing Call of Duty with your room mate. I’m sure you don’t want that.
Berkeley is a great school and is a picometer behind cornell in terms of reputation. But i’m sure you have heard of the budget crisis over there, its a real mess. Don’t risk your future by going there, the job market is bad already. What I mean to say is that you won’t get many research opportunities over there as they lack the funds. Even the present students are dis stressed. Also, you have SOOOO many people over there. Its a huuugeee school. That will lead to sabotage amongst students and other BS. And I’m sure you don’t want to spend your whole educational life in the west. Cal is cool but you should go out and explore.</p>
<p>What other schools did you get into?? Maybe there is something you’re not considering.</p>
<p>ACCEPTED:
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
USC
UC Berkeley
UC San Diego
UC Irvine
UCLA
Carnegie Mellon
Cornell
Johns Hopkins
Northwestern
Pepperdine
Rensselaer</p>
<p>WAITLISTED:
MIT
CalTech
Columbia
Duke
UPenn</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon is NOT a “socially dead” school. Sure, we have our fair share of people who enjoy video games, but I would say most of kids here are the types that like to hang out with friends, go out sometimes; it’s a pretty relaxed atmosphere. And for somebody who never wants to drink or smoke, you’re not really going to have any pressure here. Additionally, we have top programs in music and computer engineering (I think you mentioned these?).</p>
<p>That being said, people at CMU can be very competitive (although not as bad as Cornell- and I’m not sure about UCB). Also, it’s unfortunate you don’t like the cold. It gets cold here.</p>
<p>I live outside of Ithaca and it’s a nice town; most people say it is “small” but it’s not bad-although it’s certainly not a city like Pittsburgh. The weather in Ithaca is pretty bad, but the campus is beautiful.</p>
<p>Also, I noticed you got into Northwestern and Johns Hopkins- wow! I am surprised you are not considering them but it’s up to you! Congrats on everything! Good Luck!</p>
<p>First, congratulations on getting into so many great schools! Any one of them will be lucky to have you, I’m sure.<br>
Anyway, I don’t know if you visited CMU already, but I had the same concerns about attending the school until I visited. Although I did see a few students who were, more or less, socially awkward, there were many more who were quite outgoing and had many interests outside of academia. Plus, because the school is great in both the arts and sciences, you’ll meet a lot of great personalities!
Plus, Pittsburgh is a great city and full of college students so if you want to get off campus and do something, you can quite easily, especially as all CMU students get free access to Pittsburgh public transportation.
As for the weather, I can’t say much–it’s Pittsburgh. It’ll be cold some days, rainy others, and unbearably hot a few random times. :)</p>
<p>This all being said, Cornell and UCB are both fantastic schools as well! :)</p>
<p>Congratulations. All three of your schools have very strong reputations for engineering so you may feel comforted by the fact that you really can’t go wrong.
I don’t know much about Carnegie Mellon, but I’ve heard that both Cornell and Berkeley can be VERY competitive although they both have excellent programs. I know a Cornell engineering grad who was very satisfied with his education but did say that his classes could be cut throat, especially those with the pre-meds in them. I’ve heard similar about Berkeley. Both are rather big and impersonal but I’m sure you can find your group within the larger student body. Berkeley has much better weather, but the UCs are experiencing huge cuts in their budgets, which makes getting the classes you need and money for research that much harder. Because of this, if you are not a regents scholar at UCB I would recommend you go with Cornell. I think their lack of cuts will afford you more opportunity.</p>
<p>So as of now I’ve visited Cornell and Carnegie Mellon and loved both campuses, and neither trip really made me more inclined towards either school. They both had things that I liked and disliked unfortunately. Any more insight out there? Oh and I skipped up Johns Hopkins because I know they’re better on the premed/biomedical side, and then I skipped up Northwestern because I’ve heard terrible things about the workload there, its just as cold as Cornell, yet none of the engineering majors I want to go into are in the top 10 ranks there. These may be bad reasons, but at this point I need to get nit-picky.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard from students, CMU does not have the cut-throat environment you’re talking about at all. While Cal and other top engineering schools curve grades so tha tonly a small portion of the class receives an A, CMU does not curve. If you earned an A you’ll get an A. Also, CMU bases a lot of their curriculum on group projects, so anyone who’s hyper-competitive will soon be forced to cooperate with his/her classmates.</p>
<p>So I have now visited all 3, and from what it looks like, UCB has some nice facilities but some areas still don’t look as well kept as others. Also, maybe this is such a minor thing but they didn’t have clubs that I might’ve been interested in that Cornell and Carnegie Mellon had like autonomous robot/car competitions, Baja Club, though they did have Engineers Without Borders which I’d definitely like to join. Is it that hard to start a new club like that at UCB?</p>