Hey everyone,
After all my acceptances and rejections came in, I’m currently between UIUC and Penn State. I was also accepted to Stony Brook but I’ve thrown that one out of the window as it was my fall back school. I applied to UIUC for their Actuarial Science program and was admitted to their honors college along with my regular admit. On the other hand I was also admitted to Penn State for Mechanical Engineering and was also admitted to their honors college. I will be paying out-of-state for both of these institutions so money isn’t part of the question (besides the $4,500 scholarship from Penn State’s honors college). My question is, where would a degree be more beneficial to my future? I don’t feel more inclined to one university over the other so it makes the decision extremely difficult.
Thanks 
What do you want to do? Do you want to do MechEng? If so, go with Penn State!
I had chosen MechEng as a major to allow me some flexibility to change engineering majors once I attended the Penn State, if I went. I go to a DoDDS school and they’re curriculum doesn’t heavily push sciences which leads me to believe I’ll be a little set behind once I hit college. I’ve taken every math AP there is, a subject heavily pushed by DoDDS, but I’ve only taken AP Physics I when it comes to sciences. I’m hesitant in pursuing MechEng therefore as my science background doesn’t stand much ground.
Wrong way to look at it, IMO. First actually try to invegtigate what the job of an actuary vs. mechanical engineer is like and then determine which path you want to follow.
Schreyer (Penn State Honors’ college) is the real deal, an exceptional Honors College.
What matters is what PurpleTitan said: do you want to work as an engineer or an actuary? Are you more “applied math and science” or “math”?