<p>I applied ED to Northwestern this year for Mechanical Engineering… got accepted and now I’m going there… so while not trying to convince you, I’ll list out some comparative reasons I made NU my first choice.</p>
<p>The colleges I mainly looked at were: University of Florida, U of Illinois Urbana and Champagne, Purdue, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern. At most of the publics, even Purdue… which is known as a good engineering school, you have a very, very basic first year program. You sit in a class and they tell you what engineering professions there are for an entire year. Even Hopkins and Carnegie are like that to a certain extent. Northwestern arguable has the best freshman curriculum out there… they have the Engineering Design and Communication courses that simultaneously teach you about the different sectors of engineering and give you hands on experience building products and working with real clients… something that most schools don’t offer.</p>
<p>Northwestern’s program emphasizes more real world experience, hands on stuff and working to make the world a better place. While this seems idealistic, I’ve read that companies recruit highly from Northwestern for engineers that are well versed in both the details of engineering and real world applications - so providing potential managers and higher ups for future companies. I really liked that about Northwestern because I prefer the broader view of engineering.</p>
<p>Last thing was the research aspect. I’m into robotics and the future applications of that. JHU and Carnegie ( I didn’t like Carnegie because the atmosphere seemed way too nerdy and engineering focused) both have great robotics research programs, JHU’s focused primarily on BME related applications and Carnegie’s everywhere (if you’ve followed the DARPA challenge at all, you’d know). However Northwestern has a lot of great research opportunities, they pair up a lot with the physical rehab centers in Chicago as well as being well connected in the midwest/Chicago area. JHU in Baltimore and Carnegie in Pittsburgh simply don’t have as great of a local engineering connection as Northwestern does with Chicago. And of course the public research scene is brutal considering how many kids you have to compete with, Northwestern’s engineering department says you can get a research position fairly easily.</p>
<p>Also Northwestern’s connections with Chicago provide good internship/ co-op opportunities that I might not have gotten in Pittsburgh or Baltimore. Also JHU didn’t have co-op programs which was definitely a turn off to me.</p>
<p>Those were just my reasons, hope they help you out.</p>