<p>Sorry for another "vs" thread. I got accepted into Case Western, Purdue, Virginia Tech, UC Davis, but after some consideration I have narrowed it down to either UIUC or Lafayette College. My goal is to get to one of the top grad schools. I know the two colleges are vastly different in many aspects (public/private, Uni/lac), but I really want to know the opinions and view points on picking between the two besides the obvious research opportunity in exchange of smaller, more personalize classes. Also I heard large universities are highly competitive and with a lot of weeding classes plus the atrocious bell curve, I don't know if they will destroy my chance of getting into any half decent grad schools.</p>
<p>Is that so? I was expecting a lot of competition from large public schools from my research, especially due a school with high acceptance rate and renounce programs. Also, it seems in small private schools, kids are more likely to get into grad school.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much of these are true, and I would really appreciate more of your opinion and experience.</p>
<p>Well there is lots of competition, but there weren’t a ton of classes that had a true bell curve. Most of them had a set percentage or number of points that you had to get in order to get an A and the professor just reserved the right to adjust the limits as necessary if needed, but that didn’t happen very often.</p>
<p>You’re afraid of bell curves and high competition and yet you want to go to a top EE grad school? I don’t think you’re very familiar with the top EE grad programs. The curving at the graduate level may look generous, but the students are of an entirely different caliber. Better to just get used to it. Moreover, research experience and letters of recommendation from well-known professors trumps everything else by a wide margin in grad school admissions for top EE programs.</p>
<p>During 4 years of my high school, I challenged myself with the toughest course load possible offered from my school. While I did learned a lot not only from the class materials, but also invaluable experience on how to time mange, release stress etc, my GPA suffered as a consequence. When it comes to college decision time, I find myself being denied from most better institutions where my peers could easily get into with their environmental science free A Ap and other grade booster classes. I don’t like making excusing but I take this as a valuable experience on how to maximize my chances in the highly exploitable admission process and not give in to my personal pride and desire.</p>
<p>Sorry for my rant, now back to topic. I am in dilemma between whether to take a more famous program at a large university or a smaller but less well known one and get more personal attention, and would like to hear as much opinions as possible to help me make a decision I will not regret.</p>
<p>Honestly, if you had a rough time in high school for those reasons, you are really going to have to work in college. It is not even close to high school on the difficulty and time consuming scale.</p>
The curving at the graduate level may look generous, but the students are of an entirely different caliber. Better to just get used to it. Moreover, research experience and letters of recommendation from well-known professors trumps everything else by a wide margin in grad school admissions for top EE programs.</p>