<p>I'll start. </p>
<p>University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign</p>
<p>St. Norberts college
Drexel University
Michigan Tech.
UW--Madison
Rose-Hulman IT</p>
<p>Purdue
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor</p>
<p>aswat.. and vespucci.. just curious.. why did you turn down madison?</p>
<p>I mainly decided to go because of my major (Chemical Engineering) and one can argue, by looking at rankings, that the UWI ChemE program is just as good, but the fact of the matter is that the UMN ChemE program is basically the best of the best (it's usually a toss up between Berkeley and MIT with UMN). If you look at the cutting edge research and top of the line grad. program coupled with its national reputation (always in the top 3, many times #1) you will see that UMN has a better ChemE program than UWI. </p>
<p>Now that that is out of the way. I also found the UMN campus more appealing than the UWI campus (UWI was too spread out) and was impressed by the UMN's ability to form such a compact campus with such a large population.</p>
<p>Also, Madison is a fun town but I really wanted to attend a school in a big city like the twin cities (more companies = more internships = more opportunities to gain job experience = more(better) options after college)</p>
<p>Madison is an excellent school and pretty much ranks over UMN in everything, but for an engineering student it is pretty much a toss up (although Madison is ranked slightly higher). That being said you really aren't going to be missing out on any opportunities by going to one or the other regardless of your major (ChemE possibly being the exception) and graduate schools and employers aren't going to favor a degree from one college over the other, it will depend on your performance in college (ie. research, GPA, test scores...)</p>
<p>This last part was kind of off topic but it needed to be said :)</p>
<p>Anyway that pretty much sums it up!</p>
<p>Many of my reasons were the same as Vespucci's. I had gone back and forth between the two schools for quite some time. I visited both within the last two weeks and once I visited it was very obvious. I just had to go with my gut feeling and go to UMN. The first time I visited Madison I was very impressed, then this time, not so much. Like Vespucci said, everything was too spread out, I think the hills would have gotten to me, and visually, there wasn't a whole lot uniting the entire campus. Buildings were all very eclectic and reflected the time they were build (some of that was good but others bad) UMN has a lot of red brick. Yes, there is diversity, but there is some continuity from building to building. After I had weighed all the factors, everything came out to be dead even. I just had to go with the gut and stay a little closer to home on the campus I felt most comfortable. </p>
<p>I'll also note that I turned down Purdue, Loyola Chicago, Marquette and Iowa State.</p>
<p>Finally, Vespucci's last paragraph is very true in my mind and yes, did need to be said. </p>
<p>Ski-U-Mah! :)</p>
<p>Dartmouth and Vanderbilt</p>