<p>kathiep: In principle, I agree with you. But many kids have to compromise, and it’s not off topic to give the MOM reasons why that criterion might be a bit limiting if it really is the best option in many ways. That’s why I suggested it as a SAFETY.</p>
<p>If the dream situation comes through (desired location, desired academics, desired price) more power to the son of the OP. But if one of those factors has to be sacrificed, it does no harm to point out the reasons that the location might be the one to go.</p>
<p>Of course, it is up to the student and his parents to decide that if there is a crunch and a sacrifice to be made. I wish the son of the OP all luck in securing a spot that doesn’t require any sacrifice and fulfills all his desires.</p>
<p>Waterloo Computer Science Co-Op. Excellent reputation in math and computer science. All big American tech companies recruit extensively from Waterloo. </p>
<p>COA for US students is ~ 28k/yr and co-op brings in reportedly 25-75k over the course of one’s degree.</p>
<p>Don’t knock RIT off the list. take a look and see if your son likes it. (My son got accepted, engineering, but hated it there when he went up to look). </p>
<p>Son decided to go to SUNY Buffalo (although accepted to all 15 schools he applied to). Thought it was a great price (and he got merit $ from them as well. ) They are known for great sciences, engineering and comp sci. They opened up a new comp sci/engineering building this past Fall. The Fall internship/job fair seems amazing. My son got paid internships due to companies he followed up with from the fair between soph and junior years and now between junior and senior years. They help with resumes so you have them to distribute and email. Son has also taken advantage of everything he could on campus for his career as well. He’s been doing paid research on campus since sophomore year and his GF does some paid job for a professor. No regrets from him or us. We do expect our son to be employed upon graduation next year. We too are on LI and I think UB is lesser known (so far) but so many down here are UB grads… I just never knew it before. Also, UB is easy to get to. Southwest flies there through Baltimore. </p>
<p>(FYI- Friends son is at RIT. Could not find co-ops and had to stay an extra yr/semester? because he could not graduate without them. Friends son at Northeastern also had a co-op fall through and it was too late to get classes and they had paid for housing so her son had a work study job. Co-ops are great… if you can get them!! Stony Brook, great school and we nearby, but my kids would never consider staying home either!!)</p>
<p>Good luck. If you have UB questions, ask away. At a minimum, your son should apply to UB as a financial safety.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for other majors, but per info sessions 2 years ago the Northeastern Engineering students were getting co-ops. Due to the economy placement at their regular major corporations got cut back, so they had to tap some new small firms.</p>
<p>How is CS at the University of Toronto? How does UT compare with Waterloo in terms of CS, costs of attendance, and selectivity? And how do their CS departments compare with, say, Stony Brook’s, which is also very good?</p>
<p>I have to agree with annasdad that Case Western should be on your list They have an excellent engineering and computer science program and based on numerous parental posts they offer a significant amount of merit and need aid.</p>
<p>Another school to consider is Olin. Its a new and smaller engineering school but has an amazing track record including half tuition scholarships for all admitted students (Used to be full tuition scholarships until the economy and market went south). Check it out at [Olin</a> College](<a href=“http://www.olin.edu%5DOlin”>http://www.olin.edu)</p>
<p>These Marist scholarships provide an unmatched opportunity to students interested in majoring in Computer Science or Information Technology and Systems. This grant will contribute to the development of IT specialists who will be well-prepared to meet the overwhelming demand expected in the field.</p>
<p>Scholarship recipients will receive:</p>
<p>Full 4-year tuition, room and board scholarship
Opportunity to participate in high-level internships and applied research with Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, Aetna, Pepsi, and Verizon
Special advising from the dean and key faculty in the School of Computer Science and Mathematics
Leaders from IBM, Verizon, Aetna, and Pepsi will serve as individual mentors to these students throughout their four years</p>
<p>Wisconsin (UW-Madison) was mentioned early on. Good for CS but very little merit aid given, especially to freshmen in any field. Overall OOS costs could be within your budget, however. He does need to consider how far away from home he is considering. Plenty of east coast, includling NY students, at UW but it would involve planes for much travel, and therefore fewer trips home.</p>
<p>With the half tuition scholarship, Olin is still $40,000 per year. “Half tuition” often sounds impressive, until one looks at the remaining cost of attendance.</p>
<p>olin, $2500 for a laptop? wow, good dual-core laptops can be found for $400, sometimes less if you get a refurb. Now if there’s this expensive software package then it should just be sold separately. Stuff like this is just money makers for colleges, gotta squeeze every dime they can from the student.</p>
<p>I think Marist is a great choice and it’s easy enough to visit too. Their new tech building looked awesome when we visited it last April. My son had been accepted there and we stopped on our way up to Vermont. They had just opened it and we walked through. Marist has a partnership with IBM (I built Marist). It’s easy train accessible too. For my son, the merit aid there was very low though and it was off the list as soon as we found that out, but his overall stats were lower.</p>
<p>I know others have mentioned University of Maryland College Park, but I thought I’d elaborate a bit. I’m going to be a freshman next year in the Honors College and double majoring in math and CS. I’m in state, so it’s much cheaper to begin with. With a 2340 SAT and 3.5 GPA at time of application, I got an $8000/yr Presidential Scholarship (the highest available for in-state). I’m one of those kids referenced in previous posts who turned down “better” schools (JHU, CMU) for a free education.
Out of state cost of attendance is almost $40000, but the presidential scholarship goes up to $12000/yr (there are smaller ones as well). There are also many CS departmental scholarships available for upperclassmen. College Park is one of the best state schools and is well-known for its good CS department. Also, it’s far enough away and big enough to give your son the change of scenery he wants, but it only costs about $20 for a bus ticket from Baltimore or DC to NY. Also, being near to DC, the NSA, and a bunch of other government agencies that need programmers means many job/internship opportunities. According to department advisors, most CS majors have jobs lined up by the end of junior year.</p>
<p>Whether aid is “merit” or not depends largely on the generosity of a university’s financial aid policies. Merit at one school is “need-based” at another, e.g. Harvard. Stanford and Princeton both have strong CS programs, and much of their need-based aid is considered merit-based at most other schools. Depending on your income/assets, you could end up paying $30k or less.</p>
<p>RPI and Case Western both give lots of Merit Aid, and are both strong technical schools. I think it helps if you demonstrate interest, by visiting, or going to an information session in your town. It may help to look at the common data set for schools you are considering, although for some public schools I’ve found it hard to figure out how out of state students make out compared to in-state.</p>