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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It has more to do with majors.[/quote]

Op here. Electrical engineering.[/quote]

Engineering is going to be a grind everywhere. There's no soft way through it. Even at the "happy" schools, engineering students are studying very hard. But there are some engineering programs that are notorious for being much more unpleasant than it needs to be. Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, Berkeley come to mind. My mechanical engineering DC wanted to avoid those and focused on schools that had a more collaborative and community-oriented vibe. DC chose Rice for that reason. Very happy there.     [/quote]

+1 on engineering going to be a grind everywhere, so you want your kid to find a campus that offers a reprieve from that. And that can look different for each kid based on what they enjoy and how they unwind. Do they like city life and all that offers? Nature and hiking? School spirit and big sports? Small dorms with built in community? Also, what kind of opportunities exist for engineering students on campus? Is engineering a smaller program in a sea of liberal arts students or would your student appreciate (as my engineering daughter wanted) more of a tech school vibe where a large percentage of students are engineering focused; that brings a ton of design teams, course electives, 10+ engineering disciplines (in case your student changes their mind about electrical), and gives a feeling that much of campus is grinding together v. the engineering students being buried in work while the rest of campus seems to be having more fun.

Have your daughter focus on what she wants her day to look like after studying 6 hours straight for a differential equations exam: what kind of extra curriculars she can plug into at each school, how she can build a network of study friends - especially female support in male dominated engineering classes on some campuses.

FWIW, my daughter has had an amazing engineering experience at Virginia Tech. She chose it for some very particular reasons over places including Ohio State, Purdue, NC State, and Duke and it's been a perfect fit. [/quote]

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