Columbia SEAS vs NYU-Poly vs Stevens Institute, Masters in EE

College Search & Lists
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<p>Hi all!
I am an international student coming from Serbia and I am finally near the end of this whole process!
with my 800/350 Q/V GRE and 100 TOEFL I got accepted to NYU-Poly and Stevens and am waiting for confirmation from Columbia SEAS for EE Masters program. I visited all 3 campuses over the summer and talked with admission people and professors and each is nice in its own way.</p>

<p>in the end, I got my self in a big dilemma as my choice would be to chose NYU-Poly over Stevens and even ivy league Columbia.</p>

<p>the reason is that I really just want to become and electrical engineer and the financial engineering, business, arts, history and similar are not the thing that I am interested in, and the ‘more rounded’ knowledge that the ivy league guaranties is not my priority(not because I like being ignorant but because my undergrad education in Serbia was VERY wide and I think that I got quite enough knowledge in those areas). so I want my focus to be on engineering and nothing but engineering :)</p>

<p>the thing that confuses me is that NYU-Poly is on some list, as I read, tier 3 school(which is, I assume, way worse then tier 1 Stevens institute and ivi league Columbia), and as I read, the reason for that is that Poly is very hard school to finish cause of the huge workload O.o well, for me, that would be the good thing! so I want to ask: is it possible that it is easier to finish Columbia then NYU-Poly? in Europe, the harder the school, the better the reputation it has.(I know I am not in Europe anymore, but thats why I need advice on this subject)</p>

<p>I personally dont care about tiers and rankings if the case is that the school ranks worse if it is harder and if you have to study more, because for me it doesnt make much sense. I just want to enter the hardest school that will make me store more knowledge in electrical engineering area than the others, and prepare me the most for the independent life in US, thousands of miles away from home.</p>

<p>I still didnt make up my mind, even though it may seem that I would prefer to go to Poly. if I am wrong about some of the assumptions that I made, I would appreciate for you to tell me so, as in that case, I would probably chose Columbia over Poly(but for now, I am not sure that would be a good decision for a future engineer).
Thank you</p>

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<p>I want to go to poly too! Unfortunately, my scores are much lower than yours.</p>

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<p>@Milliex
what do you mean??? as I understand, you are applying for undergraduate, so, you have SAT, not GRE scores. so your scores are not comperable with mine :slight_smile:
I even have very low verbal, but the perfect quant does well for engineering schools.</p>

<p>anyway, I am not sure that I will go to poly yet, thats why I need help from people that are in NYC and can give me the suggestion.</p>

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<p>My SAT scores aren’t so good… <em>~</em> but my class rank, extracurricular, and gpa are fine</p>

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<p>please guys, I really need a suggestion from someone in NYC area who knows which is more respected for work.
which is better for pure engineering? NYU-poly, columbia SEAS or Stevens institute and are the differences huge or tiny?
Thank you!</p>

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<p>In general, Columbia is more respected than NYU-Poly which is more respected than Stevens. </p>

<p>Of the three, I would only choose a less respected institution if the more respected institution is particularly weak in the area that you are most interested in. </p>

<p>For example, Columbia’s page on research is here
[Research[/url</a>]</p>

<p>NYU-Poly’s is here
[url=&lt;a href=“Home | NYU Tandon School of Engineering”&gt;Home | NYU Tandon School of Engineering]Electrical</a> and Computer Engineering | NYU-Poly](<a href=“http://www.ee.columbia.edu/pages/research/index.html]Research[/url”>http://www.ee.columbia.edu/pages/research/index.html)</p>

<p>For example, if your area was electric power systems, Columbia does not appear to have any faculty in that area, then you should pick NYU-Poly. However, if your area is signal and image processing, networking and communications, photonics, etc, I’d pick Columbia.</p>

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<p>Hey Andrej,
Congrats to your success. I´m a prospective Fulbright scholar from Denmark and I´ve aimed at the same schools as you have. Stevens, Columbia, NYU-Poly in particular order.
I´m still waiting for the final decision from Universities since my applications are managed by IIE. However, I thought that even with my scores (770/480 Q/V GRE and 110 TOEFL + Fulbright and other honors) it´s gonna be really hard to get into any of those three schools, especially Columbia seemed almost impossible for me. Nevertheless after reading your status I realized there is a slight chance. </p>

<p>I ´m going to do Masters in Civil Engineering, unlike you I want to focus on Construction Management since I´m going to finish my Masters here in Denmark in Construction engineering. I ´m looking for complete opposite of what you are looking for, more rounded courses for someone who already holds Masters in Construction Engineering but wants to learn more about management of engineering processes.</p>

<p>Could you share your ideas about all three schools? All information I have, are just from internet, since I haven’t visited any of three campuses. + could you update your status with the results from Columbia once you learn them, I would really appreciate that.</p>

<p>Thanks a lot and good luck with everything.</p>

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<p>@ClassicRockerDad
first, thank you very much for you response. info that you gave me gave a new and different perspective to my dilemma.</p>

<p>I just realized this might not be the best subforum for my thread.</p>

<p>anyway,
@nitrot1
I’ve got many nice experiences with these schools. I visited other schools in NYC area but these were the ones with the best impression.</p>

<p>at Columbia SEAS I talked with someone from admission office, but she is not a professor there. basically, it was very very friendly and encouraging conversation. she gave me plenty statistical data about students, their grades, scores and so on and I realized that it is not all about GRE or GPA. I saw that there is a student with 2.7 GPA that got admitted. I also saw that they rejected a guy that had 800/6XY Q/V in GRE, high GPA and got rejected! and I was surprised. I was very interested in grade conversion, because my uni might be the hardest in Serbia, and the best student in my generation has GPA 9.13 on 6-10 scale! so I was very interested what will my GPA be when they convert it to USA scale. basically, we have subjects where is very common to try to pass it more then 10 times, to keep trying for 3-4 years until u finally get the passing grade=6, and many students abandon school because of that. when I get the passing grade from that subject, that cant be anything lower then A in the US system. at columbia, they told me that I should write a nice statement of purpose, and that based on my Q GRE score, subjects that I took, recommendations and overall impression, they will make a decision.
I had great experience at columbia, people are friendly, the area is great, campus is wonderful and you can feel how prestigious the school is only by walking through the campus. the only thing I am not sure about is, how good their engineering school is. my girlfriend who is columbia graduate said that she is not sure that it is the best engineering school in the city and that she has impression that they push other sciences a bit more, that columbia is not so prestigious for its engineering program, but for other programs.
overall, the person from admissions said that if I make as good impression in the statement as I did in person, that I will get admitted. even though it seems that my chances are low.
the good thing about me, she said, is that I am from Serbia which makes me unique because 80% of master students come from China and the rest are from US or India, and they try to make diverse environment.</p>

<p>Stevens has a nice campus too with wonderful view on Manhattan. the thing that I didnt like as much at stevens is that it seems that every progam/concentration is related to telecommunications in some way(which is the field of EE that I am the least interested in). next, the person from the admissions committee told me that he is almost certain that I will get accepted o.O which is cool in some way… but I went to NYC with that uncertainty, hope that I will get at least in CCNY… so it seemed that they really want me and I didnt try too hard for my application. he also told me that they dont have admission limit and that they will accept anyone who meets the criteria. the thing I didnt like at both columbia and stevens is that professors that I wrote to didnt respond on my email while two professors from poly did.(I sent the same email to several professors at several unis).</p>

<p>at POLY, I was welcomed by profesor Chen, EE Graduate Program Coordinator and Advisor and had great conversation with him. he gave me friendly advice which I appreciate.( i wanted to go to system engineering and he adviced me to go to EE and do the system eng concentration because that is better for job placement and for my future. he also calculated how much scholarship I should except with my admission letter/if I get it, but he sounded pretty encouraging). that was the engineer to engineer conversation that I couldnt have with bureaucracy people from the admissions or similar. he gave me almost 1h of his time, even though I came to the uni without previous agreement. the atmosphere at school was the one that I would except from the engineering school. </p>

<p>before my visit to NYC, my wishes were 1. columbia 2. stevens 3.NYU-Poly and now it all changed.
I also spoke to chemical engineer(columbia graduate) a cousin of my girlfriend who suggested me to go to NYU-Poly for my masters because he thinks it is very good for job placement. </p>

<p>all that confused me, and I am still in disbelief that I would rather go to non prestigious NYU-Poly then to Columbia. that’s why I am questioning my choice and looking for more info and opinions.</p>

<p>gawsh, that would be all. I really hope this helped :))</p>