Just wondering if anyone has any first-hand experience with any of the 3:2 programs offered jointly between liberal arts colleges and engineering schools. For example, here in the Northwest, Reed College offers a 3:2 programs in computer science or engineering with Caltech, Columbia, and Rensselaer Polytech: https://www.reed.edu/catalog/programs/dual_special/index.html
And Whitman offers 3:2 programs with Caltech, Columbia, Washington U (St.Louis) and UW:
Are these viable pathways into top CS programs? Or are they something that these LACs dangle but then can’t actually fulfill for most interested students?
Remember that admission to the “2” school may be competitive and not knowable in advance. There is also an extra year of costs, and FA at the “2” school is not given until admission to the “2” school. Columbia as the “2” school does not promise to “meet need” (as it defines “need”), unlike for frosh and other transfers.
Also, the students who want the small LAC experience may not want to transfer away from that.
How much time do you really want to spend fulfilling engineering prerequisites? You don’t need to go into engineering to get a decent undergraduate degree in CS.
I was looking more at the admission percentages. For example, Whitman has a 50% acceptance rate while Caltech has a 7% acceptance rate (according to Niche).
Are kids using these 3:2 programs to leverage into a Caltech computer science or computer engineering degree when they might not otherwise have been accepted directly? Or is this more of a theoretical sort of thing that no one but the most brilliant students are able to accomplish in practice?
I guess I’m having a hard time visualizing Caltech, Reed and Whitman being overlap schools.
TBH, the kids I know who went the 3:2 path were not necessarily the most brilliant students but perhaps smitten with the idea of “learning for its own sake” until engineering piqued their interest. Then, it became a matter of how to cram all their B.A requirements into two years before transferring to a tech school or to a university offering a B.S. in engineering. A backdoor to a “dream school” had nothing to do with it.
I’ve never heard of anyone doing something like that for CS. Where you get your CS degree isn’t so important that it’s worth an extra year of time and expense to get a degree from a supposedly “top” CS program. Getting a CS degree from Reed or Whitman in four years is perfectly fine.
For the reasons cited above (more time and money, sometimes poor FA at the 2 year school, similar job/placement outcomes to those with 4 yr CS degrees, and opportunity cost of a lost year of CS salary), there are few students who do these programs. It might be one or two every few years at a school like Whitman.
If a student wants CS and their current school doesn’t offer it, they should just transfer. There are many excellent CS schools that aren’t highly selective.
Hi guys. The reason I asked was because admissions into many CS programs is absolutely brutal these days. For example, here in WA the admissions rate into the UW CS program is something less than 10% and the transfer rate into the program for existing UW students is extremely low.
Sure a bright student who doesn’t get into UW CS and who doesn’t stand much chance as a direct admit into a top program like Stanford or Caltech can always go take CS at someplace like WSU or Boise State. I’m sure lots of kids do it. And I’m sure those are fine programs.
But I was just wondering if these 3:2 programs are something kids are using as a back-door to get into top CS programs that they might not get into through the front door. Especially for kids who have the financial resources to spend an extra year in college. Getting a dual-degree from both a top LAC and Caltech has gotta be more impressive on the resume than just a CS degree from say Boise State. Even if it takes you an extra year.
On paper it looks viable. I was just curious what the actual experience is for students who have tried it.
The point is, once you go into the back door (3+2 program at a LAC, there is an additional door (competitive admission for transfer) to get through to get to the CS major at Caltech/Columbia/etc… And if you do not get the 3+2 transfer admission, doing a regular transfer to some other college with CS may be more difficult, since they may not want to take senior-level transfers.
The 3+2 “back door” that you mention could be analogous to applying to the University of Washington as an unpopular major like comparative religion, geography, or aquatic and fishery sciences, and then expecting to be able to change major to computer science after enrolling. I.e. there is another door to go through afterward.
Adding there are many schools with well regarded CS programs that have reasonable CS acceptance rates. With the exception of Cal Tech and MIT (maybe Mudd), career placement and salary outcomes are all in a fairly similar range. Examples of schools like this: DePaul, Clemson, U Dayton, I am sure posters could give many more.
But, assuming you land in a place like Amherst or Middlebury (which tend to have the 3:2 programs you’re talking about), why in the world would you need an additional degree for CS? Google recruits dozens of people from NESCAC colleges every year.
^I can’t help but thinking there’s a little bit of magical thinking going on here: ""Go to a college that I know beforehand doesn’t have the resources in the area I’m interested in so I can spend an extra year getting the resources I need at an entirely different college. Wait. What?
I know two handfuls of kids who have intended to do one of these programs and zero of them end up at the transfer school. Why? Most kids realize that for that extra year they could have a Master’s degree (at their current institution or elsewhere), or they no longer want/need the second college to fulfill their career/academic goals.
Nice marketing but the notion of using it to end up at a place like Cal Tech seems like fairy dust.
Especially for a major like CS, there would be little reason for kids at the LACs you named to want to continue in a 3-2 as they could just graduate with a CS degree from Reed/Whitman (not exactly Podunk U or diploma mills, BTW) and be just as well off (joining the workforce, or if they want, getting a master’s if they want to delve deeper in to areas their LAC can’t provide depth in).
Now if you are talking about someone who wants to be a aerospace/mechanical/electrical engineer, that’s a different story.
Selectivity == opportunity.
There is definitely over/undervaluation in higher ed (opportunities and college experience may not vary nearly as much as selectivity or price and may even run in the opposite direction in some cases).
IMO, both Reed and Whitman are undervalued if you focus solely on selectivity (though their costs if you are full-pay may be a reason why).
Both of these programs allow for the students to graduate with their classes at their undergraduate institutions, which may be one reason they are more popular.