I’d like some advice. I’ve read thru a bunch of threads here, which have been really helpful.
I want to study CS or computer/electrical engineering in college.
My stats are very good. Valedictorian of class, 1580 SAT, URM, lots of great extracurriculars (AIME, Olympiads, etc.). published research. I have very good recommendations, too.
I want to go to MIT, Stanford, CMU, Harvard, Columbia, or Penn. I know that the chances of getting into any of these colleges is slim, even if I have competitive stats. So I have plenty of safety schools on my list (like the big state university in my home state).
But here’s my question:
I have one chance to apply early decision. If I got into MIT, Stanford or Harvard, I’d be happy with that decision (duh!). Is there a strategy I should be thinking of in applying? That is, is one of these schools more advisable to apply EA to than others? Should I just pick one? Any other advice on this?
I know this question comes from a place of privilege. I’ve been very luck in my education.
I do ask with good faith though trying to figure out on my own how to time these applications.
Well…MIT has regular early action. Stanford and Harvard have restricted early action. So…for Stanford and Harvard, you can apply to ONE of those and really nothing else (except I believe you are allowed to apply to schools with early scholarship deadlines).
Forget elite. Look at elite of the areas you are interested.
This means no Harvard. You want a Cornell or Illinois.
Learn about the schools, curriculums.
As a URM , you’re likely in a good position - assuming you have more to you than stats. And you note you are.
So why these schools? Have you been ? Have you studied curriculums ?
If you REA Stanford, you don’t ED to the others which may not hurt. Some say ED is more a timing thing but not a chance increase. Brown, for example. You can apply to a USC as an example, or other EAs that have early merit deadlines.
Ultimately, if you have a favorite then use the early. If you don’t or you are unsure of affordability or your folks wanting to spend what it costs if full pay ($400k-ish), then don’t.
Not exactly. You can apply EA/REA to any of the three and then RD to the other two. The trick is figuring out which you like best and doing EA/REA to that school.
This isn’t the case either. You can apply to Stanford or Harvard REA and also apply EA to any non-binding decision public schools. Or an EA private school which requires EA for scholarships(USC, for example). And of course, you can apply RD anywhere else.
That’s a junk ranking because it’s just a meta of rankings that highly value volume research publications. That has little to do with the quality of undergraduate education. It leaves out some great programs that don’t do doctoral research.
Back to the OP, I’d apply early to either MIT or Stanford. Do your homework. They are VERY different experiences.
I’d dump Harvard and Columbia, and probably Penn especially if CompE is on your wishlist.
You should apply early to the one school where you are the best fit. You should spend time figuring out where you are the best fit, and you should articulate the fit in your essays — show, not tell. If your assessment is correct, the school is also likely to feel the fit. Then the chances of a positive outcome are the highest. Those three are entirely different schools. You can’t be a great fit at all three.
Not sure I agree with this :-). Incidentally, did you know that Harvard undergrads are significantly over represented amongst people who become CS faculty?
Obviously Harvard cannot be a terrible department.
There is more nuance to this discussion.
The department has it’s strengths and weaknesses just as any other department.
At least Facebook and Microsoft have come out of that department.
Thanks @AustenNut for letting me know about this thread. MIT and CMU care more about math accomplishments than the others, as both explicitly ask for AMC scores on their applications. However, there is not enough information in the original post to determine if the scores are strong enough to influence admission. That really only matters at the level of USAMO and above.
@mistermxyzpltk, congratulations on putting together such a strong profile. I agree with others that say you should choose your EA school based upon “fit”, rather than likelihood of admission.
@tsbna44, my son is currently doing CS at Harvard, and chose that over places with “better” CS programs. He knew going in that MIT has a richer set of CS classes, but he can also cross-register there as needed, and has done so a few times.
I thought their comparison of the PhD program lists to the Bachelors degree list was particularly interesting. As they point out, there is a wider range of source institutions on the Bachelors list, and generally the top 15 PhD programs had produced over 50% of professors, but it was under 25% for the top 15 Bachelors institutions.
This is pretty solid confirmation of a common observation that if you are interested in a career track where you will need a graduate or professional degree, you don’t necessarily need to go to a college that is among the “best” in that field (which is usually evaluated in terms of graduate programs and/or research). That is because many generally very good colleges are “good enough” in that area to place their outstanding students in the top graduate and professional schools.
So, in this case, of course it is fine to go to MIT, CMU, Berkeley, Stanford, Illinois, or so on for college, but apparently it can also be fine to go to, say, Yale. Indeed, Yale tied with Illinois on the Bachelors list, even though Illinois was fifth on the PhD list and Yale was not on it at all. Presumably this means Yale College CS grads are going on to do their PhDs at places like Illinois (or equivalent).
Not sure Harvard thinks of itself as good enough :-).
The correct framing is that they are exceptionally good at some things, but likely don’t offer everything.
When my kid was researching CS schools some 4 years ago, he said Princeton was exceptionally good in Theory, coming up in AI (because they and no one else for that matter seem to be able to retain AI faculty) etc, and had no presence in HPC and HCI, and he said he did not care about HPC, HCI and to some extent did not care about AI. Indeed, if you want to do HPC, there are a handful of govt funded national labs that do nuclear research, and that’s where you need to go, including a place in Tennessee, which @tsbna44 would be glad to know :-). So you need to know what you want, and what they are good at.
Apart from being good at some parts of CS, Harvard can also throw (not directly though) exceptional amounts of money at you if you want to do a startup. And place exceptionally well into some industries after the CS degree.
Yes. The “Harvard dropout who started a company” is still a thing. Two of my son’s classmates will be dropping out after receiving $5M in first-round funding.
This is one of the reasons I wanted my kid to apply to Harvard. He wouldn’t listen to me. To get the full street cred, you actually have to drop out though. You can’t go back later.
I note I wasn’t particularly thinking of Harvard, since they are actually on the top 15 PhD to professor list. But it is certainly notable they are only 13th on that list (just after Maryland, and just before UCLA/Wisconsin). Whereas they are third on the Bachelors list, and Maryland, UCLA, and Wisconsin are not on that list at all.
Again, this is just underscoring that while the academic paths to being a professor in CS (and the vast majority of fields) tend to be concentrated into a relative few PhD programs, the paths to those PhD programs is less concentrated, meaning they go through more colleges.
And it is further underscoring that the colleges best for placement into those PhD programs are not necessarily the colleges of the universities with the best PhD programs. Harvard is on both lists, but much higher on the college list. Yale isn’t on the top PhDs list, but is on the top colleges list. Maryland, UCLA, and Wisconsin are on the top PhDs list, but not on the top colleges list. And so on.
