UMich vs. Cornell grad school

AdventurousSS
Mon, 11 Apr 2011 22:15:57 +0000

So I have been admitted to both University of Michigan and Cornell for Computer Engineering graduate school. I am getting guaranteed funding from both places for at least five years, so really no financial issues there. But I am still having a hard time making a decision, so I am looking for some opinions.

I visited both Ann Arbor and Ithaca. I live in the mid-west now, so I really loved AA. I am not big into the social scene, but it seems like a town where a lot goes on. On the contrary, Ithaca’s smallness didn’t really appeal to me. It seems a very isolated town, and somewhat underdeveloped. I loved the campus, but the town itself seems dreary, and I can’t imagine how one could live there.

The dilemma is that I know a couple professors at Cornell that I could definitely work with, they are doing almost exactly what I want to research in. One of the professors is really well known in his field. There’s a larger selection of professors at Michigan, but so far, I have not been able to find someone that exactly fits what I want to do. There are a few professors at Michigan that are also well known. I am a very adaptable person, so if I go to Michigan, I am hoping either my tastes will change or that I will be able to reach a compromise with a professor on a research project that I would enjoy. Does anyone have any experience like this, where you didn’t really have a firm idea, but everything worked out at the end?

Of course, then there are other things like rankings, UMich is slightly ranked better. I found UMich to be a very friendly place and could see myself fitting in. A little harder for me to see that at Ithaca. But I don’t want to base the decision solely on location either. I am used to the cold and snow, but driving in all those steep hills in Ithaca scares me. And things are also very expensive there, being a private school and all.

While I am leaning mostly towards UMich, the fact that I am going to have to work a little harder to find a professor is holding me back a little. Any thoughts would be great. Thanks in advance.