There’s Olin College of Engineering. It’s very small. Everyone admitted gets 50% off tuition.
Keep in mind for U of T that admission under the CS program doesn’t guarantee admission to the major. http://web.cs.toronto.edu/program/ugrad/admission.htm
CS at Waterloo has become very competitive. The admission rate is around 5%. If at all possible, he should take the Euclid math test.
Thanks all.
He looked at Olin but thought the emphasis was balanced too far toward engineering over CS (but we haven’t visited)
He has arranged with his calc teacher to register him for the Euclid. He also took the junior level of the Canadian Computing competition (and will do the senior version next year). He’s also in AP Comp Sci A and AP Calc AB (and AP Chemistry) this year, so he’ll have some recognizable scores to go with his grades from a random rural US high school. He’ll most likely graduate somewhere in the top 5 in his class of about 250. (At the end of first semester junior year, he was #2.) I’ve kind of been assuming he’d get in to UW CS for sure; is it now up there with the “lottery” schools in the US?
Thanks for the heads up about the U of T limited/delayed admission to their CS program. You like to think your kid is a great student and that would be no problem for them, but it does put a lot of pressure on that first year when they have lots of adjustments to make.
Son studying CS at RPI now.
They give good merit for such high scores.
Great CS dept, great in campus recruiting from top tech firms.
Not huge, but big enough to have a good selection of classes.
Great education, not the greatest location, but you liked MIT, with their horrible campus.
RPI has nice campus in ugly city.
We visited WPI too, nice small school in even worse city.
Is that why you excluded ? They often give good merit to top students.
Let’s face it. Neither Troy nor Worcester would be listed as popular tourist centers.
However RPI’s 265 acre campus is not in downtown Troy, it is very safe and even has some beautiful views.
WPI’s 80 acre campus also is not in downtown Worcester and " Neighborhood Scout’s analysis shows that it rates more highly for a good place for college students to live than 87.8% of the neighborhoods in MA. This often also means that the area has certain amenities and services geared towards college students, from undergraduates to graduate students." See https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ma/worcester/worcester-polytechnic-institute.
Why did you exclude WPI?
UW CS admissions is very holistic. That means that he’ll get x number points for grades, y points for standardized test scores (eg with the Euclid, he’ll get a boost just for taking it) and z points for ECs. No essays. Students with the highest number of points are admitted. The last I heard, either 2016 or 2017, the CS acceptance rate was about 5-10%. Their CS program is in the Faculty of Mathematics. https://uwaterloo.ca/math/future-undergraduates/admissions#Average
He can apply to 3 programs at UW. There are several programs which are similar to CS but have different names eg software engineering, computing and financial management and the BBA/CS double degree program. If he is not admitted to one of his top 3 program choices, he may be offered admission to a different math program.
Acadia? Mount Allison?
I’d make sure to do my due diligence when picking a LAC for CS. I know many students who had to take classes online or at other schools because certain courses weren’t offered or were not very good.
My son didn’t like their non-traditional schedule.
He doesn’t care very much about the city/town the school is in – that’s quite low on his list of priorities.
Any small schools in the Pennsylvania/NY/Western New England area that we could tack onto our April trip to Toronto, Waterloo and CMU? (Preferably between CMU and home in Vermont if possible.) I realized that we haven’t really visited anywhere small, and our plan of U Rochester and RPI gives us two more medium sized schools. Is there anything like a Harvey Mudd or Caltech in this part of the country? He didn’t like the looks of Olin (from their webpage) – thought it was too much engineering and not enough CS.
For what it’s worth, his older brother graduated from CS at Cornell, found great summer internships pretty easily, and employers were falling all over themselves to fly him cross country to interview him and almost all made him great offers, and my youngest saw that and wants that. And I’m thinking that may be more of a big name school thing.
So if there’s not an obvious small school for us to visit, that’s fine too. I just don’t want to let my lack of knowledge of the smaller schools automatically rule them out for him.
Thanks to everyone for all the advice so far!
Union in Schenectady, New York has a very good CS program.
If you just want to see what a good small school feels like,. you could hit Vassar on your way home. Depending on how you want to go. Not known as a CS powerhouse, specifically, and no merit aid as far as I know, but a good all-around liberal arts college. FWIW, IBM used to have a big presence in Poughkeepsie, maybe there are some legacy activities there that might be relevant. I’ve no idea though.
Regarding merit money, maybe something here helps:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1739155-liberal-arts-colleges-with-significant-merit-aid-p1.html
Also when my D1 was applying Carleton gave merit money to National Merit semi-finalists, don’t know if they still do.
I imagine at this point lots of schools have some computer science, don’t know of many of the “better” small schools that make a big deal of it though.
also, maybe this is of interest:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19190340/#Comment_19190340
You should check out Princeton. It’s a top CS program with a theory bent. The school is 75% UG so has more of an LAC feel with no professional schools.
Here’s where we are after Feb and April visits:
Visited and ruled out:
WPI, Harvard, Rochester, Toronto
Visited and Applying:
Reach:
MIT
Yale
CMU
Reach/Match?:
Waterloo (Canadian citizen pricing, yay!)
Match/Safety:
Northeastern
Pitt (expect he could get significant Merit)
Will probably apply without visiting (more reaches):
Cornell
Princeton
Stanford
Berkeley
maybe Caltech
I don’t think we’ll do any more visits until next April to make final decisions. I think he’s leaning strongly toward Waterloo with their excellent CS reputation, co-op program and bargain pricing, but it would be hard to turn down an MIT (and Waterloo CS admission is not guaranteed, though I think it likely as he will likely do well on their contests and has high grades and a 36 ACT).
Seems like a reach heavy list to me, especially given how competitive CS is, even for high stat students.
Not sure if this has been offered up previously, but Rose Hulman gives merit, has an extremely strong CS program, and recruiters flock there to hire kids. Terre Haute Indiana is no garden spot, but it has very small class sizes which may or may not interest your S.
He will do fine wherever he ends up.
Good luck!
One northeastern US school that has an unusual and attractive approach to CS, yet is not a lottery school, might be Lehigh. Lehigh is quite small by US university standards (about 5000 undergrads), so closer to a LAC than to a typical university. However, it has traditionally been known for strong engineering and business programs, as well as liberal arts. Also noted for undergraduate focus and sense of community, again like a LAC.
Their “Computer Science & Business” (CSB) program is jointly offered by the School of Engineering and the School of Business. It’s a four-year program, but it is designed to squeeze in both a full CS degree program (with ABET accreditation), plus a full business degree program (with AACSB accreditation). Very few US schools can offer a full CS/business degree combination in four years, and I suspect that this option is probably rare or nonexistent at Canadian schools as well.
As you might expect, CSB graduates have excellent employment outcomes. Lehigh also offers “plain” CS, but the interdisciplinary CSB program is so successful that most of their CS students now want to go that route. So it is normal for Lehigh CS students to simultaneously pursue a business degree.
Overall, Lehigh is slightly less selective than most of the US schools on your list, so it may not be on your radar. However, the CSB program specifically is significantly more popular and selective than Lehigh generally. If there is any interest in combining CS and business, Lehigh CSB could be a worthwhile option.
Since you are Canadian, consider UBC – it has an excellent CS program, better weather than Waterloo, nice metropolitan location, and strong reputation on the West coast, where most tech companies are.
And if you visit Vancouver, BC, also consider driving south 2.5 hours and visit University of Washington, which has one of the best CS program in the US and is cheaper than the privates and UCs.
None of them are small LACs, but as a tour guide once said, “You can make a large university feel small, but you can never make a small LAC feel big.”
@mathmomvt What are his ECs? You didn’t list any top tier STEM ECs.