Hey everyone! I desperately need some advice on which college I should pick. My top 5 acceptance are: UW Madison, Penn State University Park, Purdue, UC Davis and UC Irvine. I want to pursue electrical engineering/electrical and computer engineering. I’m an international student from India and I don’t much care about the climate, so it isn’t a factor I think I need to consider. I care about university ranks + subject ranks + how good the colleges really are + the student community. Please let me know where you all think it would be best to go considering my acceptances in relation to my major.
PS: I would like to go to a more intellectual school and parties are secondary for me.
You need to understand that, regarding U.S. engineering schools, rankings do not mean much at all. For an undergraduate student, rankings are essentially useless. You’ve have the benefit of having great options for your education. Pick one that you think will offer the best comfort and fit.
@potterhead7, no one but you can really make this decision. They are all decent options that in many ways are the same. There will be little differences that will mean more to one person than another. For me, I’d pick Wisconsin. Why? Because Madison is a great town. It has a good engineering department, but they all have good engineering departments. On second thought, maybe UC Irvine, beautiful campus, close to the beach. I’d suggest you dig a little deeper online. Look at the department web sites. The city web pages. Look up the local news papers online. Look up historic weather patterns. Depending on what part of India you’re from, it might be hard to even comprehend how bitterly cold some of them can be. What about costs? How frequently will you travel home and thus how important is easy international airport access? These are all things that can have different answers for each person.
I’ve attended 10 years worth of school at 2 universities located in college towns. If I had to choose a third university to attend out of those three now, it would be Wisconsin solely because I would think its time to try my hand at a university in a larger city.
That’s not really helpful to you, though. You have to weigh such factors on yor own.