Computer Science: Lehigh vs. Penn State

[dianina5]

Hi everyone,

I'm applying for PhD programs in computer science. Two schools I'm looking into right now are Penn State and Lehigh. I know Penn State has a great reputation, but I find many more research opportunities that I am interested in at Lehigh. Does anyone know how Lehigh even ranks for computer science (in particular, computer vision/robotics/AI)? I can't find much data. What is the overall impression people have of Lehigh? Same question for Penn State.

Thanks

[jacib]

Hi everyone,

I'm applying for PhD programs in computer science. Two schools I'm looking into right now are Penn State and Lehigh. I know Penn State has a great reputation, but I find many more research opportunities that I am interested in at Lehigh. Does anyone know how Lehigh even ranks for computer science (in particular, computer vision/robotics/AI)? I can't find much data. What is the overall impression people have of Lehigh? Same question for Penn State.

Thanks

You'll probably get better responses if you post in the computer science subforum

[socnerd]

I don't know anything about Penn State but I can tell you that I visited Lehigh when I was looking for undergraduate. My family and I spent the day there and we hated it so much we decided I should not apply. I think it's a good school academically but it was the location, physical landscape of the school and the attitude of the students/administration that turned us off. The campus is situated on a pretty steep hill with eroding steps everything, my dad fell and almost broke his ankle. At the bottom of the hill is essentially a ghetto with row housing and homeless people wandering around. You have to go through this neighborhood to get to the school and we were stopped at a stoplight and this scary looking guy came up to us and starting banging on the window asking for money.

When we were there it was a somewhat nice tour but the student running it was very arrogant and talked more about how he and his friends like to go down to the local bars at night and run up the tab. They had a big discussion panel as they often do with open houses where parents could ask questions and the administration answered. We found them very callus especially when parents asked about financial aid and the safety of surrounding area. It is $40,000+ school and we got the impression that if you weren't full pay you didn't have much chance of admission (and you wouldn't fit in anyway). The rest of the students seemed mechanical and unhappy. We ate at a little coffee place and overheard student conversations about how they were angry and depressed about this or that. Pretty much by the end of the day we ran out of there as soon as we could and my parents told me under no circumstances would they allow me to apply to this place. That is just one experience but I wanted to give you some idea of what we saw.