Greetings to everyone! I am an EE undergrad student and applied to various PhD programs. I have admits from ECE departments of CMU, UIUC, UCLA, Gatech, and UC Santa Barbara. In addition, I have an admission offer from MIT Aero/Astro.
I removed Gatech and UC santa barbara from the list. Now, here are pros/cons;
1) CMU has a great CS program and it is widely known. I will be a part of signal processing and machine learning group in ECE department so I can really benefit from CS program. USnews rankings are also good, competing with MIT and Stanford. However, Pittsburgh is not a big city and it might get really cold in winters. I also have an impression that the reputation of the school is only coming from CS and the rest of the school is not as great as CS.
2) UIUC is really great in ECE research and I will be advised by a prestigious professor. However, urbana-champaign is in the middle of nowhere and the school seems to be not publicly well known.
3) UCLA has a really great campus and it is in LA!! The group that accepted me also seems good. But the rankings are lower compared to the rest.
4) MIT is definitely the best among all but the department is not EECS. I have been in touch with a professor there for a while and the research is completely EE-related but nothing to do with Aero. I will also be a part of LIDS if I choose MIT. However, I am not sure if I can really land on EE-related jobs after graduating. Although I am considering to stay in academics, I might also work in the industry so I don't want to eliminate any options.