<p>Cornell is no utopia. It’s a tough school, esp for engineers. It’s pretty in a New Englandly kind of way. Make sure you like trekking up and down hills. In snow and ice. Great school for the right students. You may find it tough to find the time for a lot of off-campus outdoor recreation, depending on your major.</p>
<p>@jkeil911 I mean the campus of course! Yes, I’ve heard that Cornell “feels like a pressure cooker.” I want to challenge myself, but I don’t know if I’d want to go somewhere where it feels all competitive like the kids with amazing stats on College Confidential or something…the Ivies are going to be tough, especially for engineering, and does this detract from the quality of life? </p>
<p>By the way, I love Clemson more and more the more I look at it…do you think I would be competitive for the National Scholars Program? A lot of the kids on the 2014 report have nearly identical stats/ECs to the ones I have. Schools with a feel similar to Clemson would be good for me to look into. </p>
<p>Picking colleges is all about fit, there is no right or wrong, it’s about preferences.</p>
<p>@DrGoogle my mom wonders if Clemson would not stimulate me enough (she thinks I’d be too above average there). I basically told her in order for me to go to Clemson, I’d need Honors College and preferable the National Scholarship…it was when I was meeting with those representatives that I truly felt like I fit in a community of like-minded individuals. I just don’t know if I’ll be able to get the NSP. The announcement on this page <a href=“National Scholars Program”>http://www.clemson.edu/academics/programs/national-scholars/</a> demonstrates the HS accomplishments of the incoming class. </p>
<p>It’s just that I didn’t honestly think Clemson would be right for me when I visited, and then it felt so right when I got there. I just don’t know how many hidden Clemsons there are out there–schools I would soar at (perhaps even more) that I have never even heard of. The other place I liked being at a lot was Virginia Tech, but I’m legacy there (you know, wore a VT cheerleader outfit for Halloween in childhood), and I’ve been there before and such, so that’s probably a lot of it. 
</p>
<p>I think you should trust your instinct. I’m not familiar with either school so I can’t comment about them. But both of my kids visited a few schools before senior year and at each of the school they ended up attending, they both said I could see myself here. Not 100% with enthusiasm but maybe 70-80%.</p>
<p>If only there was time (and energy) to visit hundreds of schools to know for sure! I wonder how much plane tickets to California cost… 
Probably can’t swing it. </p>
<p>There was a long time poster who went from MA to Clemson on a scholarship and LOVED it. PM @pierre0913 to ask questions.</p>
<p>I actually never got a scholarship from Clemson Erin’s Dad.</p>
<p>Skimming this post though I will say now that I’m out of school that a Clemson engineering degree is a solid degree here in the Southeast. All of the engineering schools in the southeast (Virginia Tech, NC State, Clemson, Georgia Tech) are highly regarded for engineering and I don’t know if going to one vs another will give you a significant edge when applying for a job (though Georgia Tech is probably more well known nationally).</p>
<p>Looking at your list, I would take UVA, Harvard, and NC State off your list. Virginia Tech is the place to go for engineering if you want to go to a public school in Virginia so while UVA is the better school overall, VT would be the place to go. Harvard has engineering programs but among the Ivy’s Cornell is the school to apply to. Engineering is a weird major where there are a good number of schools that have better programs than the Ivy League schools. NC State is a fine school but if you can probably do better with your stats (you still want a solid well rounded school in case you change majors). Didn’t read this entire post so I don’t know what your preferences are location wise but look at Michigan or Purdue for example.</p>
<p>Just read a post from the first page and I think jkeil is very misinformed. Unlike English where in-class discussions and class participation are key components of the education, it is much less so in engineering. I have found no difference in the level of education I received in large general education classes (all taught by professors except an intro english class that was taught by a graduate student) and a higher-level smaller class. All professors make themselves available before/after class and in office hours and there are plenty of tutoring/academic help opportunities if you seek them out. Lectures are lectures whether there are 100 people in the class or 20 people, you learn the same concepts and work through the same problems.</p>
<p>As for work/study collaboration, we had projects and labs in most of my classes so that’s not exclusive at MIT. We also have a program called Creative Inquiry where you work with a professor on research projects they are undertaking in case for some reason you get tired of the people in your class who don’t go to MIT and are supposedly stupid according to jkeil (not true at all).</p>
<p>Also in terms of large vs smaller school, I will argue that there are a lot more resources and opportunities at a larger school in terms of extracurricular activities/research opportunities/offered classes etc…</p>
<p>I was in civil engineering and one of my classmates has been very involved on campus and she is now on her way to Stanford for graduate school. Here’s a profile Clemson recently did on her if you want to know what you can achieve at a school like Clemson or VT if you choose not to go to Harvard or MIT - <a href=“http://www.clemson.edu/headonfamily/gasparro/”>http://www.clemson.edu/headonfamily/gasparro/</a></p>
<p>The advantage of a Harvard or MIT comes in to play if you don’t want to be (only) an engineer, IMO.</p>
<p>^I agree. I know very few practicing engineers now that I’m out of the field who are from the ivies or heck even Duke since I’m in North Carolina. That leads me to believe they end up doing something else with their engineering degree. Most everyone that I work with is from the NC State/Georgia Tech/Clemson/Virginia Tech crowd.</p>
<p>What if I’d like to learn about a lot of different things, I love to write, and I may want to go to grad school? </p>
<p>What if I have an interest in learning different things, love writing, and may be interested in graduate school?</p>
<p>“What if I’d like to learn about a lot of different things”</p>
<p>Do you mean the opportunity to take different classes or the fact that you may want to switch majors? I’d be shocked if colleges didn’t have general education classes where you are required to take classes in different areas (humanities, social sciences etc…) and you can always add an extra major or minor if you’re up for it. If you mean the fact that you really aren’t sold on chemical engineering major and might for example switch to Journalism or English, you’re just going to have to take that into consideration when choosing colleges to apply to. Try and find a school that is well-rounded vs an engineering school like Olin or Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>As for grad school, that’s always a possibility. Even for a school like Clemson I know people now at graduate school at Stanford, Duke, UNC, Vanderbilt etc… If you’re in the honors college at Clemson, you’ll get plenty of opportunities to build your resume for that (and the guy I know at Vanderbilt wash’t in the honors college either, he was on the baseball team which took up a bunch of his time)</p>
<p>Engineering is great but very narrow. If you want to study lots of different things, choose a major such as Computer Science, which may be housed in Arts&Sciences, which will help you get a lot more flexibility (including 1/3 entirely free classes and 1/3 in general education).
If you love writing, look at LACs. Hamilton is especially known for its writing program for all majors, and Kenyon for its writing program for English majors. Few LACs will have engineering but most top LACs will have computer science and other science offerings, with most hiring their professors based on the fact they’ll involve undergrads in their research (and are enthusiastic about it).
Note however that large universities will typically have more labs and more research money.
Of course it depends whether you’re comparing Williams with Directional State, or UVA with Millsaps.</p>
<p>Thanks @pierre0913 and @MYOS1634 ! Your advice has been heard and is very helpful. I understand that engineering is narrow at times, but I think that the creativity allowed by the major will be enough–I think that I saw on Clemson’s website that they are one of only a few schools where writing is central to engineering or something? How does this go? I’m that person that has a problem writing technically, because I’d rather write out long sentences and really explain what I mean… </p>
<p>How is engineering at the University of Alabama and the University of South Carolina? I would like some more opinions :)</p>
<p>I don’t see why you would consider engineering and then decide to go to a LAC that doesn’t offer it. At least go to a school that has it if you decide to pursue that.</p>
<p>@ThatMathySciGirl , Auburn is the engineering school in Alabama and Clemson is the engineering school in South Carolina so those schools are probably not as great as Auburn/Clemson for engineering.</p>
<p>At Clemson I was required to take a technical writing class my junior year and all classes involved some sort of writing. For example, in my roadway design project we had to write weekly memos/reports to our professor (acting as the person we were designing the road for) and she graded those pretty tough for grammar/spelling and how we communicated our ideas/actions to her.</p>
<p>@pierre0913 so USC and UA would not be worth considering for engineering, even with merit?</p>
<p>I mean it depends how much merit aid you get and what the financial situation is looking like at other schools you are applying to - but for engineering no I wouldn’t consider USC or UA given the other schools you are looking at.</p>
<p>@pierre0913
I am actually an Auburn graduate (yes, engineering) and although your advice about Auburn vis-a-vis U.Alabama might have been reasonable 20 years ago, that comparison no longer holds. 'Bama has an excellent engineering school now. Auburn might still have an edge, but it is only that… an edge. Perhaps only a slight edge.</p>
<p>This student would be offered a full tuition scholarship at 'Bama, plus honors program.</p>