<p>for mechanical eng which would u go to</p>
<p>Penn.<br>
UCSD is a great school, but obviously the better choice is Penn.</p>
<p>If you’re in state, UCSD all the way. You get a great engineering school AND a reasonable price.</p>
<p>Penn has great financial aid… </p>
<p>Average $40,535 for a family making $60,000 - 69,999… </p>
<p>[A</a> Look at the Facts, Comparing Penn’s Cost](<a href=“http://www.sfs.upenn.edu/paying/paying-pro-look-at-the-facts.htm]A”>Submit My Documents | Penn Student Registration & Financial Services| Penn Srfs)</p>
<p>I would go with Penn. You can’t get a better more well rounded education.</p>
<p>If you’re instate then UCSD would probably cost less, but Penn is such a good school that, depending on your family’s income, it would outweigh the cost difference. Not to say that UCSD isn’t a decent school, it really depends on which school you like better since you’re going to be going there, but Penn will give you a more rigorous but rewarding education if you choose to go there.</p>
<p>UPenn. If you ever want to change your direction, major, or just take other electives or a minor, UPenn provides a higher quality of education across the board.</p>
<p>UCSD is a great school… especially in certain sciences, much better than Penn. I don’t know about ME… let me look it up really quickly here… OK, ME is in fact one of the concentrations in which UCSD pwns Penn:</p>
<p>Mechanical Eng </p>
<p>1 Stanford 4.77
2 MIT 4.65
3 Cal Berkeley 4.54
4 Cal Tech 4.35
5 Michigan 4.22
6 Princeton 4.19
7 Cornell 4.15
8 Minnesota 4.09
9 Illinois 4.07
10 Purdue 4.04
11 Cal San Diego 4.04
12 Northwestern 3.98
13 Brown 3.79
14 UCLA 3.76
15 Texas 3.73
16 RPI 3.69
17 Penn State 3.68
18 Georgia Tech 3.62
19 Carnegie Mellon 3.59
20 Wisconsin 3.48
21 Case Western 3.48
22 Penn 3.40</p>
<p>However, other aspects of Penn may outweigh this relatively small difference in program strength… not the least of which is name recognition, and strength in non-science areas.</p>
<p>nooob, what do you do, look up USNWR school rankings and then simply pick that school over another that is lower ranked, regardless of concentration? geography? Finances?</p>
<p>What exactly is “obvious” about Penn being the choice over UCSD for ME?</p>
<p>To me Penn would be the choice because the UC’s are all in a budget crisis, you’ll be surrounded by accomplished peers from all over the world as opposed to 92% from CA, there is no problem graduating in 4 years and the people graduating with you will be people you know, the resources are better and the social life is multiple times better. Ranking doesn’t matter much in engineering.</p>
<p>I agree with hmom5 on this one.</p>
<p>Penn isn’t particularly a superb school for engineering. I’d say UCSD’s the better choice if you’re in-state.</p>
<p>Yes im in state but its still a tough decision for me.</p>
<p>Most ME employers aren’t going to be impressed. They aren’t going to offer you a higher salary for a Penn degree.</p>
<p>Yes, but if he combines the engineering with some Wharton classes and gets the Penn degree, he’s in line for categories of higher paying jobs he would not be in the running for as a UCSD grad.</p>
<p>Bonus regulation means working 80hrs/week for 60k/year, that is if he gets the job over 20k unemployed former bankers.</p>
<p>hmom5,</p>
<p>To say that Penn has a better social life than UCSD is an absurd statement. The quality of life at UCSD will be many multiples better than at Penn.</p>
<p>^ not at all an absurd statement. The quality of life at UCSD is better than Penn if you are talking sunshine, beach and surfing. – agreed. But you can do a search on CC or talk to actual UCSD students and you will see that the lack of <em>on campus</em> social life is a complaint of many.</p>
<p>we are talking about philadelphia here, the 5th largest city in the US and arguably one of the most cultured and historical cities our nation has to offer. I’m sorry, but I think it’s clear in this case. I find the UC system to be overrated. IMO they just don’t compare with the more competitive east coast colleges. When it comes to job placement there is no better way to impress a possible employer than to say “btw I graduated from (insert ivy here)”.</p>
<p>^ agree, up to a point.
But, frankly, on the West Coast “btw I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania” will get you a nod and maybe a “great football team” comment, while UCSD everyone will be familiar with.</p>
<p>Sad, but true.</p>