Advice Needed: Follow My Heart (UMich Engineering) or My Head (NYU Stern)
Hello everyone. Recently, I just got off the waitlist for NYU Stern’s Khubani BTE program. I’ve already committed to UMich Ann Arbor for Engineering, and frankly, I’m already really satisfied and excited about it, but am now wondering whether I should go to NYU instead (the cost will be around the same for both). To be honest, I’m still rather unsure of what I want to do in the future career-wise, and though I’ve always had a liking for tinkering with different things such as legos and 3D printing (hence choosing Engineering at UMich), when I was applying, Stern’s prestige stood out to me, and I wasn’t against getting a degree in business as well.
Short Summary: Head says NYU heart says UMich. I’ve really grown to like Mich, but feel like NYU will have better career outcomes (People who’ve graduated from college, I’d also love it if you could advise on how much I should prioritize a school based on my emotional liking for it and wage outcomes + prestige from your time at college)
Considerations for UMich:
- Like its setting within a great college town
- Love its campus and the better social life because of this (correct me if I’m wrong)
- I’ve been conditioned to the fact I’m going to UMich that I’m almost already starting to get attached to it…?(I’ve barely done any research about it and haven’t visited tho)
- Larger student body (better social life?)
- Strong programs across all fields (I feel like Mich in general is higher ranked than NYU and this would help if I ever decide on changing my major, as other majors would be really strong too)
- Large alumni body (assuming that this helps with employment)
- Median/Avg wage outcomes for Mich Engineering (approx. 85k) are much lower than NYU Stern but I’m hoping the two aforementioned reasons will offset this
- Less interdisciplinary as I’ll only be focused on engineering and will have less time to discover my interests
Considerations for NYU (Will NYU actually bring better career outcomes tho?):
- Stern’s prestige (assuming that this will give me a leg up in employment even if it's not on the same level as other business schools such as Wharton and other M7 schools)
- Stern’s harder to get in -> Meet more remarkable people
- High employment rates post-graduation (95% in 3 months)
- High wage outcomes post-grad (100k+ median)
- I like the versatility of the BTE program and how it blends STEM with tech and entrepreneurship (esp. as I’m currently unsure about what I want to do)
- Better resource availability being a private school
- Tough GPA curve (only up to 35% of students can get an A from what I recall)
- The lack of a campus just isn’t for me and I feel like the student body will feel more separated as a result
- The (extremely) urban setting of NYC feels too crowded and hectic
- I feel like I’ll be missing out significantly on my life in college in NYU due the 2 aforementioned factors (Further worsened by how much I think I’ll enjoy life at Mich)
Another alternative would be to just do a cross-campus transfer at Mich into Ross freshman year (I’m rather intrigued by the Integrated Business and Engineering at Michigan program tbh), but with an approx. 30% acceptance rate, I’m not extremely confident that it’ll work out. Getting a graduate degree after finishing my bachelor's is also an option for me. Thanks for helping in advance!