blacknighterrant

I'm going to GA Tech for ECE Masters too. I'm not an international student though.

Just go to UCSD. Your reasoning is flawed. You do not have a TA position or a gra at either school, choosing a school based on the possibility that you might get one is foolish, you may end up going to UCSB and not getting anything at all. Then you would end up not even having the 5k fellowship. At least UCSD gave you something, UCSB gave you nothing, never go with unguaranteed funding. The fact that you emailed someone and they didn't respond means absolutely nothing and shouldn't be discouraging and says nothing about your chances of getting a gra. For all you know your email went in their junk folder and they never saw it, why not try calling and talking to them on the phone?

GA Tech's brand would be worth a lot more in cs than Yale. Honestly though in cs it won't really make much of a difference where you went to school unless you were trying for rather specialized positions. It'll be your projects/experience etc that are more important.

Go to UCSD. The money makes it a no brainer. USCD has an excellent reputation in the field and is ranked almost the same as USC. USC is definitely a cash cow program and masters students are not treated as well/have it slightly harder in terms of getting the research opportunities you want (Btw, you know you can already start trying to get a gra and reaching out to professors right? You should maybe email them and see what your chances are.). To say that UCSD has no social life sounds a bit ridiculous, it is a big school, I'm sure there's plenty of opportunities to socialize and plenty of people to connect with. The faculty at UCSD is also better and UCSD has the newest engineering program among the top tier programs and has been trending upwards over the years, so it wouldn't be surprising if it overtakes USC in the rankings in the upcoming years. Finally USC gives an MS degree in EE, while UCSD give the MS for ECE. It doesn't make that much of a difference, but an ECE degree is slightly better.

Which school would it be better to attend for an ms in electrical and computer engineering (specifically systems and control)?

I care more about the weather in terms of location than I do about things like beaches. The weather in Texas is awful, San Diego gets hot too, but it is nicer. Honestly, it is nice if companies go to career fairs, but career fairs aren't all that big a deal, going to either one of the schools would be good enough for them to seriously look at your resume regardless of what company you apply to, after that your gpa and experience will be a far bigger deal. Even if they don't go to UCSD's career fair major companies still recruit at UCSD look here: http://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/external/external_cap/cap_careers/index.sfe . There are plenty of major engineering companies on that list.

Go with UCLA EE PHD. An EE PhD is far more useful than a Physics PhD in the field (physics is a bit too broad for what most employers look for, they prefer EE, for instance if you check listings for companies such as raytheon, they actively search for those with ee degrees, but the only physics degrees they want are physical engineering and even then there are far fewer job listings and the ee degree would allow you to apply for any of them. Even outside of engineering an ee degree is actively looked for in fields like consulting, investment banking, and finance.). People are also right in saying that you can teach and do physics research as an EE PhD (for instance, the head of undergrad physics in my undergrad school was an EE PhD. Even MIT has a subcategory of applied physics within their EE school and honestly, there is plenty of overlapping research that you could do and in addition there are many EE departments that do quantum information and devices research (like Purdue), so even if a specific school won't let you be a Physics professor you can do the research you want. In addition, a PhD takes a very long time, do you really want to live in Maryland over Los Angeles?

People over-emphasize the importance of location for grad schools. It doesn't really matter much that the school is near the companies, you can just move for the summer and come back during the school year, working at one of these companies while being in school is unrealistic and could do more harm than good. You could also do a co-op which would let you work a semester and go to school a semester in cycles and even then it wouldn't really matter that much where you are unless you really need to stay put. Your kidding when you say that TAMU has a worse reputation and isn't as selective as UCSD right? While it is true that UCSD is ranked higher in electrical engineering the ranking difference is minuscule and TAMU's average gre's are only slightly lower than UCSD, they are both very selective (TAMU actually has a higher overall engineering ranking). Living in Texas would suck compared to living in San Diego. In terms of relations with companies, all top ee schools are usually actively recruited from most major companies, so you will have no trouble getting jobs in the same companies regardless of which school you attend, you can't just automatically say TAMU has better relations. Honestly, they are both great schools and you'll be fine regardless of where you go, I would personally go with UCSD.

UCSB is the worst program and is considerably worse than the others. Purdue and Rice and USC are the best three programs (all equally ranked @ 20 if that is what you care about, UCSB is 34) and duke is slightly worse. Purdue is the best at systems. Honestly though why live in Indiana when you can live in LA? I would just go with USC unless you have different levels of funding for each of the schools, if UCSB is cheaper going there would not be detrimental.

If you think about it undergrad may be 4 years, but over half that time is usually used for none core information (general ed requirements and electives), many schools don't even require students to choose a major before the end of their second year, so only 2 years in a bachelors is really important for career building. 2 years is more than enough time for getting the information you need and you'll be at an advantage when applying for jobs because you have a masters anyway, just make sure you use your time productively (co-ops in the summer and research during the year, the research and co-ops will give you a better understanding of what you really want to do.). Honestly although it is sad to say, the point of going to school at any level bellow PhD is not to learn or gain information, but to demonstrate that you can learn and function well to employers through validation in the form of a degree from the school. Most of what you actually need on the job you will learn while working or teach yourself afterwords. Honestly, I don't think going robotics or cs was the best option, going for a robotics degree is also kind of limiting, I have the same general interest but went for electrical engineering since it is more general and would allow you to apply for robotics jobs in addition to other engineering jobs more easily. In terms of the PhD being a requirement for a robotics job, it will depend on the job, but a PhD being required is very very unlikely, the majority of people working probably have a bachelors, while a few others have masters, and very few people have PhDs. PhDs are more for those that want to remain in academia than those that wish to work in the industry, the main consideration is that they are much too specific (you research an extremely specific subtopic in robotics), and normally the specific knowledge you get in your PhD studies is not worth the extra cost companies would have to pay to employ you. If your sure that working in the industry is what you want to do, my best advice for you would be to look at job postings you would be interested prior to applying for PhD programs to see what they are looking for and how many of the listings require a PhD, asking for advice during your co-ops would also prove to be useful.

I'm not entirely sure but people tend to over-exaggerate safety concerns. College campuses are generally safe, except for when situations happen (like shootings) that are equally likely to occur at any school. The general rule is don't do anything stupid like wander alleys in the middle of the night and you should be fine.

I agree with what everyone else said, but wanted to add that I don't think you should try to rush to make your decision before the deadline. Even if they have nothing for you now, as April 15th approaches more of those they offered money will start rejecting the offer and they will possibly offer you late funding, you lose nothing waiting a bit longer, you can still start making plans to go somewhere else in case it doesn't work out.

UMD is the far better option here. It is more highly ranked which is wonderful, but the more important point is the advisor. The quality of the advisor is perhaps the most important thing to consider and you have a better one at UMD. I guarantee you that internship and co-op opportunities will be the same or better at UMD, companies actively recruit at top tier ece schools. Are you sure you want a PhD and not a masters though, PhD's are more common for those that want to go into academia, they can actually over-qualify you for jobs depending on what you want to do, you should look at the requirements for jobs you would be interested in doing before starting your program. The thing about UC Davis being close to Silicon Valley is something that should not be considered at all. It is not close, you cannot commute from Davis to Sillicon Valley regularly and would have to move if you got a co-op or internship there regardless of if you went to UC Davis or UMD.

CMU is by far the better option. CS degrees are not particularly useful outside of cs, so it would be harder to get an engineering job with one than a robotics job. In addition you say you want to continue to PhD and research is extremely important when applying to PhD programs, if CMU is where you can do research then you need to go to CMU.

I went to Emory undergrad and enjoyed my time there. I don't know about the relative strengths of the programs so I can't comment completely. What you should think about though is what school you have the best research fit with and who your advisor is (advisor is more important than ranking generally). The money is also important, why pay more when you don't have to? In addition, if I was personally choosing I'd have to also consider the advantage of personal freedom. Although you would have to find housing in Decatur, at least you could be alone or with a roommate that wouldn't impede upon your personal freedom (you have to be more considerate toward family and living with family could make possible relationships harder). In addition, I don't think it would be realistic to commute to Columbia from Newark every day (at least you wouldn't be happy doing it), it is over 20 miles away and there is outrageous traffic getting into NY if you have a car, if you use public transportation it would take slightly longer. You would spend at least 2 hours in a car every day which would be a pain.