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<p>You’ve got a couple of things to consider:</p>
<p>1- What schools do you REALLY love. I mean, you love the campus, the feel of the school, the entire academic setting, the location, the professors. There’s a LOT more to a school than a ranking. </p>
<p>2- Just because you go to a great school, doesn’t mean you’ll get a job when you graduate. A lot of getting a job is about a few key things:</p>
<p>A: maintaining a good (>3.0) to great (>3.5) GPA during college
B: Networking (professors, career fairs, family friends, etc.)
C: Summer opportunities (internship, co-op)</p>
<p>and not so much D: the school you went to.</p>
<p>I had a lot of friends graduate from Pitt Engineering this year. Many went on either to great grad programs (at Pitt or elsewhere) or have begun/will soon begin their engineering jobs. I don’t know of people who had difficultly finding a job. My sister said her fellow classmates who graduated from UVA (also well known Engineering school) were having many issues finding jobs (in multiple Engineering majors)- some had to turn to grad school or alternative jobs (teach for america, ex.) as a last resort to not being able to find a “company” job.</p>
<p>My point is: the name of the school shouldn’t determine where you go. By all means, apply to a bunch of places, but make sure you take the time to visit the schools, talk to students, get a look at classes and professors, check out the department, see what the courseload would be like, etc. before turning down a school that you think is “beneath” you.</p>
<p>And by the way, this advice comes from a person who turned down VTech, Georgia Tech, CMU, and Case Western to go to Pitt for Engineering.</p>