<p>I hope people don’t think I’m denigrating USC engineering. (I have an MS in IE from USC.)</p>
<p>Viterbi is excellent, rated top 10 in some rankings, but the film school is USC’s pride and joy. </p>
<p>To complicate the rankings puzzle even further, they don’t rank schools that don’t off PhDs with the ones that do. How do you even compare schools like Rose-Hulman, Harvey-Mudd, Cal Poly and the Military Academies with UCB, UIUC an Stanford for undergraduate. I believe it’s far more important to look at the curriculum, job fair, etc. than a list.</p>
<p>Selectivity may be higher at Viterbi for undergrads. Does not mean it is a superior Engg. school compared to Georgia Tech. GTECH is a state school…has to admit at least 50% from GA. Despite that, it is turning increasingly selective.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/get-schooled/2014/jan/07/georgia-tech-accepts-5000-early-action-students-al/”>http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/get-schooled/2014/jan/07/georgia-tech-accepts-5000-early-action-students-al/</a>
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Georgia Tech’s average admitted student has a 4.0 GPA and an SAT score of 1485/2193 and will have taken nine college-level courses prior to high school graduation.
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One more item to consider… the stats reflect GTECH’s other than its stellar Engg. disciplines including Arts and Business. I will not be surprised if GTECH’s OOS selectivity for its Engg. class is higher than Viterbi’s. Folks in CA have tons of super Engg. schools including Stanford, UCB, UCSB, UCSD, UCLA and Caltech to consider other than Viterbi.</p>
<p>One of the things we thought was wonderful about Viterbi was they have a LOT of services dedicated just for the engineering school. The WISE Program supports women engineering students (USC now has 38% female enrollment, which is one of the highest ratios). They also had a dedicated internship and career placement office, specifically for engineering students. They also had an annual engineering ball/prom (though I couldn’t convince S to attend–at least he never told us if he did).</p>
<p>Because USC is a private U, they have a lot more flexibility about merit awards. They do allow undergrads to participate as paid research assistants (even as a freshman if the student can handle the academics AND research). Don’t know anything about GTech.</p>
<p>Believe both are excellent schools. The dean at Viterbi told us their admit rate was about 4% in 2006. Our D was a cinema major & S was an EE at Viterbi; both felt they got great educations and were happy enough with their programs.</p>
<p>If I get accepted to USC Petroleum engineering, what is an acceptable financial aid package? My EFC is pretty much 0 but I am pretty much middle class (have just enough money to get by but not enough to pay for college). In other words, where do I draw the line when weighing the cost of tuition and return on investment when considering a school like USC?</p>
<p>@RedEyeJedi</p>
<p>Wut?
I’m pretty darn low class & my EFC is about $11k…where did you come up with this 0?</p>
<p>“Pretty much 0” means that there is no money saved for college by my parents.</p>
<p>@i012575 Thanks for the clarification on GATech. Nearly all of my friends were engineers in high school (I’m a business student) and they made it seem that GATech was a pretty tough engineering school to get into. I was just confused why the acceptance rate seemed relatively high. Also, what you said about Cali kids having a lot more options does make sense. I’ve heard the UCs were excellent for engineering.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech is a public school and so it’s acceptance rate is going to be higher than private schools. The thing with GT is that while it’s easier to get into; it’s harder to graduate. The average student takes 5 years to graduate and is referred to as “getting out”. Whether the 5 years is because the classes are tougher, more students co-op, etc it’s probably a combination of both.</p>
<p>If you go by rankings, which I know can be subjective, but they are what they are. US News has GT as tied for the #5 undergrad engineering program in the country and the #7 public school in the country. Also, GT is high on several lists for return on investment since it’s cost is relatively low since it’s public. If you want an international perspective; GT is ranked #11 school for engineering and technology according to The World University Rankings. I don’t see USC on any of these ranking lists for engineering for what it is worth.</p>
<p>Imo, GT beats USC if you’re specifically talking about engineering. Berkley or CalTech would even be better for engineering especially if you want to stay in Cali.</p>
<p>Rule number one: acceptance rates tell you effectively nothing about the quality of a program.</p>
<p>UC Berkeley stronger than U Illinois, U Michigan or U Minnesota-TC? Hmmm. Not inferior but certainly not significantly superior either. Different but not better. And it probably varies by department.</p>
<p>@LakeWashington What you say is probably true but I think Berkeley has that “prestige” that I imagine will be helpful for jobs and such. Take my word with a grain of salt as I am not an engineer.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech is consistently ranked in the Top 5 for Engineering, way above USC. GT is basically on the same level as Berkeley or CalTech as far as engineering. However, there isn’t much else to the school. They are about 60% engineering majors and have a 70:30 male-female ratio. So you should definitely take that into consideration. Overall, USC is a fabulous school and will be great even if you end up transferring out of engineering - I can’t say the same for Georgia Tech.</p>
<p>If you’re family’s ability to pay is different than your calculated EFC, then I’d chose the cheapest one. None of them are superior enough warrant a huge debt.</p>
<p>GTs graduation rate is 33%, that should some light on why it’s less selective…</p>
My son was accepted to Georgia Tech and Purdue’s COE recently, denied Cornell ED. He has several apps outstanding-Carnegie Mellon, USC, Rice, Michigan, and Stanford (unlikely). He’s a straight A IB student, great test scores. He’s trying to evaluate these options. We don’t qualify for FA, so that’s not a factor. Any thoughts or comparisons on any of these in terms of quality of life and overall student satisfaction? We can look at the rankings ourselves to see “best” school…we’re in northern Florida, so GT is close. I want him to be happy as well as challenged in a solid eng program. Thank you.
@floridamom8 You should start a new thread. This one is nearly 2 years old.