Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago (IIT)

Overall

Good academic school - heavily focused on engineering and architecture - 3/1 male/female ratio. It's near some bad neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago, but there's a pretty good neighborhood next to campus and you can easily get to other parts of Chicago via the El train. Definitely not a party or sports school, but I think their academics are pretty good and the city is great. When I went, they had a great scholarship (Camras) available, one of the best merit scholarships around. Considering the ridiculous cost of college these days, getting a good scholarship can make a huge difference, and when I was looking at schools I only found Illinois Tech, Texas A&M and the University of Oklahoma to have great merit scholarship programs.

Academics

Most classes are fairly small after you get through the freshman weed out. Workload is pretty high for engineering & architecture, but you've got to learn a lot if you want to make the big bucks, right? I had some really good professors and labs along the way.

College Life

This is not the school to go to if you're looking for a party/fun college experience. It's mostly guys and mostly geeky people, and I made some great friends while I was there. The campus is not in the greatest part of Chicago, but the city is easy to get to, and you can walk to a White Sox game if you want to. Bridgeport is a pretty safe neighborhood to - the Daley family and a bunch of other Chicago politicians live there, so they keep it pretty safe.