UIUC or RHIT for international student

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Good day, </p>

<p>I'm an international high school student thinking of doing EE and I have been accepted to both University of Illinois Urb-Cha and Rose Hulman Inst. of Tech. </p>

<p>Both universities appear well-ranked in their respective rankings on U.S. News (UIUC EE #2 in degrees up to Ph.D. ranking and RHIT EE ranked #1 in degrees up to Masters ranking) and both also appear to cost around or just below US$50,000 for international students.
I'm extremely lucky enough to find that, financially, any of the two universities won't be a problem to attend.</p>

<p>My main dilemma comes from my inability to visit the two distinctive campuses - One is a very large, culturally diverse research driven public uni (UIUC) and the other (RHIT) is small, undergraduate focused private college, which makes it very difficult for me to choose. </p>

<p>I'm thinking of going to graduate school in US to earn my Masters in the future and so i may be inclined more towards a school that better prepares me for such task.
I see that it'll be almost impossible for me to get a job in US only after my bachelors, esp seeing how US has near 10% unemployment rate atm.
Moreover, frankly speaking, I don't really care about girl-boy ratio as such (the inevitable that comes with engineering field i guess).</p>

<p>Therefore, I was wondering, given no financial hurdles or possible debts, which school would you recommend for an international student (who is thinking of going to graduate school) to attend? would you say that it all comes down to personal taste?</p>

<p>thank you in advance :)</p>

2

<p>Lucky for you I have visited both schools and actually live in Illinois. Here are some points to consider:</p>

<p>Diversity -
UIUC is a very diverse campus, if you want to easily fit in then it is definitely worth considering. RHIT on the other hand is not diverse at all. It is mostly made up of people from Indiana.</p>

<p>Prestige -
UIUC is definitely thought of more highly than RHIT and surely more well known. It is considered a world class university in engineering and if you want a good name behind you that everyone will know, then UIUC is the school. However, RHIT has a very good name among engineering circles. It is not known by very many people besides those in Indiana, but it is known among engineers (the people who will actually matter in your career).</p>

<p>Undergraduate Focus -
Most people will tell you that the whole “we have an undergraduate focus” thing is very over-rated. But something to keep in mind is that UIUC is a RESEARCH university. Therefore, many of the professors are focusing on getting published while also teaching classes. At RHIT the professors do publish and do research, but are more focused on teaching (that doesn’t necessarily mean though that they are better teachers). So I would imagine that getting to know your professors will be easier at RHIT than at UIUC. However, that’s not to say that you could not get to know your professors at UIUC also. Once you start getting into classes specifically in your major you will have much smaller class sizes and more time with an actual prof. Bottom line, if you buy into the whole undergraduate focus thing and therefore believe it (which it may very well be helpful), then RHIT is probably your school.</p>

<p>Research -
If you want to go to graduate school, research is VERY important. You want to try to do undergraduate research as much as you can. Which school will be easier for this? UIUC most likely. I talked to a RHIT prof and he said that many students get involved in research there. However, I imagine the range of different research opportunities is not nearly as good as at UIUC. So if you intend to go to graduate school and want to get involved in a lot of research, UIUC is the school for you.</p>

<p>Environment -
My personal opinion, RHIT has a much better looking campus. UIUC is a little more run down and the campus is just not so great looking. Also, UIUC is a very big school environment. If you want to stand out more RHIT might be better, but if you don’t mind the large amount of students and the big campus setting then UIUC may be the better choice. This category is all up to personal preference. RHIT is VERY small compared to UIUC. It has only about 2,000 students.</p>

<p>My opinion -
After visiting the two schools, I would have picked RHIT. However because of financial reasons I am going to a different school than either of these two. Some of the reasons I would have picked RHIT are as follows:

  • the students are ridiculously nice and inviting
  • I do somewhat buy into the whole undergraduate focus thing
  • RHIT is very well regarded among the people in my field of choice
  • I think that I personally would thrive better in its atmosphere
  • It has nearly a 100% job placement after graduation
  • It sends its students to some of the top grad schools (but so does UIUC)
  • The campus is a lot nicer</p>

<p>So it’s all up to you. PM me or post on here if you have any specific questions about the schools. I have researched a lot into RHIT and I know a lot about UIUC since it is one of my state schools (and my sister is attending there for graduate school).</p>

<p>Good Luck!</p>