Best college for Computer Science?
Carnegie Mellon, OSU, Cornell and RPI are some of the colleges that S applied to.
We are still waiting on decisions.
He got full rides to U of Central FL and U of KY
Would you take the FULL RIDE, or would you pay $$ if you get into the above choices?
Or take full ride for Bachelor’s and then pay $$ for Master’s into a top program?
In computer science, a bachelor’s degree is sufficient as a terminal degree for industry.
If one insists on a top tier program, then time is saved by going to the prestigious college for undergrad and neglecting a Master’s.
Otherwise, it depends on ability to pay, attachment to computer science, capability in computer science, and relative preference.
Honestly, Carnegie Mellon and Cornell are hard enough to get into that it might be better to weigh this after the acceptances roll in.
@destressed Yes, Carnegie has 5% acceptance rate, and Cornell is more than 10%
Major is def. CS
Google is in Pittsburgh! Would be hard to say no to Carnegie or Princeton !!! VERY hard to get in !
Will see options IF he gets in, then VISIT, and see overall feel…
ROI
http://www.payscale.com/college-roi/major/computer-science?page=3
U of KY was on LIST !!!
Payscale ROI is not really an accurate measure given the sporadic data and that prices vary due to scholarships and other factors. While value should be a high consideration, that list is not the best way to rank.
Google having an office in Pittsburgh also has nothing to do with the value of CMU’s CS program.
For example, UCF has a much better CS reputation than U of KY in my experience, though where the job is located makes a big difference. Does your son know where he may want to go after graduation?
Whether or not the full ride is worth it in comparison (if he gets in) depends on where the money would come from for the others. If it’s loans, absolutely not. If you can afford them without any loans or minimal loans, then it depends on how you value that money you are spending.
As others have said, a masters degree is not really needed.
@PengsPhils 2 questions?
- Students have been known to get jobs or co-op @ the GOOGLE in Pittsburgh, AND Carnegie Mellon (tied number ONE in COMPUTER SCIENCE IN WORLD with MIT) has HUGE CONNECTION w/ the Google there, so not sure where you get your information from? They formed a financial/alumni/career connection…
- Did you attend UCF or U of KY? Or have you hired grads, or worked with grads from either college? BOTH are ranked 90 in the USA For CS.... and FL has 1,500 CS students; KY has 150 CS students (which one seems more personalized, lower teacher/student ratios? which 1 competes with more jobs/co-ops? Per the lady at the co-op dept in FL., the Co-ops in FL are VERY COMPETITIVE to get into research park... some Grads from FL said they NEEDED a MASTER's in CS from FL to network and to get INTO specific companies.... very interesting)
- The ROI gives good, general INFO to students to let them know that there are plenty of choices, and if you get fantastic FULL RIDE from KY or FL (worth around $144,000).. then you are in a wonderful place... so IF You get into Carnegie Mellon, and pay around $160,000 for 4 years of Bachelor's, then make sure that is the right choice for you. In the long run, you can take the Full Ride, and then just go for 1-2 years for Master's at a top college, and still be way ahead... both in prestige, networking, and a nice, cheap plan for your career
My son does not know where he wants to go… but Orlando has
- Huge Rainfall. humid weather, and a hurricane season (per the girl who works there)
- Traffic and Crime are now issues of concern in Orlando (due to Gangs, who have been known to break into many Disney vacation homes)
- Students have posted that they feel safe at UCF on campus, but feel unsafe in off-campus apartments
- Students have posted they could not understand the dialect of foreign professors.
- Students said they had hard time getting classes they need (too many students, classes not offered enough)
KY has access to Tech companies in Columbus, OH, Cincinnati, NC, KY, etc.
- New Dorms
- New CS building
- Strong Honors Club
I work in the industry and personally know people who work (and some who interview/hire) at Google, Facebook, Apple, you name it, for background. I have also lived in Florida for a majority of my life, but have also lived in the northeast (currently enrolled at a school in Boston) and am currently in California working for a big tech company.
- Carnegie Mellon has been one of the best CS colleges for quite some time before Google even thought about existing. Google has offices all over the place. When you get hired at Google as an intern/co-op, the first step in the process is team matching - you can be matched with teams at many locations, and while the selection has to be mutual of the team and yourself, you do not have a guarantee of location (as far as I know from my friends who have worked here). I am sure that many CMU students work at Google in Seattle, not in Pittsburg, as well as all over the country. As a CMU student, you really have your pick of anywhere. Google having an office there is really not too important compared to so many other aspects of the school.
- I have not worked with grads of either due to regionality, the important part of what I said. UCF is known for its cybersecurity in particular, and because of its size, companies come from all over the state to recruit there, since it's the place where they can get the most applications. The sheer number of students is not what matters, it's the amount of jobs compared to the amount of students. U of KY is not known in particular for any specialization that I am aware of, is not located in any place better than UCF, and they are similarly ranked. Again, where your son wants to go after graduation makes a big difference. In the midwest, I am sure U of KY is better known and viewed. Outside of there, UCF has the edge in my experience.
A small CS department can often mean classes are not offered frequently enough and cause the same problems you listed at UCF. You should check that out for sure. It also does not imply a smaller student to faculty ratio, though that could be true. Again, something to look into, not assume based on number of students.
Most people in CS do not get masters degrees, as they have no need. They are actually starting to be looked upon skeptically as they imply the student was not ready with just a bachelor’s. There are also few names in CS that open significant doors in terms of prestige and networking, and getting into those, even for a masters, will be tough and not something to bank on. CS is about what you can do, not the name on your degree. In the case of schools like CMU and other top tier schools, the name often gets your foot in the door to get better experience and can carry more weight later, particularly in advanced areas of CS.
As far as your second post goes, a lot of that is fit factors. I’m sure many would prefer the climate of FL and being in a city. Some may I can also tell you right now that Orlando is far from the crime-ridden city you painted it as. I don’t know the direct area around UCF well, so less than perfect safety off campus makes sense for a city. Again, depends on what you value. I’ve lived in cities near “dangerous” areas and have had no problems.
New buildings are nice and shiny, but don’t really affect teaching or reputation in any meaningful way. It does indicate the schools is investing in the department at least.
You’ve highlighted the bigger point, which is that a decision between the two really doesn’t come down to the CS departments, but other fit factors, which I would strongly agree with.
@PengsPhils Thanks—i was surprised to read about gangs in Orlando, so I did a google to read about actual incidents…for those wanting UCF, just type crime in apartments to see the details—or type crime near UCF
we’ll know in late March about top colleges—
student may not need master’s in CS, but in our case, it makes sense to take full ride, and then pay for the
1-2 years of grad school at a TOP college
Son applied to Carnegie, RPI, Cornell, Princeton, Vanderbilt, Harvard, etc
but we will review all offers
the cyber at UCF is great option—if he wants to FLY
Yes, UCF has access to many career fairs—will take a look—
@PengsPhils which college do you attend in boston? since my son is national merit finalist, he also got HUGE offer from U of TX Dallas— this 1 has great access to tech companies, but it is a commuter school, and they do not gurarantee dorms for anyone (also it does not offer a tradition college experience at all)
Hmm… personally, if I could pick again of college, I would…:
- If I could get accepted to these ‘top’ places, I would considering attending IF the prices are reasonable. If you have to take on from around ~30 thousand dollars or more of loan in four years, I would ‘reject’ these phenomenal choices.
- Payscale is not the best place to 'rank' colleges. Colleges != pay. Pay has more to do with locations. And honestly, college is not a trade school. It is at the end of the day, a place for learning the abstract that you cannot realistically learn in the 'real' world.
- Payscale has questionable data. They state the net 20 year roi is $1,110,000 for Carnegie Mellon Univ. The ironic part is... Carnegie Mellon Univ CS starting median is: $105k with I believe around $25k worth of extra 'benefits'. https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/Stats_2016_updates/One%20Pager%202016-BS%20SCS%206-Month%20Update.pdf That alone is hitting around almost $130k starting. In any type of math one does, the '20 year ROI' can be then gotten within ~10 years and this completely ignores the lucky 30% in Carnegie Mellon Univ CS who gets jobs in like Dropbox, Facebook, Quora, Amazon, Google, Apple who pretty much make starting almost $220k a year in total benefits. And assuming these graduates get 'promoted' within 10 years, the figures should not be $1,110,000 in 'net 20 years'.
In other words, Payscale data is completely off.
Either the school is reporting fraudulent data annually OR Payscale is not a reliable source.
- The number of 'companies' visiting a school DOES NOT matter. In CS, career fairs are almost pointless. Most if not all firms outright tell the students in career fair, 'apply online, we do not accept from here'. And the worst part is the resumes are read through a bot. It's mostly key words or key schools that get picked up in resumes unless you have some referral/connection.
- CS master's is not popular for students in elite schools. This is coming from a consumer in an 'elite school'. This is because solid bachelor's in CS in top schools generally do almost all the coursework of not only the bachelor's pre-req, but also the master's pre-req. In other words, it is not uncommon for CS undergrads in top schools to have mastered almost all the courses available outside research in an area. Because of this, the notion of 'cash cows' sprout for many master's program in CS as qualified CS undergrads go straight for PHD, not master's as the coursework required in master's is generally 'almost' finished and just not worth the time to spend 2 more years after undergrad. In fact, it is not uncommon for undergrads in elite schools to have learnt as much content as around 1.5 years of master's in a specific subset (some even more).
Grad school is mostly about research. Hence, the notion of ‘grad school’ in CS is looked down upon in the industry as a solid undergrad should allow the student to have taken all the requisites of a master’s in cs anyways (in a particular subfield).
Master’s and PHD are more about research than attending to ‘learn’ in CS. Most of the ‘learning’ happens in undergrad as CS is a relatively new field so there’s not that much content to have endless amount of courses for students to learn.
In fact, many of my friends will have studied more than the average master’s student in graduate level computer science in my school alone (even for the case with the master’s in my school). And I do believe companies are somewhat aware of this in top schools.
- First job in software side is mostly about connections and elite schools do have the connections of 'breaking in' for the interview A LOT easier than not-so-elite schools. http://www.pgbovine.net/advantages-of-name-brand-school.htm Reality hits hard. After that, not so much. It's then mostly about your most recently worked firm... which the second tends to come from your first job and etc (induction rules). Anyways, the software industry is pretty egalitarian so in terms of ROI, I do not know nor do I care.
- Elite schools tend to challenge its students 'a lot' in which most schools just cannot do. If this matters for your child, so be it. But then again, this can also mean your child 'can' mentally break down at a top school (e.g. feel depressed at times, etc.).
- The programming required for industry is more or less not taught in universities. It's a CS degree. Not a programming degree. Maybe 1 or 2 introductory courses are helpful but the stuffs one learns in CS is overkill for the industry. So other than the 'more challenging' courses in CS, elite schools sadly does not prepare much for Industry. In fact, the schools you mentioned could actually be more industry based than 'elite schools' simply because of this matter. I believe elite schools are more geared towards research and non-elite public schools are geared towards jobs.
- Software industry is a pretty egalitarian field (i believe I stated this before). Once you can 'get' the interview, the rest is up to you. Universities DO NOT matter from this point. In other words, if your child can secure interviews, college degree names are more or less worthless in getting hired. However, do note 'getting' an interview is extremely difficult. I heard from Adobe a few weeks before that they get about 2~3500 applicants annually and they just cut it down (with a bot) to around ~150 and then start interviews from there. Elite schools tend to pass the 'filter' of these bots but it is not a guarantee.
- In terms of PURE ROI, I think a full scholarship is almost always better. But life is not about money. If you can afford it and you are not breaking your bank (or anywhere close to that), it does not hurt to give your child 'world class academics' surrounded by the brightest peers in not only the country, but the rest of the world. Again though, this could also be 'bad' in the sense in that your child could come to have inferiority complex as he/she could become rather depressed and feel dumb/incapable. Big fish in a small pond or a little fish in a big pond. I always firmly believe that being a little fish in a big pond is far better as, 'birds of the feather, flock together' but it is something to consider.
Also a note to reality check:
You first job is basically based off ‘where you attended college’.
This is because there is no ‘work experience’ related to industry for college students until they get a ‘legitimate work experience’.
GPA is worthless in college if you are not planning grad school.
Companies including Google, Microsoft, etc. DO NOT look at GPA. The only time GPA matters is when applying to places like Morgan Stanley but then again, those firms are very exclusive (you also have to attend basically a top 5 school/carnegie mellon univ).
Basically, as much as I hate to admit, the ‘first job’ is based off the college name.
And ‘Carnegie Mellon Univ’ does open doors in this area.
Then again, if you somehow have connections to the industry to break in and have interviews, then yes in terms of ROI, elite schools are most definitely not worth it in a financial perspective.
But then again, most of education is not worth it in a financial perspective. Why learn so much math (calculus, analysis, modern algebra, topology, number theory) to get a job that barely requires addition and subtraction? No idea. A student who learnt only addition and subtraction will do the job just as fine as a student who had to learn the proofs of addition and subtraction and far more trivial topics (and advanced coursework). Education in that perspective is indeed highly overrated.
That stated, other than your first or second job, college degrees generally do not help much. And the education in college is again like I stated in the real world more or less ‘useless’ for the majority.
So if that’s something to consider, please do consider it.
@2sunny
If your child is a serious aspiring CS major, then there won’t be ‘college experience’ anyways (not in a traditional sense). Unless the ‘college experience’ includes staying up until 6 or 7 am trying to debug or figuring out what on earth ‘Blum–Shub–Smale machine’ is or having your program use a bhattacharyya kernel variant of some restraint which you cannot google at all (since most of upper level cs courses… are legitimately not on google. Especially the variants as there are only like one or two research papers -and those aren’t really “guides”-).
But then again, your child can also avoid all those courseworks but still, CS majors do not generally have a ‘college experience’.
Solution: take FULL RIDE at Flagship (U of KY) or large school (U of Central FL), and get a Master’s in
Business, or Master’s in scientific field of choice (Doors WILL open for you if you do FREE bachelor’s at KY, and Master’s of your choice at say Carnegie Mellon. If Carnegie, Cornell, Princeton, RPI, Vanderbilt, etc. come back with offer of $25 K for everything, then strongly consider that option, but I believe it will be closer to $30 K and UP for everything.
PS: I interviewed a CS recruiter in Ohio, and she heavily recruits from OSU and Ohio University. Her colleague’s son is at U of KY, & she said she would easily hire a candidate from KY. IN fact, she said “I can’t speak for other companies, but I will hire your son from a state school… because I will give him a COMPUTER test and see how he does in the interview…”
@AccCreate I agree with you about number of companies visiting a school…as possibly being irrelevant
There is 1 college in particular that would be interesting-- rensselaer polytechnic institute (many solid connections, many boys/ fewer girls VS Ivy League VS State School)
@AccCreate I like your views, but disagree on “GPA is worthless in college if you are not planning grad school.”
I interviewed the Co-ops depts., and local companies. All said they want 3.0 GPA and up for internships, but it depends on the HR dept.
@2sunny
Ah. What I meant by ‘GPA is worthless in college’ is that there is no noticeable difference between a 3.0 and a 4.0 for industry (except in certain schools in very very certain subfields such as being a software developer in Morgan Stanley)
But yes, a 3.0 is ‘generally’ the filter for interviews. However, this filter is not really endorsed as the local companies and co-op department gives the student an interview after the resumes are received and passed.
And as resumes rarely include GPA (it’s highly discouraged even if it’s extremely high), firms generally don’t know the student’s gpa during the interview. In fact it is because of this I have evidenced a couple 2.6~2.9 gpa students get offers from Google and Amazon.
That stated, yes, there are many firms that do have in the requirements ‘3.0 or above’, but I do believe at least for the big firms that such is not the case (at least with companies like Microsoft). Now if you are talking about places like Palantir, that’s a completely different issue as it is not the ‘norm’ in the software industry.
GPA is honestly not looked at in the software industry even for the first job.
Companies claim much of the time about gpa cut offs and all but to be quite frank, at least in the software industry, the cut off more or less doesn’t exist (or isn’t really practiced).
Most of the GPA cut off places tended to be banking related software side, extremely small and selective companies such as Palantir, companies that are recruiting from outside the USA, and indeed some more-local companies.
But other than that, GPA doesn’t affect much in one’s career in the software industry. It is more used to filter for graduate schools.
That stated, I am assuming that your student is somewhat serious in his or her study and would be getting ‘at least’ a 3.0
With that concluded, those that have filtering for GPA through cut off is either a 3.0 or a 3.5
Hence ideally a GPA of 3.6 or higher is preferred but the thing is that most companies just won’t even bother to check the GPA (and hence somewhat ‘worthless’ in the industry).
Oh ya, and generally grad school is somewhat funded in the STEM fields.
And the full ride does truthfully sound like a favorable option right now (if the elite schools just cost too much even after financial aid)
That stated, last time I did check, Princeton Univ had phenomenal financial aid system that rivaled Harvard. And Harvard last time I checked only required like around $12.5k a year after tuition, housing, etc. if the parents made about $150k a year in a family of 4. Maybe I am wrong but at least such was the case back when I was applying to colleges. Maybe things changed but I sure hope it wasn’t that great of change.
I think your situation is somewhat similar to this: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/1307790-trustee-scholarship-at-bu-vs-mit-without-fa-p1.html
You can read from these too and have some insights.
However do note that I could be mistaken about the GPA cut off for most schools.
I know it is the case for MIT, CalTech, Princeton, Duke, Columbia, Stanford, Brown, Cornell, Harvey Mudd, Harvard, Berkeley etc. schools (as I do attend one of them and have some friends from some of the other schools I listed) that GPA does not matter. There are even special interview process in Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon (not sure about Google) that interview select schools regardless of GPA (simply cause of college name to fill the implicit ‘quota’ per year).
From experience though, I really doubt the importance of GPA for the industry though. But then again, I am not really knowledgeable outside of the peers I have heard from. I do know it is very possible to get into full time offers in top firms from UCBerkeley with a GPA even from the upper 1s. This is definitely not the norm by any measure but it does somewhat reveal how much GPA actually counts towards the first job.
CS first job seems mostly through brand name of the school or connection (which you seem to have the latter so the full scholarship might be a far safer choice). However, after the first job, the influence of the brand name school should quickly disappear anyways.
Anyways, RPI is a GREAT school. I have a friend who goes there. Much respects to RPI. Though personally, I cannot imagine staying in a school for 4 years with uneven boy girl ratio. But that’s just personal preference so ya…
We are now looking at 1 more full ride option— U Texas Dallas-- anyone have input on that one for CS? (dorms, commuter school?)
@AccCreate Which college do u attend? My S applied to several on your list
@AccCreate good article and great observation u posted:
“First job in software side is mostly about connections and elite schools do have the connections of ‘breaking in’ for the interview A LOT easier than not-so-elite schools.”
http://www.pgbovine.net/advantages-of-name-brand-school.htm