I always expected that there really were a lot of rocket scientists on SDMB - you folks have proven it.
Any votes for Case Western Reserve or Rose Hulman out there? Big bucks, but perhaps manageable with financial aid… (Rose Hulman may still be male-only, though…)
Have you considered getting a teaching or research assistantship? They can pay upto the entire tuition for what is not really that much work in perspective. Teaching is kind of fun for a little while, and I only did about 10 hours of total work a week. They can be competitive, but not as much as you might think. Plus you would have a leg up on many people for TA positions if you speak english as well as you write it. The majority of American engineering students don’t go on to Grad school, and many schools end up with TAs who are not quite as good at the language as the students would hope.
Nope. I met several females that went there when I was studying in Japan at R-H’s sister school in Kanazawa. Strangely, though, I never met any American females that went there!
Not exactly my experience with Georgia Tech. My husband and many of our friends are Tech grads and they partied a lot, trust me I was there, but they left with an education that has done quite well by them. The Aerospace program is very well respected with some top notch research coming out of it. Georgia Tech is a public school with a powerful (read: wealthy) Foundation to back it up; thereby giving it some advantages other public institutions might not enjoy.
I agree with the comment earlier about ‘target schools’ when the job search begins. Usually an advanced degree from Georgia Tech will open some doors.
Since you are looking at grad school, my guess is you can find some funding. I don’t want to speak out of turn because I am not sure how available grad school funding is for International students but a good percentage of grad students here get tuition waived plus stipends. Some of our younger Tech friends just finishing grad school are being paid to complete their graduate research by the company that plans to hire them. So look at all your possibilities.
Good luck.