<p>I am an international student and have been admitted to UIUC, Georgia Tech and UT Austin. I am having a tough choice deciding amongst them. Cost of attendance is not a problem. I would like to pick the one in which opportunities for research and internships are slightly better. Also I want to major in Computer Engineering.</p>
<p>I would really appreciate if someone could give me his valuable opinion on which university should I pick out of the three. </p>
<p>thanks a lot</p>
<p>Academically the schools are about as close as you can get, although Illinois probably has a small edge over the others in CompE.</p>
<p>GT has a skewed gender ratio, but is in a big city.
UTA is in a college town with a lot going on.
UIUC is in a small college town with a lot of cornfields going on.</p>
<p>You’re pretty much guaranteed good internship / research opportunities at GT and Illinois, and probably at UTA as well. Go where you get the best vibes-- these three schools are pretty much equivalent in my mind in terms of their department.</p>
<p>In my opinion Austin has way better opportunities for intenships while you are going to school. The tech industry in Austin is still growing steadily. All three schools have good Computer Engineering programs though.</p>
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<p>While definitely smaller than Atlanta, I wouldn’t consider Austin a “college town.” -</p>
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<p>There aren’t a lot of people who will be doing an internship during the semester, and for anything outside of that, the internship programs are basically a wash at the three schools. There is something to be said for having a somewhat typical college experience and not working through the whole thing if you can afford not to. Trust me, working internships in the summer will be just fine for getting a job later.</p>
<p>For internship opportunities during breaks or co-ops, the surrounding industry is nearly irrelevant, as all three are nationally known, brand-name engineering programs, so they will send people all over the country. During my undergrad years at UIUC, I knew people working internships literally all over the country and at the huge name companies despite the fact that the school is surrounded by cornfields, not tech industry.</p>
<p>I feel that Computer Engineering would be strongest at Illinois, but the difference is not huge…</p>
<p>Austin is definitely a college town, obviously not the entire city but the area around the school and downtown are pretty live.</p>
<p>Live is not the definition of a college town. Austin is many things: a thriving city, a state capital, a cultural center, etc. One thing it is not is a college town. It doesn’t exist to support the college, te population doesn’t take a huge hit during vacations, and perhaps more importantly, it has a Fogo de Ch</p>
<p>boneh3ad, is there much of a difference in GPA cutoff between these schools for internships? (If you happen to know).</p>
<p>There is no GPA cut off for any of them, as far as I know. I know for a fact that GT has no cut-off. Even so, you’ll want to maintain a 3.0 to be competitive for an internship.</p>
<p>I’ve hired from all three schools, and in my opinion, GT has the best department, followed by Illinois (but I’m biased). But it’s really splitting hairs. All three are good and all three will lead to the same opportunities. You’re going to need to look at other factors to make a decision (location, campus culture, etc).</p>
<p>If it was me, I’d choose based on location. All three schools place students nationally and internationally, but for obvious reasons, they place a higher percentage closer to their school. So would you rather work in Chicago, the Southeast, or Texas?</p>
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<p>The GPA you need for an internship is determined by the hiring company, not the school. You would have to ask the individual companies what they like to hire.</p>
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<p>You ARE biased. I am not trying to be rude, but it seems you are almost misrepresenting the academic clout of Georgia Tech, on a national level, only because you happened to attend.</p>
<p>I recently was faced with the decision of attending Georgia Tech vs UCLA vs Illinois for EE, and I asked several professors which is the strongest program. They ALL told me Illinois > UCLA > Georgia (although they admitted, they are all good schools and you can’t go wrong either way). I know GT is ranked high on US News, but that is not the whole story. And besides, it is just ONE of many rankings. </p>
<p>The issue with Georgia is simply the fact that there are no comparable schools in the area. Whereas in California, you have Stanford, Caltech, UCLA, UCSD, HMC, and Berkeley all right there. So although Georgia is very strong in the south, by national standards its not the behemoth you make it out to be.</p>
<p>Just to chime in, I would also rank GT > UCLA for engineering, and have neither lived nor worked in either of the south or the west coast regions.</p>
<p>Also, Austin is (IMO) the best town, but it isn’t cheap.</p>
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<p>Virtually everyone would, except for JamesMadison’s circle of friends.</p>
<p>I would put GT ahead of UCLA for engineering in general, but only just barely. UCLA is an excellent school.</p>
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<p>I second this wholeheartedly.</p>
<p>Maybe GT is a bit ahead of UCLA in engineering.
But, for the graduate level, in EE, that is not necessarily the case.
For instance, NRC ranks UCLA EE ahead of GT.
(My field is VLSI). </p>
<p>And I believe there are other advantages to attending UCLA. But I’m not here to brag about UCLA. What I am just saying is, the GT people here seem a little arrogant, ie “virtually everyone would rank gt ahead of ucla”, and “GT is the best out of the three”, etc etc. I hear it constantly, and 99% of the time from BanjoHitter or some other GT affiliated person. </p>
<p>BTW: I have not asked my <em>friends</em>. I asked two tenured professors in Comp. E and EE, and they both told me to go to UCLA over GT, although one of them said UIUC is the best of the three. So I ultimately chose UCLA where I will attend in the fall for MSEE. Please don’t make me regret it, hehe.</p>
<p>The “happy student” factor</p>
<ol>
<li>UT Austin</li>
<li>Illinois</li>
<li>Georgia Tech</li>
</ol>
<p>James, there probably won’t be a big difference at the MS level between the schools. However, if you were a Ph.D student, I’d say you had made a mistake :P. GT’s facilities are easily in the top 2 or 3 for anything fab-related.</p>
<p>Please remember that “top department” is different than “top department for specialty X” - I would generally say that UIUC > GTech > UCLA, but each of those schools has a few professors who are at or near the top of their specialty, and as such the precise ranking is going to depend on the individual and the scope of their interest. When I was initially looking at PhD programs I was encouraged to look at Northwestern and Ohio State, where some of the powerhouses of my intended specialty were residing. That these departments were less reknowned than some others to which I applied did not stop those individuals from being exceptional, and did not make them any less the correct place to go (that I did not do so is a story for another day).</p>
<p>Anyway, all three schools are excellent, and which one is “right” is dependent on factors far more individual and important than any general ranking.</p>
<p>Well, the three professors I asked (two at my school, 1 in texas), ALL told me that UCLA’s graduate EE program is stronger than Georgia Tech’s in VLSI. </p>
<p>I feel almost like there is some kind of Georgia Tech cult here at CC.
I hear more about Georgia Tech here than Caltech, Berkeley, and Stanford combined. And its all from CosmicFish, BanjoHitter, and GTHopeful. No offense meant of course, hehe. Its not bad that you are proud of your schools.</p>