<p>My son is a junior who is interested in CS (right now his first choice) or engineering. Our default choice right now is UT (will have automatic admission for CS and almost certainly for Engineering) with reach schools being Stanford, CMU (for CS), and MIT. His scores and grades are midrange or slightly above for MIT acceptees but his ECs are comparatively weak with the exception of his sport with the MIT coach very interested in him. Being able to play his sport in college, probably DIII, would be a positive. He would definitely attend his reach schools over UT but our question is: should he consider very good enginering schools somewhere between MIT and UT in selectivity but would be at least 2 times the expense? I'm thinking about schools like Cornel, U Illinois, UCLA, Cal, etc. We can afford the expense but only if the school offers definite advantages. Any other DIII schools we should consider? Thanks for your help.</p>
<p>I am assuming you are saying it is 2 times the expense of UT since most of the schools OOS or private cost about the same?</p>
<p>The real question is not whether you should apply but whether he can get in. Only if he gets in should you worry about whether it is worth the cost.</p>
<p>Personally, I am not certain any other state school is that much better than UT at twice the price even if they are ranked higher. CMU, MIT, Stanford, Cornell etc do give you more for the same money on the long run in terms of alum networks.</p>
<p>We’re planning on which schools to visit this summer and can only visit a limited number so we want to narrow down the list to those he’d most likely choose if accepted. It might not be possible to visit during his senior year.</p>
<p>Grades and scores based on published ranges only work for state schools and do not work at all for reach schools. 2400/36 along with being ranked first does not mean much at these schools since they still get rejected. Lot of them don’t track whether you visited the school either which means interest is not a relevant attribute (not sure about CMU).</p>
<p>It is very hard to cover schools based on interest if they are not all in the same region. What we did was to go to east coast and cover a bunch of schools, went to west coast and covered another set of schools. Had a plan for midwest but never made the trip.</p>
<p>We also used UT as the safety with the guaranteed admission (what is there not to like about UT engineering) and went with all others on the list as reach schools. </p>
<p>Btw - Rice is a top notch school for both CS and Engineering.</p>
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<p>Huh? Illinois, UCLA, and Cornell aren’t really in between UT and MIT. UT is ranked pretty much on par with Cornell and Cal and considerably higher than UCLA for engineering and CS. </p>
<p>Here’s the number of professors in the National Academy of Engineering by university (the top 10):</p>
<p>114-MIT
92-Stanford
91-UC Berkeley
48-UT Austin
31-CalTech
29-Illinois
26-Georgia Tech
25-Princeton
25-Cornell
25-Carnegie Mellon</p>
<p>I realize that UT is very highly ranked for CS and engineering in general. But isn’t this for the graduate programs? How does that translate to the undergraduate programs? I’ve worked with several UT engineers and all have been good or very good so I personally have a high opinion of UT’s undergraduate program.</p>
<p>Most undergraduate programs receive their ranking based on how good the graduate programs are.</p>
<p>Momof95 – we have just gone through this cycle with our son, who will be an OOS freshman in CS at UT. He visited a number of schools, including MIT, CMU, Uof IL (our home state) as well as others ranked top 10 – Wisconsin, Georgia Tech. He had several acceptances to choose from and UT won for him.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, among his peer group, there was no rhyme or reason as to why one kid got into CMU, one into MIT, and none into Stanford. Don’t go by test scores and GPA alone – the peer group my son is in includes very competitive applicants. I still go with the chimps throwing darts across the room as for some of the decisionmaking explanation.</p>
<p>If finances are no option, then your son should go where he feels the best fit and where you are confident that the school warrants the expense.</p>
<p>We found it very helpful to visit and ask questions at each department about job placement, internships, course sequences, access to computer labs and the physical facilities for CS. Even if you go visit only after acceptances, rather than before, it helps to see the other admitted students.</p>
<p>As far as CMU goes, they indicated to us that visits and on-site interviews were important. My son did not apply there, but the two HS classmates who did (with perfect test scores and top GPA) found that the one who visited got in, not the other one who never scheduled even an alumni interview.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you over the next year!</p>