<p>My S is struggling to choose between these 4 schools. Each have offered him excellent financial aid packages and each has reached out to him with something unique (such as a prestigious scholarship) He is a math/science guy who is interested in engineering but also wants to pursue film studies. He liked all the campuses and feels he would fit in at any one of them. Each school has something special that he likes (Brown has the no distribution req., Cornell gave him a Hunter Rawlings Presidential Scholarship, Dartmouth has the best film studies program, Princeton is amazing in science and engineering) and no one school has everything. For me, I am leaning towards Princeton but he has not yet made up his mind and the deadline is looming. He would appreciate any feedback.</p>
<p>Cornell and Princeton are clearly the strongest choices here for engineering. The lack of distributional requirements at Brown may be a plus if you don’t want structure in your course selection but that won’t be the case with an engineering student given the large number of requirements. Princeton is a much more intimate and homogeneous campus than is Cornell with its larger student population and non-CAS schools. Did he attend admitted students days at these schools?</p>
<p>I hope he has visited all these places. </p>
<p>Cornell and Princeton have the most established engineering programs, with Cornell being the best. Still, princeton may have a top 20-30 engineering program, but in many respects it may feels like MIT humanities (which is also highly rated but doesn’t feel quite like the real thing). It may feel like you’re surrounded by premeds just going there for a taste of engineering. Some specialized engineering majors like Chem E should rule out Dartmouth, because they don’t have them. They have a general engineering program. If he’s interested in more of a scientific angle to engineering, like tissue engineering or material science, then universities without strong engineering majors like Dartmouth and Brown may be adequate. Computer science is probably fine anyplace.</p>
<p>General prestige would put Princeton ahead if he’s not definitely set on a tech career.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about Brown engineering.</p>
<p>Very interesting comments. He was able to visit Princeton for an accepted students event but that was the only one. Other obligations kept him from visiting the others (he’s away on a school trip). But we did visit all of the schools last summer, including their engineering programs. </p>
<p>From what you are saying, it seems that Cornell has the top engineering program (he also got in to Carnegie Mellon- not great FA package- and U. of Rochester, where he is a Renaissance scholar, but despite that the EFC at the 4 Ivies is still much lower). But if he’s not sure that engineering is where he wants to go, should he still choose Cornell? And while Princeton is known for science and engineering, are you saying that it is not techie enough?</p>
<p>Cornell has film studies major too, but not film production. Dartmouth engineering program is very general, I don’t remember anything specific about its engineering program.</p>
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<p>Well, people don’t go to Princeton to become engineers. I think that’s true of even the engineering majors. At some schools this could be a problem, because they could water down the classes. I don’t think this happens at Princeton because of the quality of the student body, but it may have other consequences (atmosphere, less involvement in engineering projects out of school, less opportunities for internships.) I’m completely speculating though. It is still Princeton so probably if he wanted to go for an internship, he would be still competitive because of the school name. The biggest difference between Cornell and Princeton is probably the culture of the engineering student body and probably the breadth of classes. I never looked at Princeton engineering closely, but I might have considered it strongly had I decided to apply to Princeton engineering. I did run across a Chem E major from Princeton who went to grad school at MIT, so obviously that says something. I did look at Cornell engineering when I was making my own decision, and was impressed with it. I was impressed with the school as well.</p>
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<p>I can’t answer that question. Princeton is more of a gateway to prestigious Wall Street positions, consulting firms, and other things which require connections (although Cornell still has some cache due to its ivy status.)</p>
<p>It depends on what you value–they both have their strengths and slight weaknesses.</p>
<p>This decision may also depend on which engineering major he is leaning toward, but you really can’t make a wrong choice here.</p>
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<p>I actually went to the engineering open house for Dartmouth accepted students. You’re right that it is a general program. The one thing that stood out was that their senior year they produce some type of product and I think present it to engineering firms. One of the other kids that was set on going there was very mechanical and techy, something which is somewhat rare even mechanical engineers, and he obviously thought it was a good program.</p>
<p>All these, obviously, are great schools. I can’t speak to Dartmouth or Brown, but I attended Cornell and taught at Princeton. Of those two, I think Princeton offers the superior undergraduate experience–not that Cornell’s is bad by any means (I loved my time there!) but Princeton really lavishes attention and goodies on its undergrads. Academic advising, through the residential colleges, is very personalized and there’s lots of contact with faculty outside the classroom. The mandatory junior/senior independent projects foster strong research skills and close, one-on-one relationships with the faculty advisor. If your son is interested in the arts, it’s also an advantage that Princeton is an easy commute to NYC.</p>
<p>Back in the stone age, I was a grad student in the Ag college at Cornell, and my housemates were from all the other divisions, so I do have my bias. The simple fact remains that Cornell has the broadest range of overall offerings of the institutions on your son’s list. If Engineering doesn’t work out for him, he has a lot more options to choose from.</p>
<p>Thank-you all! I will show all your comments to him when he gets back Sunday night. It is such a tough choice. </p>
<p>It’s beginning to feel to me that Princeton may be the best middle ground choice, between Dartmouth’s very general engineering program (which requires a 5th undergraduate year) and Cornell’s more expansive engineering program. I say this only because he is so unsure if engineering is his path. He would get a BSE from Princeton in 4 years (Dartmouth requires 5 years to get the same degree) and he would need a masters to probably then work as an engineer (whereas I believe at Cornell you get the accred. engineering degreee, the ABET in 4 years). While Princeton does have a big focus on financial engineering, they do seem to have several other branches of engineering he could explore and if he decides to be a working engineer, grad school would give him that specialty (maybe he would then turn to Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, etc. for grad school). But I think he needs the liberal arts education to really find out if engineering is where he wants to be. Does that reasoning make sense?</p>
<p>Hi. I checked the Cornell website and I misspoke in my last post. The degrees from Cornell and Princeton are the same - BSE - and both are accred. engineering degrees. The big difference seems to be that Cornell has far more depts, majors and minors than Princeton does. Both ask you to choose your specialty at the end of your freshman year, so there is no difference there. Only Dartmouth gives you until the end of your sophomore year to decide a specialty, but I guess that’s why you need a fifth year to get the BSE. While I would love to see him have the extra time on the front end to choose a specialty, I really don’t want to pay for a fifth undergrad year, especially since Dartmouth is indicating to me that his FA package will not apply to the 5th year.</p>
<p>“Both ask you to choose your specialty at the end of your freshman year,”
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If so, that’s a change, at Cornell it used to be at the end of sophomore year.</p>
<p>I think the financial engineering at Princeton is a certificate under Operation and Research Engineering department but I’m not sure it’s a major.</p>
<p>This is from the Cornell website’s College of Engineering:</p>
<p>“Applying for Major Affiliation
Students must apply for affiliation with a Major during the first semester of their second year, although earlier affiliation may be granted at the discretion of the Major. To apply for affiliation, students visit the office of the undergraduate Major consultant in the Major of their choice and complete an Application for Major Affiliation.”</p>
<p>I’m then assuming to be ready to apply for an affiliation with a major in the first semester of their sophomore year, you need to have figured out what specialty you’re interested in by the end of the freshman year, though I guess one could apply towards the end of that first semester sophomore year which would give a little more time.</p>