UIUC vs Cornell (Experimental Condensed Matter, PhD)

[physicsgrad]

Hi all,

I have been selected in the Physics grad programs at UIUC and Cornell. My field is experimental condensed matter physics. I am having a hard time deciding between the two. UIUC has a big department with lot of potential PI's and is ranked higher, but Cornell is more reputed and has 2 people (big shots) with whom I would like to work with. I have heard the climate is more or less similar. Any help/suggestion will be appreciated!

Thank You!

[DiscoTech]

UIUC is ranked higher. Cornell is more reputed. wut?

Edited April 7, 2017 by DiscoTech

[.letmeinplz//]

23 minutes ago, DiscoTech said:

UIUC is ranked higher. Cornell is more reputed. wut?

Yeah I don't know, I've personally seen someone choose a school because it was an Ivy even though the other school eclipsed it (like top 1 school). I think people confuse undergrad prestige with graduate prestige. Though I'm not sure even that matters since companies are looking for specific skills (like CS, EE, etc) and so they are judging your university based on that, not some general undergrad metric of 'prestige'.

[physicsgrad]

10 hours ago, DiscoTech said:

UIUC is ranked higher. Cornell is more reputed. wut?

I meant reputation in the academic circles. This is what I had read in a few places, so I wanted to clear that doubt. Is it true?

[DiscoTech]

2 hours ago, physicsgrad said:

I meant reputation in the academic circles. This is what I had read in a few places, so I wanted to clear that doubt. Is it true?

On second thought, this is a really good question. I doubt that this is the case for condensed matter at UIUC (I assume they are #1 given their history), but in electrical engineering there are definitely some dumpster fires (USC, Penn) that are ranked higher by US News than they truly deserve. On the flip side, Princeton and UCSB are very well regarded in academic circles compared to where the goobers at US News have them.