We considered several factors…not in the order of priority
- Honors vs Non Honors- having honors college at Rutgers vs regular student at UMD. Rutgers won.
- Campus: UMD has slight edge with no bus system. However honor dorm at Rutgers are better. Facilities at UMD seemed better with the new Iribe center.
- Education - most important factor- we reviewed the course content for CS and syllabus of some of the courses and it seems very comparable. Being both state schools, they covers mostly same material. UMD might have bit of edge with more electives but at Rutgers you can do graduate level courses as a part of honors college if you are really up to the challenge. And given you can only take 8-10 electives out of 30-35, don’t see much issue. UMD probably is better if you are focusing on Cybersecurity but my kids are mostly into DS, ML/AI. Rutgers is pretty comparable in that aspect. UMD is more theory based and I guess may make you better equipped for grad school. The class size is also comparable and UMD is equally crowded.
- Ranking - UMD is better ranked although for DS/AI/ML is pretty close as per csranking.org.
- Job placement- UMD has better career fair but as per the post graduate report, only 13% people got job via career fair. Rutgers also had pretty decent job outcome as per their post graduate report for 2020,21. Starting salary is also almost same. Most people I spoked to from UMD and Rutgers said no one really cared where they are from or even asked. Rutgers might be even better for NY/NJ job market.
- Proximity to home - no contest. Rutgers wins.
- Prestige- Rutgers gets looked down upon in NJ. I guess they will have to get over it. I guess after few months no one would care.
- Cost - UMD cost $100k per person more as compared to Rutgers.
- Dorm life - Being honors dorm Rutgers wins