Virginia tech or UC Davis

ChrisTKD
Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:42:57 +0000

UC Davis and Virginia Tech have a similar mission and history. Both are land grant universities with significant engineering and agricultural colleges. Both are in the middle of nowhere: UC Davis is spread out on flat land on the way to Sacramento. Virginia Tech is in the mountains just past Roanoke. Most of stuff to do will take place on campus. Since you couldn’t visit the campus I’d suggest pouring over website pictures and videos to get a sense of the appearance of each campus.

Virginia Tech obviously has a very highly ranked engineering program. I think UC Davis is also very good but can’t recall the ranking. There’s really no way to compare professors between two universities IMO. In any case, I’m sure at each university there will be some very good ones, some okay ones, and a few that are lousy at teaching. Mot of the dorms at Virginia Tech are traditional, i.e., double rooms on a hallway with shared bathrooms. I believe UC Davis has on-campus dorms and off-campus dorms. The off-campus dorms tend to be suite-style (a group of perhaps 4 rooms sharing a small common space and a bathroom). Note that there are a few similar dorms on campus at Virgina Tech as well.

I don’t think one school or the other will improve your chances at graduate school. At either one you should have opportunities to get involved in research projects (important for grad school). After that, you just need to maintain good grades and do well on your GRE exam.