PSU or City College of New York!!!!

[sepidehrazavi]

Hi everybody

I am graduate student of Chemical Engineering and I have been admitted to many universities such as Akron, City College of New york, Drexel, NCSU, UTK, Tufts... I was about to accept the City College of New York which has offered me 24000$ scholarship for the first year and 27000$ for the rest of the PhD period plus Tuition waiver and health insurance. but two days ago I got another admission from PSU which offeres me 24300$ RA + Tuition waiver. Now I am confused and I dont know which one I should accept. CCNY ranking is 50 , while PSU ranks 20. on the other hand, I have heard that PSU is located in outskirt and maybe boring, while by living in NY you can find more job vacancies. I do not have any idea how much the PSU will be boring and I do afraid of being depressed. additionally, I dont know whether it is right measure to sacrifice ranking for living conditions. How much ranking of a university affects the job you want to get upon graduation? By the way, I want to work in polymer science field.

Please help me as I just have few days left to make my decision.

Thank you all

[origin415]

PSU is not located on any outskirts, State College isn't near anything to be an outskirt of. Look at a map. As to whether its boring, well 44,832 students study there, and I'm sure they find something to do in their spare time. Unfortunately, it sounds like you can't visit in your time frame, which would be indispensable to decide. Also keep in mind that grad school is a lot of work, and it will be difficult to enjoy everything NYC has to offer while attending. That ranking gap is pretty hard to look past to me. Also, relative to the cost of living, PSU is the better deal financially.

Which school has more research in your interests? The quality of your research is generally more important than the quality of your school for a PhD, so if CCNY has more of interest to you, it could be the better choice anyway.

I think generally you weight on location should be, will I hate living there? If not, then its not an issue, other things are more important. If yes, then its a serious consideration.

[mle1018]

penn state is far from boring. if they offered an MSW program here, id think about staying. im a senior here and LOVE IT. if you come here, you do not feel like you are in hte "outskirts"... its a great college town with a beautiful campus