Hi, I am a student from China who has applied to graduate school in fall 2014. Now I have to choose between the following two programs. These are both great programs so I have being through a hard time to decide.
1. M.S in ECE at Georgia Tech
ECE at Georgia Tech looks pretty strong to me both in academia and industry. This department has been ranked among the top 6 in the U.S. for many years. But the department doesn't support any scholarship for international M.S. student and the cost for the master degree is around 80,000 dollars.
2. MEng with Thesis in ECE at McGill
McGill is a pretty great university in Canada (usually among the top 2). They provide me with a Graduate Excellence Fellowship (GEF). This fellowship is to offset the international student tuition by 10,000 CAD and is non-renewable. Given their fair tuition, it cost about 40,000 CAD to finish the degree.
Here the problem comes. As for the ECE department, I personally think that GT is much better than McGill. But GT also recruits many more talented students in ECE than McGill. Considering my ultimate goal to earn a doctoral degree, it may be hard for a master student to find a research advisor at Georgia Tech.
My family can afford the expenditure to go to each school and I don't have too much knowledge or preference about these two places (Montreal and Atlanta). And I may only take the strength, reputation of the programs and the chance to find a advisor to do my Ph.D. into consideration. So any ideas about which program I should choose? Any suggestion will be highly appreciated.