HELP! CMU or RPI

[Manoj K Bhupatrai <muadib -at- SINGNET -dot- COM -dot- SG>]

Hello everyone,
I, or rather, my girlfriend has a dilemma, and she asked me if I would
try here for some advice, since most of you should be able to offer
some form of solution.

She's applied and been accepted into the M.A. in Professional Writing
programme at Carnegie-Mellon University for Fall this year, as well as
the M.Sc. in Technical Writing at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
for Spring Next year. The problem is that she only received her acceptance
letter from CMU in late July, which would give her 2 weeks to shop,
prepare, pack and leave for Pittsburg.  We live in Singapore.
The timing is pretty bad.

The thing is though that CMU's giving her a scholarship.  RPI isn't.
When we did the Math, though, CMU with the aid, and RPI without would
work out to cost about the same...a small difference, quite insignificant.

The thing is, which school to go to??  She wants to concentrate on
Tech Writing in the Computer Field.  RPI's a pioneer in the field of
Tech Comms and the prospectus was pretty detailed in so far as what
facilities for research and such are available.  CMU's info package was
a little vague.  I know CMU's got some great computer stuff going for it.
But then I hear that RPI does also.  The only difference is that CMU
is a research one school and I had read that this interest in research
on the part of the professors sometimes leaves the students feeling a
little neglected.

All this put together with the time issue really puts her in a tough
spot.  It's so difficult to come to a decision.  Oh yeah, one more thing.
The CMU degree is a MA in Professional Writing.  We're wondering if
she'd get a more "in depth" technical education at RPI??

Please advise as soon as possible, coz if you think she should go to CMU,
she has to leave Singapore by the 14th of August this year.

Thanks in advance, and I'm sorry for the length of this thing.

Manoj K Bhupatrai

muadib -at- singnet -dot- com -dot- sg