<p>Back from the mega college tour trip and visited most of the colleges on son's list:</p>
<p>He has acceptances at Santa Clara and U of Miami both with Merit aid, plus UT Austin, USC and WashU.</p>
<p>He is tied between USC and WashU as of now, need some advise and any inputs you may have based on hearsay or your own/child's experiences.</p>
<p>Finances are not an issue as such in choosing the right option for son. He is an all rounded kid leaning towards Computer Engineering with a minor in Business. A sharp kid but not competitive. I have a feeling that he will not fall through the cracks at SCU, Miami and WashU but am not so sure about UT and USC. </p>
<p>Please help with some info on USC and WashU in particular, thanks!!</p>
<p>People who love USC LOVE USC. It’s one of those colleges the graduates adore.</p>
<p>WashU is a fantastic school, a better school, academically, and many think a top, top, top school.</p>
<p>Ultimately, either one is a good education. An academic kid would go WashU; a more social kid would go USC. It’s not an even trade off on either part. The academic downgrade from WashU to USC is significant. The social downgrade from USC to WashU is infinite.</p>
<p>I’d ask my son what school he loved. It’s his choice anyway.</p>
<p>I do not know about these schools, but I am Computer Programmer and my H. is an engineer and it is completely does not matter where you go for either IT - related or engineering - related positions. Most engineering firms as far as I know hire locally.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP is right. For IT, USC and Wash U are both great places and about equal for potential employers, although to me, LA is a much better place to be in school than that of St. Louis. I would pick the one that gives the lowest overall cost unless cost is fairly close or immaterial.</p>
<p>I have two brothers who have their computer engineering master degrees from USC…they both have done very well. I would choose USC…besides it’s easier for you location-wise, isn’t it?</p>
<p>If you S is likely to live or work on the Pacific Rim in the future, then pick USC. USC encourages capable students to tackle more than one major, and both the Marshall School of Business and Vertibi Engineeringschools are terrific.</p>
<p>USC’s engineering department is pretty highly ranked. I don’t know about wustl’s. As far as in which area to spend 4 years, there’d be no question for me - definitely LA over St. Louis but that’s just me.</p>
<p>Both are great schools and he won’t go wrong either way. It all comes down to personal preference, for schools size and location. </p>
<p>USC has a large, and highly ranked engineering department. I don’t know much about USC, but other large, highly ranked engineering departments, in my experience and from what I’ve heard from other engineers, tend to focus much more on their graduate students than their undergrads. </p>
<p>I think WashU would be a much more personal experience. (But I’m biased, since my S will attend WashU in the fall.)</p>
<p>Four years ago, when S was a HS senior, S was accepted to Wash U as a prospective engineering major, and was offered a free airplane ticket for an on-campus visit. From our limited research, we heard that many engineering students at Wash U were rather unhappy with their experiences and, in particular, with the quality of the engineering faculty. Rather than waste his time and Wash U’s money, S passed on the trip.</p>
<p>S was also accepted to USC. I loved it - even as a UCLA alum (USC’s arch rival), I was really impressed with the level of student support, internship/networking opportunities, school spirit, and culture of being a “Trojan for Life”. S’s only objection to USC was that it was too close to home.</p>
<p>Oh my gosh, I do see a clear winner here! Thank you all for posting.</p>
<p>In my heart I know CA is the right place to be for him (given that he is into iPhone app programming and cannot wait to design a program for iPad now), but he did like the WashU culture and is getting drawn by its RLC feature and other ratings such as ‘dorms like palaces’ ‘best food’ and ‘happiest student’ ratings.</p>
<p>I like the fact that both these schools offer the double major/major-minor option.</p>
<p>There is little contest between being in the middle of the ghetto and being in an upscale city/suburban area surrounded by a beautiful park, multimillion dollar elegant old homes, and upscale dining and shopping options. The people who are all OMG-StLouis are all people who have never visited and think of the Midwest erroneously as hick. LA? Watts? Blech.</p>
Pizzagirl - If you’re referring to my post, I’ve been to St. Louis many times and have lived in the midwest (Kansas) before and I still find it to be one of the least appealing areas of the country for me although I don’t consider it ‘hick’. For me it’s more about the inarguably lousy weather, lack of mountains, no ocean, no desert, lots of bugs in the summer, etc. I’m not big on cities so that aspect doesn’t appeal to me either. But that’s just me - I’m sure there are people who love it there and others who don’t really care where they live. I agree that USC isn’t exactly in an upscale neighborhood of LA but it has the decent weather and is only a few miles from the beach, mountains, nice parts of LA, etc. For 4 years of college most people can tolerate most places even if it’s not their ideal.</p>
<p>No, I wasn’t referring to you at all, USC/UCLADad - it’s more this general feeling on CC whereby you’d think St. Louis was the end of the universe as opposed to a medium-size city comparable to most other cities. I seriously think there are people on CC who think that St. Louis must consist of two stoplights and a John Deere store, and judge WashU accordingly!</p>