Hello!
I was very recently admitted into:
UC Davis for Chemical Engineering
UCI in The Henry Samueli School of Engineering for Chemical Engineering
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for Chemical and Biological Engineering
I’m having a bit of trouble deciding between the three though I’m leaning more towards UC Davis on account of it and UCI being approximately equal as schools and UC Davis from what I hear has a far more enjoyable environment and atmosphere as a whole than UCI. RPI is a great school but it costs quite a bit more considering I would have to go out of state and I’d only go if it was that much better of a school to really warrant spending $20k more to attend.
Basically, what do you think the best school out of these three for Chemical Engineering is? What would you recommend? Thank you all, I look forward to your responses!
“UC Davis from what I hear has a far more enjoyable environment and atmosphere as a whole than UCI.”
that would be totally subjective. I know a lot of people that would tell you they feel the opposite.
Naturally, though I’d love to hear either your thoughts or those from friends you know about that in particular if you’d be willing to ask around. I suppose much like rankings, something being “better” than another really has no meaning if no one is willing to go and discuss the fine details.
@Korimas well it would really be difficult to recommend one without knowing you personally.
overall USNWR ranks the 3 universities
UCI : 39 (tie)
RPI : 39 (tie)
UCD : 44 (tie)
so you are correct in your assessment that you would be paying a lot of extra money at RPI for a school that has the same reputation as the CA schools (although I have not say I am not really familiar with RPI) .
When I applied my first and only choice was UCI because I had been going to Orange County for years and I always knew I would live there. I am originally from Santa Barbara, which has less than 10% of the population that Orange County has, so its kind of a small town, which I imagine Davis is like too. In Santa Barbara there are no Targets, Walmarts, amusement parks. and the biggest movie theater has maybe 6 screens. I always wanted to live somewhere with wide lane roads, 30 screen movie theaters, Disneyland, Knotts Berry farm, etc., so Davis would not have been worth applying to for me.
Interesting! I’ve lived in Huntington Beach/Orange County for all my life and I have a slight attraction for Davis solely because of it being in a rural area. I adore modern big-city areas with the electric light and fun atmosphere that carries into the night, not that I actually participate in night life myself, but I do very much enjoy areas like that. At least in my mind, Davis certainly wouldn’t be anything like that but Irvine certainly isn’t much closer to it either. I think I’d enjoy an open, rural area a bit more than the suburbs I’ve lived in all my life.
I haven’t actually been around colleges before, though, and I’m not sure if they’d have that kind of “city that never sleeps” atmosphere to it, or if either Davis or UCI would fit in that category. I’m quite new here, haha. If anyone knows, I’d love to hear about it!